Eastern Orthodox Church

BELGRADE - Patriarch Irenaeus of the Serbian Orthodox Church on Tuesday sent a Christmas message urging the faithful to live in mutual brotherly love - the love of Christmas.

May Serbia revive from this Christmas onward, and may its families be filled with joy and full of children playing, he said.

Serbian Eastern Orthodox believers, the country's majority Christian denomination, are on Friday, January 6, marking Christmas Eve.

Christmas is a public holiday in Serbia celebrated on January 7, according to the Julian calendar. Among the countries where churches adhere to the same calendar are also Belarus, Georgia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Russia, and Ukraine.

A right-wing NGO and an obscure Orthodox church group have been accused of deliberately provoking the country's Serbian community as it gets ready to mark Orthodox Christmas Eve.

The Croatian culture ministry demanded the return of over 1,000 artefacts taken to Serbia from Orthodox churches and monasteries during the 1990s wars and thousands of items that went missing from its museums.

The patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC), Irinej, on Tuesday sent his Christmas message urging believers to live in mutual "brotherly" love.

Serbia's majority Eastern Orthodox Christians will celebrate Christmas according to the Julian calendar, on Saturday, January 7.

On the third day after Christmas Eve, the Orthodox Church commemorates Saint Stephan's day. Saint Stephan is the first martyr for the Christian faith.

He is the creator of the first Christian community which is why he was tried and stoned to death by Jewish authorities in 37 AD.

Archbishop Ieronymos has said that separating Greece's Orthodox Church from the state would be "horror."

Speaking on Friday during an event at police headquarters in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, Ieronymos said it was important to maintain the relationship "at a time when institutions are being rocked to their foundations."

On Saturday, Bulgarians commemorate one of the three most important All Souls (Zadushnitsa) days in Eastern Orthodox Christianity  - the day of St Michael (in Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox traditions, he is called 'Taxiarch Archangel Michael') or simply "Archangel Michael".

LONDON - Patriarch Irenaeus of the Serbian Orthodox Church has concluded a several-day visit to London that marked the 100th anniversary of the first Orthodox religious service at St Paul's Cathedral.

The patriarch held a meeting with Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, urging closer ties among Christian churches.

Archbishop Ieronymos has launched a fresh attack on the left-led government, accusing it of trying to undermine the role of Orthodox faith in the predominantly Christian nation.

"You may have sold out Greece's treasures, our trains, our ports; however we will not hand over to you our homeland and our Orthodox faith," Archbishop said in Livadia, north of Attica, Tuesday.