International News

Ghosts among Afghan "dancing boys" (updated)

Pardon me for taking a long-needed trip into my GetReligion folder of guilt to deal with a riveting Washington Post story. Several readers sent me notes about and I promised I would get to it sooner or later. This is later and I know that.


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Orthodox lay presidency at the Eucharist?

Reuters has a dispatch from Athens on the difficulties the Greek financial collapse is causing the Orthodox Church. The article entitled “Crisis proves a curse for Greece’s Orthodox Church” will appear in various forms in newspapers and websites this weekend and I encourage you to read it, as it provides a strong account of the hardships facing the Church.


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Iranian truths, Iranian lies

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called upon Iran last week not to proceed with its nuclear weapons program, warning that deployment of atomic weapons by Teheran would destabilize the Middle East, a story prepared by AFP reported.


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Koran-Offensive in Die Welt

Who says the Germans don’t do comedy well? An article in a recent issue of Die Welt — “Koran-Offensive alarmiert Deutschlands Parteien” shows this not to be so. As I read the article, which tip-toes round the issue of radical Islam in Germany, my mind harkened back to an episode of the television series Seinfeld.


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Seeing the bigger Orthodox picture at Pascha

Believe it or not, Orthodox Christians do return to church during the daylight hours on Pascha Sunday, even after the glorious 3-hour-plus liturgical siege that is our midnight celebration of the Resurrection of Christ.


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"Poisonous" Catholic reporting from La Stampa

Sometimes a story is too good to be true. A story with sympathetic victims, righteous heroes, dastardly villains and an issue that all agree is important, but yet is remote to the reader — something that doesn’t touch me — makes a reporter’s day.


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Correction please on The Atlantic's lol Kony report

Earlier this week, a reader sent us a “slightly alarmist” piece from The Atlantic on a Christian sect driving Africa. Can you guess what might be “The Upstart Christian Sect Driving Invisible Children”? Wait for it: the emerging church. That’s right. The movement that no one is talking about anymore.


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The case of the wandering Russian watch

As I write, the hammer is falling on a hapless editor in the offices of the Moscow Patriarchate for airbrushing a watch off of the wrist of Patriarch Cyril. The doctored photo of Cyril and the disappearing watch has been a gift to the Moscow press corps, prompting a flurry of arch and knowing stories written at the expense of the Russian Orthodox Church.


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