ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 28, 1996 TAG: 9602280079
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
Churches break ties in dramatic gesture
In a dramatic gesture, the Russian Orthodox Church has broken its ties with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in Turkey, setting the largest church in Eastern Orthodox Christianity against Orthodoxy's highest ranking authority and symbolic center.
The break, the product of the same national conflicts that have bloodied the political life of Eastern Europe since the collapse of Communism, was sealed last Sunday, when Patriarch Aleksei II of Moscow, celebrating a Divine Liturgy at Moscow's Cathedral of the Epiphany with 50 other Russian Orthodox bishops,riteDivine Liturgy.
This was the first time in 1000 years, a statement from the Moscow Patriarchate said, that the Russian Orthodox Church had refused to commemorate the Patriarch in Constantinople, now Istanbul.
- New York Times
Serbs withdraw, sanctions are lifted
UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations suspended sanctions against the Bosnian Serbs on Tuesday after NATO verified that Serb forces had withdrawn from buffer zones.
The economic sanctions were imposed in 1994 after Bosnian Serbs rejected an international peace plan.
- Associated Press
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