Russian Orthodox Patriarch Meets With Riga Mayor

In a meeting with the mayor of Riga, Nil Ushakov, Russian Orthodox Patriarch Cyril (Gundyayev) has called upon the Latvian government to recognize Russian as an official language of the Latvian state, noting that nearly half of the Latvian population speaks Russian as its first language and yet have been disenfranchised in the country as non-citizens despite their long residency in it. More here.

Turkish Mayor Protests Monolingualism

The mayor of a city in southeastern Turkey is protesting the Turkish government's hypocritical attacks on his efforts to provide government services not only in Turkish, spoken by a minority in the area, but also in Armenian, Assyrian, and Kurdish, which collectively are spoken by a large majority of the city's residents. More here.

Istanbul Government Attempts to Divide City's Christians in Property Offer

It has emerged that the Istanbul city government, in an attempt to induce infighting between Turkey's Orthodox Christian minorities, has offered the Syriac Orthodox Church properties belonging to the Constantinopolitan and Armenian Orthodox Churches for the establishment of its first permanent parish church in Constantinople. More here.

Syriac Orthodox Monastery Loses Lands Under Turkish Court Ruling

The highest Turkish court of appeals has upheld illegal claims on the lands of St. Gabriel's Monastery in Tur Abdin by neighboring Kurdish Muslim villages, ignoring the Monastery's 1,600-year history by claiming that it was built on the site of a mosque (!) and that its lands actually belong to the nearby Kurds. The Monastery is expected to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. More here. H/t to Ad Orientem.

Coptic Orthodox Hierarchs Meet with Egyptian Chief of Staff

A delegation of the Coptic Orthodox Church has met with the chief of staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces, Sami Anan, to discuss last month's 'Bloody Sunday' killing of 27 Copts and ongoing efforts to build a civil, democratic Egyptian state. More here.

Al-Azhar, Brotherhood Scholars Reject Egyptian Islamist Fatwa

Muslim clergymen and scholars from Egypt's al-Azhar University and its influential Muslim Brotherhood have rejected a fatwa recently issued by an Islamist imam forbidding the country's Muslims from voting for nominal Muslims or Copts (amongst others) in the upcoming Egyptian parliamentary elections. More here.

Egyptian Jailed for Anti-Islamic FB Comments

Close on the heels of Egypt's 'Bloody Sunday,' in which Egyptian state media called on Cairenes to come and defend the Egyptian Armed Forces from a "Coptic attack," an Egyptian court has sentenced a man to jail for 3 years for allegedly posting anti-Islamic comments on his Facebook wall. More here.

Turkish PM Declares an End to Ethnic Discrimination

At an iftar or Ramadan fast-breaking dinner hosted by the Turkish government for representatives of Turkey's religious minorities (none of whom, if the author is not mistaken, actually fast during Ramadan) Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated in part that, "There have been times when people in our country were put under pressure for their beliefs, ethnic background, for the way they dress and their different lifestyles, but those days are over...nobody in this country is anymore privileged than anyone else in the eyes of the constitution or other laws."

Following the end of the iftar Patriarch Bartholomew (Arhondonis) of Constantinople, who participated in the event, welcomed the Turkish prime minister's statements as well as the recent decree of the Turkish government returning previously appropriated properties belonging to Turkey's religious minorities and expressed his hope that in the future Turkey would go further in its efforts to undo the injustices suffered by its minorities. More here.

Ecumenical Patriarch Visits Misappropriated Pontian Monasteries and Churches

As part of his pastoral visit to Pontus, in what today is northeastern Turkey, to celebrate new style Dormition at the historic Soumela Monastery Patriarch Bartholomew (Arhondonis) of Constantinople also visited several other historic Pontian monasteries and churches that were turned into mosques or museums following Turkey's expulsion of its large Greek-speaking minority after World War I. More (in Greek) here.

Israel Approves Construction of 1,600 Housing Units in East Jerusalem

The Israeli Interior Ministry has authorized the construction of 1,600-unit apartment complex in predominantly Palestinian Arab East Jerusalem. The Interior Ministry simultaneously announced that it would shortly approve the construction of a further 2,700 more housing units in East Jerusalem. The approval comes as the Palestinian National Authority prepares to request admission to the United Nations as an independent state. More here.

Ukrainian Orthodox Priest on Hunger Strike Passes Out in Mariupol'

A clergyman of the independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol' has passed out in front of the city administration. The priest, Fr. Volodymyr Koskin, began a hunger strike with two of his parishioners when the Mariupol' city authorities refused to allocate land to the Kiev Patriarchate for the construction of a temple for his parish, the Church of St. Panteleimon. Although parishes of the Moscow Patriarchate in need of land are allocated it free of charge, in the region Kiev Patriarchate parishes must first request a land allocation and then buy it outright.

The Mariupol' city administration says that the parish's application for land was not rejected because of its jurisdictional affiliation, but rather because it applied for land in an area of the city not designated for church construction. More here.

Copts Express Concern Over Gubernatorial Appointments

Representatives of the Coptic Orthodox Church and Coptic Orthodox political movements are expressing concern over the Egyptian transitional government's recent appointment of governors, of which one out of a total of twenty-seven was a Copt. (Copts as a whole form at least 10% of the Egyptian population.) More here.

Suryoyo Appeal for Right of Return to Turkey

A Syriac Orthodox organization, the European Syriac Union, has appealed to the European Commission to pressure the Turkish government to remove obstacles preventing the return of Suryoyo living abroad to their homelands in southeastern Turkey and to introduce constitutional protections securing the legal status and ethnic identity of the Suryoyo still living in Turkey.

Roughly 250,000 Suryoyo live in Western and Central Europe, whereas only 15,000 remain in Turkey, of those the majority living in diaspora within the country in Constantinople. More here.

Jerusalem Patriarch Interviewed on Issues in the Holy Land

In an interview Patriarch Theophilos III (Giannopoulos) of Jerusalem has said that his largely Arabic-speaking Palestinian Orthodox flock should "refer back to [its] roots" in side-stepping a question about ethnic Greeks' dominance of the Orthodox hierarchy in the Holy Land (which consists of seventeen ethnic Greeks and one ethnic Arab despite the largely Arab and Russian composition of the laity), also saying that one "cannot disregard the Byzantine presence that was here [in the Holy Land]."

In the same interview the patriarch strongly reaffirmed the Church of Jerusalem's involvement in the World Council of Churches and answered questions about the political and religious tensions in the Holy Land. The full interview can be found here.

Palestinian Orthodox Metropolitan Backs Calls for Preservation of Jerusalem Cemetery

Metropolitan Theodosius (Hanna) of Sebaste of the Jerusalemite Orthodox Church has added his voice to calls from Palestinian and Israeli Arabs that the destruction of the Holy City's historic Mamilla Cemetery be halted. The cemetery, which is the burial place of many Palestinian Arab residents of Jerusalem, is being razed to make way for the 'Museum of Tolerance.' More here.

Turkey's Syriac Orthodox Christians Fight for Right to Change Surnames

Turkey's Suryoyo minority is challenging the legality of the country's refusal to allow the Suryoyo to adopt their Syriac-language last names as their official surnames. The challenge comes despite a ruling earlier this year of Turkey's Constitutional Court that forbade a Suryoyo man to change his surname. Turkey's requirement that non-Turks bear Turkish-language surnames dates from a 1934 surname law forbidding the use of "foreign" surnames by Turkish citizens. More here.

Georgian Orthodox Church Concerned by Potential Return of Churches to Armenians

Despite calls from the Georgian Orthodox Church for calm, Georgia's large Armenian minority remains tense in the aftermath of this past weekend's large demonstrations against a law allowing the registration of the Armenian Orthodox Church in Georgia and four other minority religious organizations. While the head of the Armenian Orthodox Church in Georgia refused to comment on recent events, other representatives of Georgia's Armenian community who were interviewed said that most of the hysteria over the new law was whipped up by the hierarchy and clergy of the Georgian Orthodox Church, noting that of the six historic Armenian Orthodox churches in Tbilisi only two were still in use, whilst two others lay in ruins and two more had been appropriated by the Georgian Orthodox Church, which may now under the terms of the new law have to return them to the Church of Armenia. (In total there are more than 300 Armenian Orthodox churches in Georgia, of which only 40 are currently used by the Armenian Orthodox Church.) More here.

Tbilisi Marches Protest New Legislation on Religious Organizations

Large protest marches took place over the weekend in Tbilisi, Georgia, to protest the Georgian government's enactment of legislation allowing the country's minority religious organizations to register with the state. The marches, the largest in recent years, were fueled by concerns that southeastern Georgia's Armenian minority will use the new legislation to gain equality with ethnic Georgians and by the Sunday sermon of Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II (Gudushauri-Shiolashvili) of the Georgian Orthodox Church, who said the new laws "humiliated the Church" and those behind them would "definitely be punished." More here and here.

Georgian Opposition Joins Patriarchate in Calling for Repeal of Legislation on Religious Minorities

Georgian opposition parties are backing calls by the Georgian Orthodox Church to annul recent legislation granting legal status to five minority religious organizations present in Georgia, among them the Armenian Orthodox Church. Some opposition leaders have claimed the legislation, intended to protect the rights of Georgian citizens, inflame ethnic tensions, whilst others have begun calling for legislation that would grant the Georgian Orthodox Church official status as the country's state church. More here and here.

Georgian Parliament Passes Law Allowing Registration of Armenian Orthodox Diocese

The Georgian Parliament has finally passed a law to allow for the registration of Georgia's largest minority religious organizations, first among them the Armenian Orthodox Church's diocese in Georgia. Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II (Gudushauri-Shiolashvili) of the Georgian Orthodox Church opposed the new law, saying that national debates should be held to establish whether a majority of Georgians supported the measure. Georgian ultranationalists also opposed the law, saying that neighboring Armenia and Azerbaijan should be required to register the Georgian Orthodox Church in their countries first despite the miniscule size of their Georgian communities. More here and here.