26 January 2012, 13:05 | Religious-digest | 

Chicago area churches hold Prayer Vigil for Life

January 23, 2012 marks the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that removed many state and federal restrictions on abortion.

23 January 2012, 11:10 | Society-digest | 

A first for Canada

International Ukrainian Catholic bishops coming to Manitoba for synod

23 November 2011, 17:37 | Religious-digest | 

A Brief History of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day is a truly great American holiday. It commemorates a series of events which took place in the 17th Century. It was on December 11, 1620 that the Pilgrims set ground on Plymouth Rock.

23 November 2011, 17:09 | Religious studies | 

FOUR ISLAMIC LIONS ON THE CRIMEAN SAVANNA

A Review of Trends in Contemporary Islam in the Crimea

25 Jule 2011, 16:19 | Religious-digest | 

Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Olga

Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Olga was the spouse of the Kiev GreatPrince Igor. The struggle of Christianity with paganism under Igor and Olga, who reigned after Oleg (+ 912), entered into a new phase.

6 June 2011, 13:32 | Religious-digest | 

Historic Ukrainian Wedding Pairs Soviet Dissidents’ Great-Grandchildren

A Jewish wedding underway in Dnepropetrovsk is uniting two families whose patriarchs were once considered dissidents by the very government that now embraces the religious revival taking place throughout Ukraine’s third-largest city.

11 February 2011, 15:14 | Religious-digest | 

Glorious Ukrainian Martyrs, Victims of Communist Barbarity

The Ukrainian Church is the largest of the eastern rite Churches in union with Rome. They number five million faithful. At the beatification process of the martyr Saint Josaphat, born in Volodymyr (Ukraine) in 1643, whom we must remember is the Church’s official patron saint of unity, Pope Urban VIII uttered these prophetic words: “Oh my Ukrainians, I look to you to convert the East.”

9 February 2011, 16:04 | Religious-digest | 

Abp. Hilarion interviewed by National Catholic Register

There’s been encouraging — sometimes tantalizing — news in recent years about the growing potential for Catholic-Orthodox unification. Pope Benedict XVI is said to be viewed more favorably by the Orthodox than his predecessor. The Catholic Archbishop of Moscow exclaimed in 2009 that unity with the Orthodox could be achieved “within months.” And the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation issued a document last October that envisions practical steps each Church can begin taking to begin the process of reunification.

25 January 2011, 11:37 | Religious-digest | 

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21 January 2011, 13:36 | Religious-digest | 

Chernigov Jewish Community Experiences Steady and Inspiring Growth

Chernigov, Ukraine – situated north of Kiev on the Desna River – has spent the last several weeks buried under a thick blanket of fresh winter snow, its streets slick with ice, freezing temperatures and blustery winds rouging the bare cheeks of bundled-up city-dwellers.

17 January 2011, 18:17 | Religious-digest | 

St. Lavrentiy of Chernihiv (1868-1950)

January 19 (which is January 6 on the Julian Calendar), the Feast of Theophany, marks the 61st anniversary of the repose of a Ukrainian saint of modern times, the Venerable Lavrentiy of Chernihiv. During my visit to Chernihiv in the summer of 2006 I had heard of this remarkable man who kept the Faith as a Monk in the some of the most difficult days that the people of Ukraine have ever known. He is much revered in this district of Ukraine which has given the Church many Saints.

13 January 2011, 13:19 | Religious-digest | 

Malanka history goes back a long way

The celebration of Malanka is a Ukrainian folk holiday taking place on or around January 13th, which is New Year's Eve in accordance with the Julian calendar. Malanka, also known as Schedryi Vechir ("Generous Eve") marks the end of the Christmas festivities, comprised of the 12 days of Christmas, and is often the last opportunity for revelry before the solemn period of Lent that leads up to Easter.

12 January 2011, 14:13 | Religious-digest | 

Through painstaking precision, Lviv’s icon restorers revive Ukraine’s precious gems

Helping icons live again is all in a day’s work for restorers at The Andrey Sheptytsky Lviv National Museum. Considered some of the best icon restorers in the world, this group of 40 dedicated individuals has tackled difficult projects. Overall, the museum has some 4,000 icons, which have been collected over several decades. Some of them are currently on tour in the United States.

10 December 2010, 13:04 | Religious-digest | 

Jews mark festival of lights, Hanukkah

The eight-day Hebrew holiday is often confused with Jewish New Year, as it usually occurs in winter. In practice though, Hanukkah has nothing to do with the new calendar and doesn’t require presents. Often called the Festival of Lights, it comes from the battle for the Jewish temple between the Syrian-Greek soldiers and the Jewish army in the second century BC.

1 December 2010, 12:58 | Religious-digest | 

Orthodox Theologians at the Warsaw University

The theme of the conference was the legacy of three major Orthodox figures – the patron of the conference, St. Gregory Peradze, fr. George Klinger and metropolitan Dionysius (Waledy?ski).

1 December 2010, 12:54 | Religious-digest | 

Kazakhstani Catholics & Orthodox receive St. Andrew's relics

Benedict XVI's secretary of state is in Kazakhstan delivering relics of the Apostle St. Andrew to both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches there.

26 November 2010, 12:32 | Religious-digest

Repose of St Innocent the first Bishop of Irkutsk

Saint Innocent, Bishop of Irkutsk, (in the world John) was descended from the noble Kulchitsky family. His parents moved from Volhynia to the Chernigov region in the mid-seventeenth century. The saint was born in about the year 1680, and educated at the Kiev Spiritual Academy. He accepted monastic tonsure in 1710 and was appointed an instructor at the Moscow Slavonic-Greek-Latin Academy as prefect and professor of theology.

28 October 2010, 15:45 | Religious-digest

A Humble Call for Unity of Orthodoxy in Ukraine

The Ukrainian Orthodoxy is now divided into UOC- MP, UOC-KP, UAOC and UOC-Cannonical, where UOC – MP remains the only Canonical Church. Dialogues are being initiated between UOC-MP and UOC- KP which has generated some hope. UAOC have also taken steps by sending request to Ecumenical Patriarchate in order to get accepted into the canonical league which is well and good.

25 October 2010, 11:20 | Religious-digest

Moscow Patriarchate Faces ‘Parade of Sovereignties’ Within Orthodoxy

The issue of autocephaly has been a highly contentious one because it calls into question the universalism of the church, but over the last 150 years, Venediktov says, Orthodoxy has generally been moving toward the view that “church autocephaly should follow the political independence of the state.”

13 October 2010, 14:52 | Society-digest | 

Ukraine: Return to tyranny – Ukrainian authorities refuse to recognize Church property

The Catholics in the Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk are in shock. For 20 years now they have been fighting for the restitution of the church of Saint Joseph, in the heart of this major metropolis on the River Dnieper. In 2009 the Supreme Economic Court of Ukraine had finally found definitively in their favour - a decision confirmed again in January 2010 by the Judges of the Supreme Court of Ukraine.