Ukrainian Orthodox Church

Many Ukrainians will on Monday celebrate Christmas Day on Dec. 25 for the first time, after the government changed the date from the Orthodox Church observance of Jan. 7 in a snub to Russia.

Ukraine passed a law in July moving the celebration to Dec. 25, the day when most of the Christian world marks Christmas.

Day 417 of the invasion of Ukraine. Summary of key events in the last 24 hours:

Zakharova, commenting on Kyiv's plans to expel the clergy from the Pochayev Lavra, called it "a new stage in the religious war".
"The new phase of the religious war in Ukraine initiated by the Kyiv regime will, of course, not lead to anything good. The consequences will be tragic," she said at a briefing on Thursday.

The head of Cyprus' Orthodox Church Archbishop Georgios formally assumed his new duties Sunday following an enthronement ceremony evoking the splendor of centuries of Byzantine tradition before an audience of clergy from around the world with the notable exception of the Russian church.

Here are the highlights of events related to the war in Ukraine over the past 24 hours:

Ukraine celebrates Christmas, the shelling does not stop

Ukraine celebrates Christmas, the first since the beginning of the war.

A new dispute has occurred between the Russian and Ukrainian patriarchs in the southern province of Antalya as the citizens of both countries living in the city do not want to share the same churches.

Antalya, which hosts many migrants from both countries fleeing the Russia-Ukraine war, has also become one of the meeting areas of divisions within the Orthodox church.

By Evangelos Venizelos*

In the wake of the Russian attack and the war in Ukraine, the arguments heard in 2018-2019 regarding the granting of autocephaly [independence from the Moscow Patriarchate] to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine came to the surface once more, mainly due to a speech by Vladimir Putin.

A bill banning the Russian Orthodox Church has been submitted to Ukraine's parliament, the country's media reported.

A senior Russian-backed bishop in Ukraine will lead a prayer walk in the Montenegrin capital, Podgorica, on Saturday, joining protests led by the Serbian Orthodox Church against a recently-adopted law on religious freedom.

The Ukrainian Church is independent of the religious administration of Moscow.
In a statement after the meeting in the Moscow Patriarchate, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church stated that it could not, from now on, mention the name of Patriarch Theodore II in his prayers and participate in common prayers.