International Orthodox Christian News

1)Light shines on a Greek Orthodox priest as he conducts prayers Christianity's holiest shrine, Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre, as Orthodox Christians mark Easter Day.


2)At the Jerusalem church, on the site where Jesus is said to have been buried, Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theofilos III led ceremonies.

3)Some 10,000 pilgrims in Jerusalem's Old City crammed into the church - which is shared by six Christian denominations - for the Holy Fire Ritual.


4)This woman made it into the sacred site, but another 30,000 remained outside amid tight security by Israeli police.


5)Greek Orthodox and other Eastern rite Christians this year mark Easter a week after Protestants and Catholics because the Orthodox Church follows a different calendar.


6)Easter has been marked across the Orthodox world. In Kiev, Ukraine, a woman in white appears like a ghostly apparition during a candle-lit procession.


7)Services were held across Eastern Europe, this one in Tuzla, Bosnia.

8)In the Egyptian capital Cairo, Pope Shenouda III celebrated the Coptic Easter Mass. The Church of Alexandria in Egypt has an estimated 58 million members worldwide.
9)Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (C) and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (R) joined a service at this Moscow cathedral. Russia's Orthodox Church has grown in power since the Soviet Union fell.

10)And in neighbouring Georgia a lady lights a candle in the capital Tbilisi, where President Mikhail Saakashvili also attended a service with his family.
11)Easter marks the holiest feast in the Christian calendar. The candles in this photo of a procession outside a cathedral in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia look like neon streaks.


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