Eastern churches
From RISU
The turf war over St Sophia’s* Cathedral, Kiev continues
The mother church of Ukrainian and all Russian Christendom, literally Byzantine (built by Greeks after St Vladimir’s conversion) but decorated with baroque finery (the cupolas: Ukrainian-style onion domes), still not a full-time working church because of this row. The furore ended up cancelling an exhibit of a copy of the Shroud of Turin: cui bono?

This year’s Chair of Unity Octave
Nice but again the UAOC and UOC-KP aren’t Orthodox but opportunistic schisms whose friendliness with the Ukrainian Catholic Church seems based at least partially on nationalism

And here’s a word from Newman on today’s Roman Rite liturgical feast that ends it.

Ukrainian president: Give St Nicholas, Kiev back to RCs
A fine Gothic church obviously built for the Roman Rite that had been turned over to secular use. Fair’s fair.

*Holy Wisdom, like the Greeks’ mother church in Constantinople, Hagia Sophia.