Meanwhile, the spiritual leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Istanbul, also intervened.

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Despite the attacks, Orthodox Christians in Serbia celebrated Dukhovi, the third-holiest day in the Eastern Orthodox calendar.

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I'm a convert to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and we Eastern Orthodox Christians are going through our Lent now.

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Members of the Eastern Orthodox church have been offended by the attempts of the Catholic church to proselytise in Russia.

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But he also reached out to the Eastern Orthodox Churches and spoke up for Christians persecuted in the Middle East.

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Meanwhile, intellectual figures like Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishop Richard Chartres of London both influenced by eastern Orthodox theology have provided new tools for Christian thinking about the planet.

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He apologised to Jews for Catholic passivity during the Holocaust, prayed at a Syrian mosque and took steps to heal the rift between Catholics and adherents of the various eastern Orthodox churches.

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Their Church split from the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches in 451AD because of a theological dispute over the nature of Christ but is now, on most issues, doctrinally similar to the Eastern Orthodox Church.

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With an inter-confessional divide pitting Orthodox Serbs and Greeks against Muslim Bosnians and Turks looming in south-eastern Europe, Albania stands out as a country where Muslims (who form a slight majority), Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians get along reasonably well.

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