-
Northern Europe
Lithuania will debate draft bill legalising same-sex partnerships
The Lithuanian parliament has accepted a bill legalising same-sex civil partnerships for further debate, after voting down a similar proposal in May 2021. The draft law on civil union proposes to abandon the definition of partnership in the Family Code of the Civil Code and replace it with a new…
Read More » -
Eastern Europe
Ukrainian authorities seize building Ukrainian Orthodox Church
Ukrainian authorities in Drohobych, in the region of Lviv, confiscated the building of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate. The building will be transferred to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which belongs to the Constantinople Patriarchate. That is reported by Patriarcha.ru. A commission of the city council declared…
Read More » -
Eastern Europe
Ukrainian Orthodox Church declares independence from Moscow
The Ukrainian Church under Moscow Patriarchate (UOC) has decided to cut ties with the Russian Orthodox Church. The Church appeals to Ukrainian and Russian authorities to continue the negotiation process and stop the bloodshed. This is the result of a meeting of representatives of the Ukrainian clergy on Friday. The…
Read More » -
Eastern Europe
Polish opposition leader promises to separate church and state
If his party Civic Platform (PO), wins the next elections, Donald Tusk promises that the first thing he will do is separate the Polish state and the Catholic Church. He did so during a tour through the country. The Polish constitution does not include an official stance on this issue.…
Read More » -
Eastern Europe
Belarus bans Orwell's “1984”
The Belarusian government has forbidden the sale of the book “1984”, written by George Orwell. It ordered bookstores to withdraw all editions of the work. That is reported by Nasha Niva. Orwell's novel is about living in a state where the government controls its citizens completely. It was translated into…
Read More » -
Eastern Europe
God ought to be capitalised according to new Russian spelling rules
Sergei Kravtsov, the Russian Minister of Education, proposes new spelling rules for the Russian language. One of the changes he proposes is capitalising the word “God”. At the XXX International Educational Readings in the Kremlin, the minister said that the Russian Orthodoxy requests the capitalisation of the word “God”, just…
Read More » -
Northern Europe
Lithuanian Prime Minister: Orthodox Church Lithuania should secede from Moscow Patriarchate
Ingrida simonyte, the Prime Minister of Lithuania, has requested permission from the Patriarch of Constantinople for the Lithuanian Orthodox Church to break with the Moscow Patriarchate. In a letter, she expressed support for the appeal of some priests that desired to secede from the Moscow Patriarchate. That was confirmed by…
Read More » -
Eastern Europe
Bartholomew: Kirill should sacrifice his throne
The Russian Patriarch Kirill should resign from his position as head of the Russian Orthodox Church. That is what his colleague in Constantinople, Patriarch Bartholomew, thinks. Bartholomew said this in an interview with the Greek public broadcaster ERT1, marking his thirtieth anniversary as Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. According to him,…
Read More » -
Northern Europe
Much protest against potential ban denominational schools in Sweden
The Swedish Government proposed to ban independent schools in the country. However, it has received many critiques on its plan. The large majority of consultative bodies think the idea is wrong. That is reported by the Swedish newspaper Dagen. Recently, the period in which independent bodies could give their opinion…
Read More » -
Central Europe
One in five Germans does not know meaning of Pentecost
More than 20 per cent of the Germans do not know anymore what the meaning of Pentecost is. Among Christians, this percentage halts at 17 per cent, both among Catholics and Protestants. That is shown by a representative survey on behalf of Die Tagespost. Most Germans (59 per cent) say…
Read More »