Stephen K. Batalden is a history professor at Arizona State University in Tempe. He is the editor of Seeking God: The Recovery of Religious Identity in Orthodox Russia, Ukraine and Georgia.

George Dion Dragas is professor of patrology/patristics at Hellenic College and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Mass.

James Childress is the John Allen Hollingsworth Professor of Ethics in the department of religious studies at the University of Virginia. His research interests include religious ethics, social and political ethics, biomedical ethics and methods in ethics.

Read a Feb. 1, 2009, New York Times story on the installation of a new patriarch for the Russian Orthodox Church. He was the first patriarch elected since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Read an April 2009 National Geographic story on the new Russian Orthodox Church rising after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Lara Medina is an associate professor of Chicano and Chicana studies with an interest in politics and religion at California State University, Northridge. She wrote Las Hermanas: Chicana/Latina Religious-Political Activism in the U.S. Catholic Church.

John García is a research professor at the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan. His research interests are minority group politics, especially Latinos; political behavior; political mobilization; urban politics; social survey research; and public policy-health. He wrote Latino Politics in America: Community, Culture and Interests.

Rabbi Eliyahu Yaakov discusses Jewish views on the concept of God’s revenge in this May 2 essay at Patheos.com.

The Dalai Lama’s aides clarified his statements on Osama bin Laden’s death and said the Buddhist leader believes bin Laden deserves “compassion.”