Parts of the centuries-old Pechersk Lavra monastic complex in Kyiv, Ukraine, have been taken over by the state. The Ukrainian government has taken the main cathedral of a historic monastery in Kyiv from a denomination previously affiliated with the Russian Orthodox patriarchate and allowed its Ukrainian rival group to use it for Orthodox Christmas services. Ukrainian Minister of Culture Oleksandr …
The Russian Orthodox parish in Amsterdam announced Saturday it will no longer function within the Moscow Patriarchate and has asked the archbishop of the diocese of The Hague and the Netherlands to grant canonical dismissal. The parish’s four priests and deacon unanimously decided it was no longer possible to “provide a spiritually safe climate” for their congregants within the Moscow …
Ukraine’s tangled political history with Russia has its counterpart in the religious landscape, with Ukraine’s majority Orthodox Christian population divided between an independent-minded group based in Kyiv and another loyal to its patriarch in Moscow. Even though Russian President Vladimir Putin justified his invasion of Ukraine in part as a defense of the Moscow-oriented Orthodox church, leaders of both Ukrainian …
