Pope Leo XIV will visit Turkey and Lebanon next month on his first foreign trip as pope.

The sun came out as Ukrainians marked Orthodox Easter in Kyiv with prayers for those fighting on the front lines and others trapped beyond them.

Greece’s prime minister says he has tested positive for COVID-19 and will be self-isolating at home, a day after meeting in Istanbul with Turkey’s President Recep Tayip Erdogan and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, considered the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians.

Tulane University in New Orleans is delaying the start of its spring semester because of the latest surge in coronavirus cases, and another private school says students must get booster shots before returning.

The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is visiting Ukraine to attend the festivities marking the 30th anniversary of its declaration of independence.

A defrocked Greek Orthodox priest has been charged with multiple counts of causing grievous bodily harm over an acid attack that injured seven senior bishops and three other people.

A meeting aimed to improve fraught ties between NATO allies Greece and Turkey quickly descended into a tense exchange of accusations between the two countries’ foreign ministers on Thursday.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, right, speaks with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, before departing the Patriarchal Church of St. George in Istanbul, Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, Pool)ISTANBUL – U.S. State Secretary Mike Pompeo met Tuesday with the Istanbul-based spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians during a short trip to Turkey that has raised the ire of Turkish officials and includes no meetings with any of them. They said meetings had been sought but Turkish officials were unable to come to Istanbul from the capital of Ankara during the time Pompeo will be there. Turkish media reports said Turkish officials were giving Pompeo the cold-shoulder, after he allegedly refused to travel to the capital to pay an official visit. A senior Turkish Foreign Ministry official would not comment on the reports or say why Pompeo wasn’t meeting with Turkish officials.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks during a media briefing, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2020, at the State Department in Washington. The top U.S. diplomat plans to discuss religious issues in Turkey and to promote “our strong stance on religious freedom around the world,” the statement read. Turkey’s Foreign Ministry rebuked the statement “as extremely inappropriate,” insisting that the country protects the rights of citizens of various faiths to freely practice their religions. The move led to accusations that the Turkish leader was trying to erase Orthodox Christians' cultural heritage. Turkey is also under pressure to reopen a Greek Orthodox theological school that was shut down in 1971.

Pope Francis lights a candle for peace during an inter-religious ceremony for peace in the square outside Rome's City Hall, Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2020 (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)ROME – A masked Pope Francis welcomed religious leaders to a socially-distanced interfaith peace prayer Tuesday, appealing for a unified international effort to work for peace and an end to the coronavirus pandemic. “The pandemic is reminding us that we are blood brothers and sisters,” they said in a joint appeal issued at the end of the service. For weeks, Francis has shunned facemasks in his public and private audiences despite a surge in COVID-19 cases across Italy and even inside Vatican City. The service was organized by the Rome-based Sant’Egidio Community, which each year organizes an interfaith peace prayer in the spirit of the first one of its kind, celebrated by St. John Paul II in Assisi in 1986. In the past week 11 Swiss Guards and a resident of the hotel where Francis lives have tested positive.