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Confiscated by the Bolsheviks, first used as a warehouse and more recently a concert hall, the cathedral will be restored to the Orthodox diocese. In 2010 it was reopened for worship.Moscow (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Smolny Cathedral in St. Petersburg, one of the symbols of the city of the Tsars and now owned by the state, will be returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. This was announced April 14 by Nikolai Burov, director of the museum of the four cathedrals which also includes that of Smolny. "The decision has been made: the Smolny Cathedral will be restored to the diocese,"...

History often repeats itself, and if you have lived two lives, as I have done, you have a good chance of seeing the reenactment with your own eyes. Liberation theology, of which not much has been heard for two decades, is back in the news. But what is not being mentioned is its origins. It was not invented by Latin American Catholics. It was developed by the KGB. The man who is now the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, secretly worked for the KGB under the code name “Mikhailov” and spent four decades promoting liberation theology, which...

Scenes from the service of Vespers for Great and Holy Friday.

The construction of a church in honour of Tsar Nicholas II and his family has been completed in Moscow. The ground breaking and initial construction began three years ago, in March of 2012. On March 8, 2013 the Head of the Russian Imperial House, HIH Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna visited the site of the new church during an official visit to Moscow. The grand duchess lit a candle in memory of the Holy Royal Martyrs, and then took the time to speak and have tea with local parishers. The first liturgy was held on July 17, 2014 in a temporary...

EASTERN UKRAINE -- Ukraine's evangelical Christians are bearing the brunt of the country's conflict, often with deadly consequences. It's a scene that has played in Elena Velichko's head over and over. Pro-Russian rebels took over her hometown in early April. Her husband Vladimir told her to take the kids and leave the city. "He took us to the train station and we said goodbye. He said, 'I love you.' He kissed me and kissed the children and left," Elena said. Several days later, her life and that of her eight children, ages 2 to 16, suddenly turned upside down. Surreal...

SLAVYANSK, Ukraine - Peter Dudnik is convinced that the masked gunmen swallowing up large swaths of eastern Ukraine are a serious threat to evangelical Christians. Dudnik is a senior leader of Good News Church in Slavyansk, Ukraine. In an exclusive interview, Dudnik told CBN News the pro-Russian rebels "didn't treat Christians well because they consider the Orthodox Church far superior than any other church." "They also believe that Protestant Christians are American spies and since America is the enemy, evangelical Christians are also the enemy," he explained. ***Snip*** Not only did the Orthodox priests take over his church for services,...

A Sukhoi SU-35 fighter aircraft participates in a flying display during the 50th Paris Air Show at the Le Bourget airport near Paris, June 23, 2013. CREDIT: REUTERS/PASCAL ROSSIGNOL (Reuters) - Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, was presented with an unlikely gift for a religious leader this week as he toured a factory in Russia's far-east - a single-seater fighter jet SU-35. Kirill was presented with the jet after giving workers at the civilian and military aircraft plant icons blessed by himself, the church said in a statement on its official website on Tuesday. The patriarch,...

The Russian Orthodox Church has cancelled an official doctrinal dialogue with the Finnish Lutheran Church over the Lutheran stance on homosexuality. The Orthodox side wanted to pre-approve a communique before the meeting, but talks broke down over the Finns’ refusal to condemn homosexuality.Finnish and Russian attitudes to gay rights are poles apart, and that’s helping to derail doctrinal dialogues between the two countries’ largest religions. Archbishop Kari Mäkinen says that he was forced to cancel planned ecumenical dialogues when he met the Russia Patriarch Kiril in Moscow. The Russian Orthodox Church wanted to agree a statement in advance, as the...

Hardly any Americans will know of Hilarion Alfeyev, 48, a Russian Orthodox bishop who acts as the "foreign minister" of his Church, but it is important that they do. He is a bridge between not just the Orthodox Church and Catholicism but a bridge between Russia and America. As a Catholic American, I first saw him 15 years ago on a cold December day in Moscow. Hilarion, then 33, was already a rising star in the firmament of the Russian Orthodox Church. He had done his graduate studies in philosophy at Oxford — rather rare for Russian Orthodox Church leaders....

T he head of the Russian Orthodox Church has awarded Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov with an order for "glory and honor." Patriarch Kirill gave the order to Zyuganov in Moscow on June 27, one day after the longtime communist leader celebrated his 70th birthday. Kirill said Zyuganov -- who in 2010 called for the re-Stalinization of Russia and has called the Soviet Union "the most humane state in human history" -- deserves the award as "one of the most famous Russian politicians who has expressed interest in the welfare of the nation and the protection of traditional moral values."...

Along with Medvedev and his wife.

Russia's Orthodox Church has experienced a resurgence under President Vladimir Putin, but have the state's finances and Russia's dominant religion become too closely intertwined? Simon Ostrovsky reports for People & Power on Al Jazeera English. (Feb 6, 2013)

The man they call Jesus of Siberia came to Britain looking for disciples to follow him up a mountainside. Candida Crewe was intrigued A 41-year-old man dressed in a coarse, red velvet robe with scratchy gold braid takes his seat on a fine purple banquette in the Groucho Club. He wears thick socks under his sandals and carefully combs his long flowing hair before sitting down. He smiles beatifically and speaks very slowly and quietly, in Russian. Even by the Groucho's standards, he looks unusual. Asked how he would like to be addressed, he insists, calmly, that he doesn't mind....

MOSCOW (RNS) As Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s border and a controversial secession vote in Crimea approaches Sunday (March 16), Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church called for prayers “that brothers of one faith and one blood never bring destruction to one another.” Russia has prided itself on its revival of Orthodox Christianity after decades of Soviet persecution, but a war with the Ukraine could splinter the Russian Orthodox Church. That church has its roots in Kiev, where Prince Vladimir baptized his people as Christians in 988, an event viewed as a cornerstone of Russian and Ukrainian identity. It...

The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church has warned society on the dangers of the "international campaign" behind same-sex marriage, and insisted that the traditional family structure is needed for the survival of humankind. "Preservation of marriage as a union between a man and a woman based on love and mutual understanding and birth of beloved children are a precondition for survival of humankind," Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill said in a statement on Tuesday following a meeting at the upper house of the Russian parliament, ITAR-TASS News Agency said of reports in the world's largest country. Kirill...

ALEXANDRIA, La. (BP) -- God once used a donkey to alert a wayward prophet that he was on the wrong track. Could it be the Lord is using a bear, a Russian Bear, to do the same with the nations of the West, in particular the United States? "Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their roots, including Christian values," Russian President Valdimir Putin said in his state of the nation address in mid-December, The Washington Times reported. Putin continued, "Policies are being pursued that place on the same level a multi-child family and a same-sex partnership, a faith in...

A calendar published by the Russian Orthodox Church in honor of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin has sparked indignation from bloggers. The 2014 calendar is advertised "an excellent gift for veterans and history buffs." The Russian Orthodox Church is under fire for publishing a calendar devoted to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. Pictures from the 2014 calendar have been making the rounds on the Internet, sparking a barrage of criticism and prompting a lively discussion on the Moscow Patriarchate's troubled ties with Stalin. The calendar, published by the printing house of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius Monastery in Moscow, presents photos...

Amid recent terrorist attacks in Volgograd, a city of one million in southern Russia, a leading Russian Orthodox Church official has called upon the nation to do more to combat radical Islam. The Reuters news agency reported that militants are seeking to establish an Islamist state near Volgograd. “If the circulation of Nazi ideological clichés has been strictly limited or banned in certain cases, why not apply the same scheme to the radical interpretation of Islam rejected by most Muslims themselves?” said Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the head of the Synodal Department for Church and Society Relations, according to an Interfax...

The conflict between Greek Catholics and Orthodox in Western Ukraine has to be resolved from both sides, said Cardinal Kurt Koch, head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. “Only by recognizing this can we move together into the future,” he said December 17, responding to journalists' questions at a press conference in Moscow. A correspondent from Blahovest-info asked about the cardinal’s attitude toward the issue, which, the Russian Orthodox Church believes, complicates the preparation of a possible meeting between the Moscow Patriarch and the Pope. The journalist quoted statements recently made by Metropolitan Hilarion’s at a Russian-Polish conference:...

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has met with the foreign minister of the Russian Orthodox Church ahead of a Nov. 25 visit to the Vatican by President Vladimir Putin. The Vatican released no details of Tuesday’s meeting with Metropolitan Hilarion, in Rome for a Catholic-Orthodox conference on family values. Simultaneously in Moscow, a top Italian cardinal involved in Catholic-Orthodox dialogue, Cardinal Angelo Scola, met with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill.