Religion

The spiritual head of the world's Orthodox Christians said on Wednesday that Russia's powerful Orthodox Church shared responsibility for the conflict in Ukraine but that he stood ready to help in Russia's postwar "spiritual regeneration".

53% of Bulgarians claim to be religious. Nearly a third (29%) do not perceive themselves as religious people, and a tenth are atheists (9%).

Tourists in Rome checking out the Pantheon, Italy's most-visited cultural site, will soon be charged a 5-euro ($5.28) entrance fee under an agreement signed on March 16 by Italian culture and church officials.

At least 7 people were killed and 8 seriously injured in a shooting at a "Jehovah's Witnesses" church in Hamburg. Police are looking for the perpetrators of the murder, which is currently being classified as a crime spree.

Ever since 1757, the Perger family has been making honey treats and candles using its top secret recipes. Its company Perger 1757 has made a name for itself world-wide with products serving as gifts for prominent figures such as the current Dalai Lama, two former popes, and the late Queen Elizabeth II.

Greece's latest conviction by the European Court of Human Rights over the case of the former general secretary of public revenues draws a line for the country's political system that it ought to have drawn on its own: looking for scandal in order to sully the reputation of your rival should never reach the point of violating the presumption of innocence. Politicians are not prosecutors. 

Within the scope of the FETÖ investigation carried out in 32 provinces, a detention decision has been issued for 35 suspects who were found to have illegally leaked the questions of some exams between 2011-2013.

The death toll from the previous day's suicide bombing at a mosque in northwestern Pakistani rose to 83 on Tuesday, officials said. The assault on a Sunni mosque inside a major police facility was one of the deadliest attacks on Pakistani security forces in recent years.

A suicide bomber struck Monday inside a mosque within a police compound in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, killing at least 28 people and wounding as many as 150 worshippers, most of them policemen, officials said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan celebrated the conversion of Istanbul's Hagia Sophia into a mosque by reciting a poem that refers to himself as a modern reincarnation of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror who captured what was the world's largest cathedral in 1453.