"St. Valentine's Day: The Feast of Debauchery"

The Kiev Patriarchate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has jumped on the bandwagon in Russia and the Ukraine condemning the celebration of St. Valentine's day in any way by Orthodox Christians in the former member republics of the Soviet Union.

The article against the holiday posted on the Kiev Patriarchate's website goes into the history of St. Valentine's day celebrations and its pagan equivalent in detail and uses the pagan holiday as a primary reason for forbidding the observance of St. Valentine's day, something rather ironic given how many pagan customs have been christianized in historic Orthodox Christian countries to combat and supplant pagan practices and festivals. Apparently such things are appropriate when done in the ancient Christian East, but not the ancient Christian West.

The Ukrainian-language article by Stepan Voznyak posted on the Kiev Patriarchate's website, "St. Valentine's Day: The Feast of Debauchery," can be found here.

Bulgarian Orthodox Protest Restoring Apollo Statue

Metropolitan Joannicius of Sliven of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church is strongly protesting the proposal of authorities in the seaside town of Sozopol to restore a 13-meter high statue of the pagan god Apollo that used to stand at the entrance to the town's harbor. The town was the site of the rediscovery of relics of St. John the Baptist over the summer, but is now the center of a controversy over Apollo's statue, which the town's mayor thinks will resemble the statue of Christ in Rio de Janeiro. More here.

"Calculating Christmas" by W.J. Tighe

A great article by William Tighe on the reasoning behind the date of the Lord's Nativity and more recent claims that it was fixed on 25 December/7 January to absorb a preexisting pagan Roman sun festival can be found here.