Every second Saturday of the month, Divine Liturgy in English of Sunday - Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Family, Duke Street, London W1K 5BQ.
4pm Divine Liturgy. Next: 13th November 2021

Very sadly, the Divine Liturgy in English at 9-30 am on Sundays at the Holy Family Cathedral, Lower Church, have had to be put on hold. Until the practicalities we cannot use the Lower Church space. Hopefully this will be resolved very soon. Please keep checking in here for details.

Owing to public health guidance, masks should still be worn indoors and distance maintained. Sanitisers are available. Holy Communion is distributed in both kinds from the mixed and common chalice, by means of a separate Communion spoon for each individual communicant.

To purchase The Divine Liturgy: an Anthology for Worship (in English), order from the Sheptytsky Institute here, or the St Basil's Bookstore here.

To purchase the Divine Praises, the Divine Office of the Byzantine-Slav rite (in English), order from the Eparchy of Parma here.

The new catechism in English, Christ our Pascha, is available from the Eparchy of the Holy Family and the Society. Please email johnchrysostom@btinternet.com for details.

Sunday 15 December 2013

Turkey: Pressure mounts for Hagia Sophia to be converted into mosque | Christian News on Christian Today

"We currently stand next to the Hagia Sophia mosque," so said Turkey's deputy prime minister, Bulent Arinc last month during a dedication of a museum of Caucasus rugs and carpets next to the Istanbul landmark, according to the Religion News Service (RNS).

This speech was one in a line of recent statements, from offhand remarks to outright demands that the Hagia Sophia (also known as the "Church of Saint Wisdom" or "Divine Wisdom") be converted from a museum and local attraction back into a mosque.

"We are looking at a sad Hagia Sophia but hopefully we will see it smiling again soon," Arinc added.
One of the imams of the nearby Sultan Ahmet Mosque (locally known as the 'Blue Mosque') also reportedly preached a sermon that said its conversion must take place.

Although this has been an ongoing concern for many years, recent events have brought the issue into sharper focus. A campaign from the National Turkish Student Association has been targeting the issue aggressively in recent months. Also, there have been a number of successful recent attempts to convert former Byzantine churches into mosques. Arinc, in his speech, mentioned two churches that had recently been converted, one in Trabzon in the northeast and another in Iznik near Istanbul.

The most notable case of this however has yet to be completed, the Monastery of Stoudios, the largest Byzantine church in Istanbul, which will be converted into a mosque next year.

Engin Akyurek, a professor of Byzantine art at Istanbul University, has said in an RNS article this would be a disastrous loss to history. "To use this building for some function, a mosque or anything else, would mean to reconstruct almost 80% of the building … it will not be a fifth-century building anymore. It will be a catastrophe for that building."

Read the full report here:
Turkey: Pressure mounts for Hagia Sophia to be converted into mosque | Christian News on Christian Today

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