Cyprus has a special place in my heart, as I spent many years living there as I built up my professional legal, and later ecumenical, career.

We have recently passed the two-year anniversary of the Syrian uprising. What started as a series of peaceful demonstrations against a vicious dictatorship has been turned into a bloody war of Scud missiles and cluster bombs by the Assad regime against their opponents.

When people talk about Christians who hail from an Orthodox or Catholic background, the temptation at times here in the Protestant-influenced West (but not so much in other parts of the world) is to suppose that these are men and women who are not necessarily Scripture-based in their faith - and therefore somehow ‘not Christian enough’.

Like many people, I have spent some time in recent weeks caught up in the media-fest that has accompanied the election of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as the new Pope Francis.

Recently, Fr Vazken Movsesian, priest of the Armenian Orthodox Church in the USA, and wise guide to many followers and bloggers across five continents, reminded us of an instructive (and familiar) story.

Archbishop Louis Sako was elected the new Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon yesterday (1 February 2013).

Today (27 January 2013) is Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) with the theme “Communities Together: Build a Bridge”, when we remember the Nazi Holocaust as well as other acts of genocide in human history su

As many church leaders, organisations and individuals have learnt already, Archbishop Nourhan Manoogian was elected earlier today (24 January 2013) as the 97th patriarch of the Armenian Church in the Holy Land (Jordan, Israel and Palestine).

In a previous blog (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/17832), I noted the significant coincidence of Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States with the second inauguration of President Barack Obama ('Obama, MLK and the dream of a better world').

Many people know that today is an important day not only for the United States but also our world, since it is President Obama's second inauguration in Washington DC.