Attendance at club evenings regularly exceeds 120, and men tend to be outnumbered. Most women are practicing Orthodox Christians who come with the express goal of finding a husband . . . On a recent snowy Sunday, the 17th-century Dormition Church was drawing the evening service to a close. The ethereal chants that had for two hours entranced a standing congregation still echoed off the intricately... 

Turkish authorities will allow Koran readings at Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia, a former Christian church and mosque which now is a secular museum. Greece slammed the move, with some fearing that Erdogan’s government is taking steps to turn the site back into a mosque. Verses from the Islamic sacred book will be read at the Byzantine masterpiece daily during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan. The readings... 

A branch of Russia’s Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by a group of Muslims for the right of schoolgirls to wear traditional religious attire, specifically the hijab, in classrooms. The appeal was made by a group of citizens of Muslim faith from southern Russia’s Stavropol Region. They complained that a decree by the local administration ordering all schoolchildren to appear in classes only... 

Alaska’s capital city of Juneau A group of Russian Orthodox activists have filed a lawsuit against Washington aimed at taking back the state of Alaska from the US and returning it to Russia as the latter country’s sovereign territory. The ultraconservative religious group Pchyolki (Bees) filed the complaint in a Moscow arbitration court, in response to US President Barack Obama’s support for... 

People’s religious feelings must be respected, but Russia is a secular state, President Vladimir Putin stated in a comment on a recent controversy over a Russian school banning Muslim girls from attending classes while wearing a hijab. “We should see how our neighbors, European states deal with this issue [wearing hijabs]. And everything will become clear,” Putin said on Thursday, at a meeting...