NEWS

Cyprus Joins European Union
Cyprus has been extended an invitation to join the European Union. The Archbishop of Athens and all Greece Christodoulos said in a written statement:
"Today Cyprus has crossed the threshold of the European Union. The fact has an indisputable and self-evident historical meaning."
See full text: httr://www.ecclesia.gr/english/enpressoffice/press_office.htm

Convent on the Future of Europe
Both large Churches in Germany have spoken out for a reference to God to be established in the planned European Constitution. The European Union should in a preamble declare its religious roots, says a joint statement by the Evangelical and Catholic Churches. The European understanding of people and the basis of values in the EU are essentially influenced by the Christian religion.
The Churches are also promoting that the church right of self-determination should be guaranteed at a European level and more opportunities for involvement should be granted to them. Protestants and Catholic German Churches emphasised that there would be more cooperation between the EU and the Churches due to the extension of the Union: "The Churches are a significant factor for life in the European Union". Therefore, the text of the constitution should also contain starting points for a "positive European religions law", that allows an involvement of the Churches and a dialogue based on partnerships with the organs of the EU.
In the document, the Churches' participation in European universities or in future European security forces such as the army and the police were named as concrete examples. Also, the social services of the Churches such as Caritas and Diakonie must be ensured and the religious holidays in the EU should be respected.
The Church leaders emphasise religious freedom, that every national State-Church relationship must remain inviolate and that the church right to self-determination beyond the statements in the Treaty of Amsterdam must be fundamentally recognised. Thus negative effects for the Churches through the activities of the EU should be avoided. In a statement to the concluding act of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the EU committed itself not to interfere in the historic relationship of State and Church in the member states.
In the revision of the EU Treaty, the churches should receive a special status according to the values bound into the Union. The "value consolidation" of the EU is not concluded with the basic rights Charter.
[Source: EKD News]

Present Orthodox Parish of Ghent (Belgium) Celebrates its 30th Anniversary.
On November 30th, 2002, the Orthodox Church of the Holy Apostle Andrew in Ghent (Belgium) celebrated its 30th anniversary. The first Christian missionaries to the Benelux arrived in the 3d century. The first Orthodox community in Ghent after 1054 was a parish consisting of students who had fled for the Russian Revolution. It only lasted for about 20 years. In 1972
a new Orthodox parish was started in Ghent, the result of a spiritual quest of three men: Andreas Knapen, Anton Van Bruaene, and Ignatios Peckstadt.
We are a Dutch-speaking parish (the majority language of Belgium), following the Slavonic tradition, under a Greek archbishop. Our parish has about 800 parishioners. At present, half of them is Belgian, the rest include a whole array of about 12 nationalities.
Two ("native") priests: Father Archpriest Ignatios Peckstadt and Father Dominikos Verbeke, serve the Church. Our parish has two churches: a small chapel and a new, larger Church, dating from 1997, both at Sophie Van Akenstraat in Ghent.
[Posted by Bertinos Genbrugge, Member of the Orthodox Church of Ghent,
Acting secretary of the “Orthodox Youth in Belgium/Syndesmos-Belgium”.]

Great Boost to Church
During the communist period in Bulgaria (1944-1989) Orthodoxy, Islam and Judaism used to get some amount of money from the state budget on a regular basis mainly to repair ancient places of worship, which attracted tourists.
This financial help was also one of the "proofs" for religious freedom in the country. In the last 13 years denominations got no money from the state, which, aggravated by mismanagement on behalf of their leaderships, brought the financial situation of the Orthodox Church especially to the brink of disaster.
On the 6th December 2002, St. Nicholas' Day, the economic committee of the Bulgarian parliament decided to introduce a change in the corporate tax law. According to it, businesses that donate up to 10% of their profit to denominations will have their taxes cut by the same amount of money. Only denominations registered by the state will be recipients of funds. The change became part of the law on 10th December 2002.
[Posted by Archim. Dr. Pavel Stefanov]

FEATURES
Questions About the Church's Role in Russia
It seems that the conception of religion-state relations in contemporary Russia is undergoing serious changes. The issue now is the Kadyrof-Zorin Report, which has already produced a lot of arguments.
The Report has been prepared for a joint session of the Security Council, State Council, and Council for Relations with Religious Organizations of the presidential administration.
More than thirty government employees, under the leadership of Akhmad Kadyrov and Minister Vladimir Zorin, have worked on it.
The Report, whose formal subject is "religious extremism in Russia”, has in fact outlawed not only cults and sects but also the Catholics, and the Protestants. Although the Moscow Patriarchate declares that it is opposed "establishmentarianism", fears to express that the Church moves in controlling the activity of every Christian and even of the Orthodox Church, which is not under the authority of the Moscow Patriarchate.
At the beginning of perestroika the phrase "the church is separated from the state but not from society" was widely accepted. But the dialogue between church and society never occurred. Not only Liberals, but Orthodox too, find it difficult to have a common language with zealots. Who does really want to get into a dialogue with people who continually speak about a "secret world conspiracy against Orthodox Russian Church", and ask for the imposition of censorship?
Russian media frequently report that zealots' organizations find full support from the Patriarchate. On the contrary, priests who have not follow zealots’ rhetoric are subjected to forms of repression. It seems that the nomenclature wants to have Orthodoxy as the new state ideology. The Kadyrov-Zorin Report is precisely reproducing the ways and rhetorical figures of the zealots.
[Based on reports from Russia Religious News]
Teaching Orthodox Culture in Russian Schools
Russian media reports that plans to include the foundation of Orthodox culture course in Russian schools cannot be implemented because of a lack of qualified teachers. There are hundreds of thousands of schools in Russia but only about 20,000 Orthodox priests, most of who have no teaching experience. Patriarch Aleksii II has said more than once that "a father should be a preacher; teachers should teach." A "Novye izvestiya" reporter visited one Moscow school and found that only one teacher out of 35 on staff considered he qualified to teach such a class. However, he said he would decline to take on the subject because of his extensive workload. He added that a neighboring school does not even teach history because there is no qualified teacher on staff.

Marry Christmas