Christian denominations

Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios fulfilled a 10-year promise to mark Easter on the Turkish island of Imvros (Gokceada) where he was born.

In candle-lit masses held over three days, Vartholomaios presided over services that brought together Orthodox Christian believers from the island and abroad.

Moldova will hand over the building of the former Theological Seminary in Chisinau to the Metropolis of Bessarabia, which is linked to the Romanian Orthodox Church, if a draft law registered by several deputies of the ruling Action and Solidarity Party, PAS, is adopted.

According to a statement posted on the website of the Serbian Orthodox Church: "Considering that he was in contact with a priest in the previous days who turned out to have a mild and asymptomatic form of COVID-19, His Holiness Patriarch of Serbia Mr. Porfirije will, on the advice of a doctor, be preventively isolated in the coming days".

"It was always important for the state to have the support of the Serbian Orthodox Church for its policy, whether domestic or international," he said. "The pressure is not bigger now," Aleksic said, but Vucic's constant presence in the media makes his role appear "most important".

Churches will open on January 24

President Klaus Iohannis on Wednesday sent a letter to the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church (BOR) Daniel saying that the demise of Archbishop Pimen of Suceava and Radauti brings great sadness upon the entire BOR and that he was "a gifted priest" who "dedicated his efforts to preserve the Romanian identity." "I want to express my sincere condolences to Your Beatitude, to the high hierar

During his enthronement in the Diocese of Valjevo, several temples were built and rebuilt, with the highest response for religious education among all the dioceses of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC).

The Istanbul-based Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate issued an announcement on Wednesday suspending all public ceremonies, services and events at churches and allowing only individual prayer, in a bid to contain the coronavirus epidemic.

Newly appointed Archbishop Elpidophoros of America pledged to bring closer "the many Orthodox communities that live in isolation from one another" and to fully serve his flock in the United States.

Conservative opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis reiterated his support for the views of the Ecumenical Patriarchate over the impending changes to church-state relations in Greece's Constitution, saying he is against them.