‘Thanks for independence’: Ukraine’s schismatic Patriarch bestows highest award on ex-CIA ops chief

The head of the schismatic Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kiev Patriarchate expressed his gratitude to the ex-CIA associate director, acknowledging his support for the church’s break with Moscow. Patriarch Filaret presented former CIA Associate Director Jack Devine with the Order of St. Andrew, the church’s highest decoration, local media reported on Thursday. The cleric thanked […]

Russian patriarch heads 100,000-strong procession honoring Romanovs’ martyrdom

About 100,000 pilgrims led by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, have walked 21 kilometers in a solemn procession commemorating the 100th anniversary of the killing of the last Russian emperor Nicholas II and his family. The procession covered the distance between the Yekaterinburg Church of All Saints, built on the place of the […]

Patriarch Kirill blesses inmates of Moscow prison on Easter Sunday

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, has visited Moscow’s Butyrskaya prison for the first time ever, to celebrate the Easter Holiday with the inmates and to offer them presents. “The fact of imprisonment is a very rigorous test,” Patriarch Kirill told over a hundred convicts, who gathered outside the prison chapel to […]