Orthodox Churches

Two-day Conference on Monastery Products & Small Producers in the Orthodox Area : Joint Effort and Prospects

The Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (I.A.O.) (www.eiao.org) is a political organization established in 1993 and seated in the Hellenic Parliament in Athens. This initiative emerged from the Parliaments of Russia and Greece, and currently the I.A.O. members are official Parliamentary delegations of twenty five countries, as well as five groups of deputies from other parliaments. The objective of the Organization is to develop multi-level political and cultural activity to the direction of encouraging contacts and broadening relations of trust, understanding the contemporary political phenomena and social currents and highlighting those elements of Orthodoxy that have a positive impact on mutual understanding among cultures.

Moscow starts celebrating Cheesefare Week

Moscow has begun celebrating Cheesefare Week [week before the Great Lent - TASS]. Outdoor festivities will be held not merely in the downtown but even in the most remote suburban districts, the City Mayor’s Office said on Monday.

"The festival will cover the whole city. All cultural and entertainment institutions have prepared their programs: parks, libraries, community centers, museums, art schools, and movie theaters. Over 1,500 festival events will be staged at 500 sites in the city," the Mayor’s Office said. Over 2 million residents of Moscow will attend the events, it added. Up to 500,000 tourists are expected to visit Moscow during the week.

A Greek Church That Grazes the Sky

The church of “Panagia Kakaviotissa” has made it in the feature “Greece’s 30 nicest churches.” The church located on Lemnos island, in the North Aegean, was named Kakaviotissa, after the mount “Kakavos” upon which it is built.

The Greek Orthodox church is famous for not having a roof and is built inside a cave. The hard-to-access location of the church in the midst of cliffs and on top of a mountain, indicates that the church old-christians and hermits used to reside there during the byzantine era. The church belongs to the monastery of Megisti Lavra since 1305 A.C. when monks from the island of Agios Efstratios settled there in order to be protected by the Turks.

The Orthodox Autocephalous Church Of Albania To the Director of “Gazeta Shqiptare” (Albanian Newspaper) An Answer to a Shameless Slander

Each new press release of Mr. Nikolla Marku and of the group of people which motivates him, is as much delirious in kind as the previous statements made by him. In his last statement, which was published in your newspaper (“Gazeta Shqiptare”, 2.23.2016) and broadcasted by several television channels, he goes so far as to require the review of the Constitution, the repeal of a law and declares also that he would even make an appeal to the Hague court. In a shameless way and without possessing the slightest evidence, he slanders against the Orthodox Archbishop, who according to him is “a representative of Northern Epirus Chauvinism” and who even cooperates with a Greek extremist nationalist party. But, throughout Greece and in most of Albania as well as in the entire Christian world, people know that Archbishop Anastasios belongs to those people who work on the front lines to preserve peace and mutual respect between peoples and nations. Therefore, he has been chosen for senior posts in global Christian bodies and elected as Honorary President of the Interfaith Peace Conference: “Religions for Peace”.

The Church condemns all violent actions - Metropolitan Theodore Chuadze

We should investigate not only this particular controversy, but also the provocations, which caused this controversy, Metropolitan Theodore Chuadze of Akhaltsikhe and Tao-Klarjeti stated yesterday on the patriarchate’s television station.

The metropolitan responded to the February 29 clash between the Muslim and Orthodox Christian residents of the town of Adigeni.

The metropolitan said that the Church condemns all violent actions. According to him, the Church had not been involved in provoking the issue.

Decisions of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church

The Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church gathered Thursday, 25 February 2016, in a working session, at the Patriarchal Residence in Bucharest. His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel chaired the meeting.