While Protestant, Anglican and Catholic Christians have just finished celebrating the major Easter festival and are looking towards Pentecost, for some the season is still heading towards its Sunday climax.

Lebanon-based Armenian Orthodox leader Aram I has at a Vatican meeting with Pope Benedict XVI proposed that the world's churches set a common date for Easter, when Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos, seen by many of the world's Orthodox Christians as their spiritual leader, has said he backs the bid by Turkey to join the European Union if the Muslim-majority nation meets human rights standards.

The French cleric who heads the main grouping of Anglican, Orthodox and Protestant Christian denominations in Europe has proposed the creation of a Council of European Churches that would also include the Roman Catholic Church.