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Author
Joachin Meisner Hertz
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Articles By Joachin Meisner Hertz

Persecuted Christians•Religious Freedom

Between Cross and Power: Persecution, Propaganda, and the Cost of Faith in Russian-Controlled Territories

Two episodes, distinct in geography but closely linked in context, illustrate a pattern that is drawing increasing concern among observers of religious freedom: the death in custody of a Christian blogger in Russia, and the seizure of a Catholic church in occupied Ukraine during one of the most sacred moments of the Christian calendar

Good News•Local Church

The world’s largest Orthodox cathedral is inaugurated: one of its most important benefactors was Saint John Paul II

When Pope John Paul II visited Romania in 1999 — the first papal visit to an Orthodox-majority country since the Great Schism — he donated $200,000 to support the construction of the future national cathedral. The funds were later used to help purchase the cathedral’s bells, manufactured in Austria and blessed in 2018

Dicasteries•Homosexuality•Local Church

Vatican contradicts German bishops: text for blessing same-sex couples was not approved

Bishop Georg Bätzing, head of the DBK, has repeatedly defended the initiative. At the September assembly, he told journalists the document had been produced “in transparent consultation with the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith” (DDF), portraying it as a contextual application of the Vatican’s 2023 declaration Fiducia supplicans