Weekly Review of Orthodox Church News

A funeral turns into a massacre at a Greek Orthodox church in Karak, Jordan. Moscow’s Holy Synod rules that people baptised in the Orthodox Church of Ukraine are to be baptised again, while Patriarch Bartholomew accuses Russian church figures of “heretical” views on war – and, at Rila in Bulgaria, commemorates Epifaniy among the primates. The Greek Synod backs an out-of-court deal on Sinai; police chase protesters into the courtyard of Tirana’s Orthodox cathedral; Armenian courts uphold the Catholicos’s authority over his clergy. Plus a background briefing on Byzantine Orthodoxy in Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan, Moscow’s new legal foothold in DR Congo, and fifteen new academic works.

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Weekly Review of Orthodox Church News

As Patriarch Bartholomew arrived in Sofia for the Rila anniversary, Bulgarian church leaders hit back at a petition against his visit, and the Holy Synod’s split over a 9–4 deposition came to light. In Tigray, federal forces took Adwa and Axum, the heart of Ethiopian Christianity, while the Orthodox Church’s leadership kept silent on the war. Georgia’s 1,700th-anniversary jubilee brought Constantinople, Moscow and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow-linked) to Mtskheta, but no delegation from the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. In Ukraine, a whole diocese, Zaporizhzhia, was declared “affiliated” with Moscow for the first time. Also this week: Sinai’s brotherhood asks for more time as the Egyptian ruling nears; a Vilnius study on the Moscow Patriarchate; Pope Leo XIV’s surgery and the Orthodox calendar; and ten new academic works in six languages.

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Weekly Review of Orthodox Church News

Ten years after Crete, the Ecumenical Patriarchate took stock at Chantilly: Bartholomew regretted the absence of four Churches, while his own speakers admitted the Council’s texts remain largely on the shelves. Federal forces retook Mekelle as Eritrean troops were reported in Tigray and strikes hit near Axum. Armenia’s parliament set up its inquiry into the Church; Etchmiadzin called it unlawful. Sinai awaits a court ruling on 24 October; Estonia’s Moscow-linked Church went to Strasbourg. Also: Moscow’s first Liturgy in Ghana, the Kurmukh church dispute between Georgia and Azerbaijan, and Sweden’s Christian Council suspending the Russian Church. Starting with this issue, a detailed table of contents is provided at the beginning of each issue, so that readers can navigate the content more conveniently.

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Weekly Review of Orthodox Church News

War has returned to Tigray, heartland of Ethiopian Orthodoxy. Meskel was celebrated under renewed fighting. This edition adds a background briefing on the Tigrayan Orthodox Church, separated from Addis Ababa since 2021. In Armenia, Parliament opens an inquiry into the “crisis” in the Church, while the Prime Minister promises legislation to end its “occupation”. Putin speaks at Valdai about the UOC as the count of damaged religious buildings in Ukraine passes 800. Moscow and Constantinople visit Georgia’s new Patriarch on consecutive days, and Bulgaria’s Synod upholds the case against Archimandrite Nikanor, with one dissent. A feature examines Alexei Krindatch’s new data on US Orthodox parishes: growth and younger, more male congregations, along with the limits of the evidence.

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Weekly Review of Orthodox Church News

Some 90,000 people walked down Nevsky Prospekt on 12 September behind the Kazan Icon and a particle of the newly uncovered relics of St Dimitry Donskoy, relics taken to the Donbas front only days earlier. This fortnight’s review takes the St Petersburg procession as a way into a larger question: how Orthodox is Russia, really? Levada, FOM, VTsIOM and the Church’s own university all describe the same pattern: a shrinking nominal majority around a growing core of regular churchgoers. That core is concentrated in Moscow and among the educated, while Easter “attendance” figures have quietly changed what they count. In Armenia, the Prime Minister’s office published a report declaring that the Catholicos “must vacate” his throne; Etchmiadzin called it unconstitutional and uncanonical. Also in this issue: the Supreme Court takes up the Kyiv Metropolia case, a quiet crisis between Crete and the Phanar, stalled talks over Sinai, Patriarch John X with Pope Leo XIV, and Patriarch Daniil of Bulgaria on his first official visit to Jerusalem.

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