Religion

The Balkan country of Montenegro seceded from neighbouring Serbia in 2006 after a referendum. However, around 30 per cent of the country's 620,000 inhabitants still consider themselves Serb. The main Montenegrin church also remained attached to the Serbian Orthodox tradition. The Serbian Orthodox Church is still the dominant religious institution in the Balkan country, with 70 per cent of Christians affiliated with it. This connection with Serbia regularly leads to tensions within the country.

Whilst Taliban fighters made themselves at home at the presidential office in Kabul, and in other government offices across the capital, the leadership of the Taliban appears to be still concentrated in the city of Kandahar, in the South of the country, the power base of this mainly Pashtun movement. It was to there that the Taliban’s co-founder and political leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, flew to from Doha on Tuesday as the militants pledged peaceful relations with other countries and respect for the rights of women.

Over the last years, France has faced criticism for its perceived stance against Islam. In this commentary for commonspace.eu, Camille Victor suggests that this stems from a misunderstanding of France's unique interpretation of secularism, arguing that the preservation of the French secular model requires finding ways to appease rising tensions whilst simultaneously acting against very real threats to the country's core republican values.

Pope Francis will today (1 July) meet in the Vatican with ten Lebanese Christian leaders to reflect on the dire economic and political situation in their country, which he hopes to visit soon.

In a move that is likely to cause considerable irritation in Kiev, the Georgian Orthodox Church on Monday (7 June) hosted a delegation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that is loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate. Ilia II, the Georgian Orthodox Church Patriarch, and his locum tenens, Metropolitan Shio met the delegation led by Bishop Antony on Monday (7 June).