The head of the World Council of Churches has welcomed Metropolitan Kyrill of as the new patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, highlighting his desire for positive global inter-church relations.

The murder of two Jesuit priests from Moscow's Catholic community in their apartment in central Moscow, just a block from the Russian capital's police HQ, is making church officials concerned about recent killings of clerics.

The death of a village priest, his wife and three small children in a mysterious fire has highlighted hardships that Russian Orthodox clergy face in isolated locations outside Moscow's bubble of wealth and power ‚Ä' writes Sophia Kishkovsky from Moscow for Ecumenical News International.