Vladimir Rozanskij

After 70 years of communism, churches are being rebuilt. There is a return to the ancient, but also attempts to reread tradition and open it up to the contemporary world. Some examples.

The feast of Mary "Vsetsaritsa" is celebrated at the end of August. Miraculous healings of cancer patients and people infected with AIDS. A prayer for doctors to "become an instrument of the Almighty Doctor, Christ our Savior". The bishop-doctor Luka, who worked for many years in Soviet lagers, stated that without deep faith people indulge in depression.

On the feast the "metamorphosis" from paganism to Christianity is remembered. Even the social changes of the revolution are seen as a "taboric renewal". Patriarch Kirill in St. Petersburg,

A day center in Moscow to assist 15 people contemporarily. An exception to the ban on all non-profit organizations. Bishop Panteleimon: Drug addicts, truly needy. In Russia there are about 500 thousand drug addicts.

The "walks on the boulevards" continue in Moscow in opposition to the exclusion of opposition candidates in the city’s elections. Next Saturday a rally of 30,000 people is expected. Russia’s Foreign Ministry slams Washington, Western governments and media. Security forces suspect the presence of Islamic State group members. Saint George, Moscow’s symbol, is reinterpreted.

Kyrgyz and Chinese workers clash leaving 40 people injured. A sit-in in front of the Chinese company for the government to withdraw the mining license. High technology and corruption privilege Chinese contractors.

More "walks" (unauthorized events) and new arrests planned for August 10. The protest was born from demand that all opposition candidates be guaranteed place in municipal elections, but it has become a movement of intolerance towards Putin. Thousands of arrests, use of batons and tear gas, fingerprinting and DNA, phones seized, internet blocked. But the bold and provocative attitude of young people grows.

In the same territory the Church linked to Moscow, the autocephalous Church of Epifanyj and that of the non-canonical patriarchate of Filaret oppose each other. Ostentatious the celebrations of the pro-Russians attract about 300 thousand faithful. Exhibition of miraculous icons and relics. Epifanyj wishes to offer a "Romanian vicariate" in Bucovina. The recognition of the autocephalous Church by Greeks and Romanians is awaited. The patriarchate of Filaret is outlawed.

In Tunisia, lay people and Islamists mourn the death of their president. But in Algeria and Turkey fatwas are launched to prohibit his burial in a Muslim cemetery. For fundamentalist Islamists, Essebsi is "guilty" of privileging a secular constitution against Sharia. His legacy is the bill for the equal rights of men and women in inheritance law.

At least 100 young people have escaped police charges. The sacred place is the meeting point of the most ecumenical and open Orthodox. The priests are almost all disciples of Father Aleksandr Men ’,“ spiritual father ”of dissent against the Soviet regime of the 1960s and 70s. One of them, Fr. Ioann (aka Giovanni Guaita), is an Italian Catholic "convert" to orthodoxy who became a priest. Alexei Navalny hospitalized for a "severe allergic reaction".

The pontiff awarded the star of the lyric of the Grand Cross of the Pontifical Order of Saint Sylvester and celebrated her 35th birthday with her family. Kasyan, called "the new Callas" has invited the pontiff to Russia.

Inside Kyrgyzstan there are two Tajik and four Uzbek enclaves. Land, water, illegal border crossings and inter-ethnic rivalries have sparked conflict. In addition, members of terrorist groups linked to the Islamic State have also moved into the region.