A Moscow court has found three members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot guilty of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” after a guerrilla performance in Moscow’s main cathedral in February. They were sentenced on August 17 to two years in a penal colony.
The band performed a “punk prayer” against Russian president Vladimir Putin and Russian Orthodox patriarch Kirill I.
Moscow (ENInews)--Patriarch Kirill I called clergy who opposed the holding of mass prayer meeting held in Moscow on April 22 "traitors in cassocks," in a sign of continuing division within the Russian Orthodox Church over political and social issues.
Vladimir Putin's election to a third term as Russian president has
spurred debates about civil society and church-state relations within
the Russian Orthodox Church since charges of vote fraud set off mass
protests following last December's parliamentary elections.
After a week of mounting protest over alleged fraud in Russia's
parliamentary election, the Russian Orthodox Church has called for
stricter control over the election process—evidence of the extent to
which anger has spread in Russian society.
Moscow, September 2 (ENInews)--The patriarchs of three ancient Orthodox
Christian churches met from 1-2 September in Istanbul to discuss the
situation of Christian minorities in the Middle East, and perhaps an even more
prickly topic -- the move toward a historic pan-Orthodox council -- removing
major stumbling blocks to what would be the first such gathering in centuries.
Moscow, July 29 (ENINews)--Patriarch Ilia II of the Georgian Orthodox
Church has called on his Russian Orthodox counterpart to reconcile Russia and
Georgia, which have remained at odds since a short, bloody war in August
2008.
Moscow, July 1 (ENINews)--A Russian pro-life organization is about to
launch a network of clinics offering pre- and post-natal care while excluding
procedures such as abortion and in-vitro fertilization that "contradict the
teachings of the Russian Orthodox, Catholic and traditional Protestant
churches," said Alexey Komov, the project manager.
Moscow, April 26 (ENInews)--The Russian and Greek Orthodox churches are
objecting to plans in both countries to introduce electronic national
identity cards intended to streamline bureaucracy and, in the case of Greece,
facilitate integration into the European Union.
Moscow, April 14 (ENInews)--A Jehovah's Witness on trial in Siberia was found innocent on 14 April of charges of "inciting religious hatred and enmity," in a case that was being watched as a litmus test of religious freedom in Russia.
Rome, February 17 (ENInews)--In their first meeting after the establishment of full diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Russia, Pope Benedict XVI and President Dimitry Medvedev expressed their desire to strengthen bilateral relations.
Moscow, February 8 (ENInews)--The Russian Orthodox Church has ruled that hierarchs (church leaders) and clergy can run for office in exceptional cases when their presence is needed to fight "forces striving to use electoral power to fight the Orthodox Church."
Moscow, January 25 (ENInews)–Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill I denounced a terrorist attack at Moscow’s busiest airport as "the horrifying scowl of sin, and a barbaric distortion of human nature," and said that acts once condemned even in war "are today becoming a form of protest."
(RNS) A top official of the Russian Orthodox Church has called for
an official dress code to encourage propriety after previously
suggesting that provocatively dressed women provoke immorality and
violence.
Moscow, November 8 (ENInews)--Chechnya's leader Ramzan Kadyrov has launched a campaign to end the practice of kidnapping brides in the restive southern Russian region, while also saying he favours headscarves and modest clothing for women.
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