Patriarch Kirill donates one million rubles for construction of Orthodox school in Kaliningrad

Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Kirill made a decision to transfer one million rubles (about $30,000) due to him in his capacity of the first honorary citizen of the Kaliningrad region for the construction of an Orthodox school in the city. "Money will be transferred for the second phase construction of the school centrally located behind Christ the Savior Cathedral in Kaliningrad," Patriarch Kirill said at the dinner with journalists during his visit to his former diocese.

Roundtable “Challenges of e-democracy development”

In the media centre of Tanjug on March 19, 2009 a presentation of so called WEB-DEP project was held for journalists, ministries and members of the Council of Europe, in which are take part all national media information agencies from the Balkans, then Athens Technology Center, International Teledemocracy Centre - of the Napier University from Edinburgh, as well as National Technical University of Athens from Greece. On this occasion at the roundtable spoke: Nebojsa Vasiljevic, Deputy Minister of Telecommunications and Information Society, Zivko Subotic, executive in chief of Macedonian information agency and deacon M.sci. Oliver Subotic, a manager of the Centre for study and use of modern technologies of the Archbishopric Belgrade and Karlovac.

Participants in meeting of Orthodox churches in Sofia release joint statement

The participants in the working meeting between the representatives of the Orthodox Churches have united around a joint statement concerning the issues raised in the European Court of Human Rights decision of January 22nd 2009 in relation to complaints № 412/03 and № 35677/04 about the people who separated from the unity of Bulgarian Orthodox Church, the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church told Focus News Agency.

Russia to take ownership of Orthodox church in Rome

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered the Foreign Ministry to carry through formalities for the Russian state to take ownership of a Russian Orthodox church compound that is under construction in Rome and to hand the compound over to the Moscow Patriarchate for unpaid use, the government said.

The history of the St. Catherine church compound goes back to the 19th century, when a proposal was put forward for building an Orthodox church in the Italian capital.

The Russian Orthodox Church acclaims ban on hunting the Greenland seal calves

Fr. Andrey Kurayev, a well-known Orthodox missionary deacon, acclaimed newly introduced Russia's ban on hunting calves of the Greenland seal, which reach the ices of the White Sea each spring to breed their calves.

"If someone comes to Russia to procreate, this is really great! Why do we need to kill those, bread and born here? If the only thing we are able to do is turning everything around us into ashes, this is definitely not to our credit," Fr. Andrey told Interfax-Religion.

NOT TO FORGET – exhibition on the occasion of five years since pogrom of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia

On Tuesday, March 17, 2009, at 7 p.m., at a refectory of the church of St Sava at Vracar, His Grace Bishop Atanasije of Hvosno, vicar of His Holiness Patriarch Pavle of Serbia, on the behalf of  Patriarch of Serbia and His Eminence Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro and the Littoral, opened an exhibition oficons and frescoes, copies of the icons and the frescoes from monasteries and churches in Kosovo and Metohia. The icons and frescoes are created by students of the Academy of Arts and Conservation of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and which were created under the mentorship of Goran Janicijevic, assistant professor at the subject of Fresco writing.

The opening of exhibition was attended by lots of admirers of church art, people from cultural and public life, archimandrite Danilo(Ljubotina), protopresbyter-staurophor Drago Ubiparipovic, protopresbyter-staurophor Drago Sando, protopresbyter Luka Novakovic, deacon Milan Kovacevic, Dr Vojislav Milovanovic, head architect of St Sava`s Cathedral at Vracar.