Faith · Society · People
Pope Leo XIV votes by post in the US midterm elections Americans hold midterm elections halfway through the four-year presidential term. They elect the entire House of Representatives, a third of the Senate, and also the governors and legislators of many states. Leo XIV, otherwise Robert Francis Prevost, holds
Architecture · Faith · Art
The Rio del Santissimo di Santo Stefano in Venice is a canal that runs literally beneath the apse of the Gothic church of Santo Stefano. The arch under the church is so low that the canal is impassable at high tide or during high water. The church itself was completed
The East · Archive · Faith · Books · Ethnography
Let me tell you about an interesting book. The University of Nebraska Press has published Tilton and Grace Entoka: An Osage Story by the writer Anthony Lookout. The Osage are one of the indigenous peoples of North America; the book is devoted to Native storytellers and appears in the series
The East · Faith · Society · Ethnography
Israeli border guards refused to admit the American rabbi Alissa Wise at the airport and put her on a plane back to the United States. Wise had been leading a delegation of rabbis who were travelling to the West Bank of the Jordan River to help Palestinians gather the olive
In the Press · Faith · Observations · Society
Church advised to cull its bishops to avoid ruin So ran the ironic headline in a recent issue of The Times, which summarised the report "Wasted Money in a Shrinking Church", written by the theologian Canon Robin Gill, a former adviser to the Archbishops of Canterbury Robert Runcie
Faith · Art · Museums
The alabaster statuette "Saint with an Open Book", first quarter of the 16th century, from the collection of the Louvre, at the exhibition "The Moulins Triptych" in the Monastery of Brou in Bourg-en-Bresse. The sculpture originally comes from the collection of the Marchesa Arconati-
The East · Architecture · Faith · Heritage · Society
A visit to the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul has turned into a rather melancholy affair. In 1934, by decree of Atatürk, the cathedral became a museum open to all, and in July 2020 the Turkish government restored the building's status as a working mosque, yet for
Faith · Art · Museums · Heritage
The "Moulins Triptych" by Jean Hey, created between 1498 and 1502. A masterpiece of the French Renaissance, held in the collection of the Cathedral of Moulins, it was restored between 2022 and 2025, after which it was shown at the Louvre in the Richelieu Gallery; the triptych is
Faith · Books
- And there's no cross round your neck - A cross? We bear our cross on our backs Leonid Andreyev
Archaeology · Faith · London · Science
The British archaeologist Warwick Rodwell, consultant to Westminster Abbey, has published a study of a skeleton that lay for many years in a Roman stone sarcophagus in the Abbey. The sarcophagus was made of limestone in the 3rd or 4th century AD. The Latin inscription on it states that the
Archaeology · Faith · People
Patriarch Kirill has blessed the recognition of the remains discovered at the Krestitelskoye Cemetery in Oryol as the holy relics of Athanasius of Oryol. The Church canonised Athanasius on 14 May 2026 as a holy fool and confessor. Athanasius was born in 1887 in the village of Danichevo in the
The East · In the Press · Faith · Cinema · Books · Society
I have read a piece on how Hollywood cinema makes use of the Ramayana, the ancient Indian epic in Sanskrit which tradition ascribes to the poet Valmiki. The epic tells of the exile of Prince Rama, the abduction of his wife Sita by the demon Ravana, and her rescue. In