Orthodox Catholic Church

Nicosia held its first Greek Cypriot gay pride parade, 16 years after homosexuality was decriminalized on the Mediterranean island, where the influential Orthodox Church views non-heterosexual relations as sinful.

Culture Minister Panos Panayiotopoulos called on Thursday for the creation of a European Union task force to protect the continent’s cultural heritage, including Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.

Already a regular visitor to Romania’s Transylvania region, Prince Charles on Wednesday started his latest tour there by visiting the Gothic 14th-century Black Church built by the Germans in the city of Brasov.

Prince Charles also visited the St Nicholas Orthodox church and a museum in Brasov, according to news agency Agerpres.

BELGRADE - The Office for Kosovo-Metohija (KiM) condemned on Tuesday in the strongest terms the statement by Dardan Gasi, a representative of Pristina, who said that Christ the Savior Cathedral in that town would be pulled down.

GRACANICA - The Citizens' Initiative Srpska has condemned in the strongest of terms a statement by the Kosovo minister for spatial planning Dardan Gasi on demolition of the Orthodox church in Pristina.

The abbot of a Mount Athos monastery says its more than 120 Greek monks face food and medicine shortages because of the stance of the Orthodox Church, which considers them apostates and wants to evict them from their 1,000-year-old abode.

By Dimitris Rigopoulos

When Andreas Varelas, deputy mayor for sanitation at the City of Athens, posted a digital mock-up on his Facebook page of a mural by artist Manolis Anastasakos to be painted on the walls around an empty plot of land in the Hafteia district of Athens, near Omonia Square, he had no idea much interest it would generate.