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Browsing: Middle East

Source: Christian Daily by Lorraine Caballero While Christian leaders hold an important role in protecting Christian presence in the Middle East, Orthodox Church Patriarch Theophilos III said Muslims also hold this moral obligation. In an exclusive interview with The Jordan Times, Patriarch Theophilos said it is high time for Christian leaders in the Middle East to realize their responsibility and obligation to encourage Christian presence in the region. He urged the spiritual heads to unite in encouraging the remaining Christians to stay in their homelands, especially at a time when migration and forced displacement are threatening to erase Christianity in the…

Source: Pravoslavie.ru Oleg Glagolev, Igumen Arseny (Sokolov) Igumen Arseny (Sokolov), representative of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia at the Patriarch of Antioch and All East, Rector of the Representation of the Russian Orthodox Church in Beirut, answers questions from the Yekaterinburg-based S-T-O-L (Stol.com) media-project. —Fr. Arseny, now you serve in the hottest spot on the Earth. Please, tell us of the present situation of the Orthodox Church in Lebanon and Syria. How many priests, parishioners, monasteries, convents and churches do they have? Which churches and historic places are the most popular? —The Church of Antioch has several dioceses…

Source: Breaking Israel News By Raphael Poch “Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord . . . ” (Isaiah 1:4). In an anti-Christian incident which has largely gone unnoticed, the St. Charbel (Maar Charbel) Monastery in Bethlehem was attacked and burned down on September 26th. The monastery is located in the Wadi Maali neighborhood of the city where King David was born and is the reputed birthplace of Jesus. As a result of the fire, several rooms on the church’s second floor were completely destroyed. No one…

Source: Raymond Ibrahim – Islam Translated This article was written for RaymondIbrahim.com by Ralph Sidway, an Orthodox Christian researcher and writer, and author of Facing Islam: What the Ancient Church has to say about the Religion of Muhammad. He operates the Facing Islam blog. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church has announced it will help migrants who have arrived in Bulgaria, but has urged authorities not to let any more migrants in, clarifying sharp differences between Eastern European Christian nations and Western secular/post-Christian responses to the mass Muslim refugee crisis. It is very interesting that most Orthodox and Eastern Christian bishops have shown great restraint in…

Source: Radio Canada International Mid-East persecution: Leader of Syriac Orthodox Church visits Canada By Marc Montgomery The 123rd successor of St Peter in the Apostolic See of Antioch is set to visit Canada for his first visit starting this weekend. His Holiness, Mor Ignatius Aphrem II, Patriarch of Antioch and All the East and Supreme Head of the Universal Syriac Orthodox Church will visit Toronto and then Montreal. Fate of Christians in middle east The theme of his visit however is of great seriousness.  He will be speaking about the deteriorating conditions for Christians in Syria, Iraq and other parts…

Source: Russian Orthodox Church Department for External Church Relations (DECR) On May 2, 2015, Metropolitan Hilarion as presenter of the Church and the World TV program had as his guest the chairman of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society Sergey Stepashin. Metropolitan Hilarion: Good afternoon, dear brothers and sisters. Christ is Risen! In these Paschal days, the mental eyes of many Orthodox faithful are directed to the Holy Land, the places where our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ lived on earth. Today we will speak about the Holy Land, the Middle East and Palestine with the chairman of the Imperial Orthodox…

Source: Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America NEW YORK – The Holy Eparchial Synod of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, that convened for its regularly scheduled Spring meeting, Apr. 20-22, issued the following statement regarding recent tragic events in North Africa and the Middle East. STATEMENT by the Holy Eparchial Synod of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America on Recent Tragic Events in North Africa and the Middle East Every day we learn of people’s suffering throughout the world and it is easy to become desensitized to the pain and affliction caused in various circumstances and in…

Source: Catholic Herald by Ed West Prince Charles has a new obsession as strong as his passions for ecology and architecture. He is refusing to stand idly by as Christians are driven out of the Middle East. Who is the most formidable defender of persecuted Christians in the world today? Many would nominate Pope Francis, who has offered thunderous denunciations of attacks on the faithful ever since his election. But another candidate is emerging: the surprising figure of the future king of England. The media have barely noticed that the Prince of Wales has a new obsession, as powerful as…

Source: Lebanon Wire By Rupert Shortt*, The Independent The beheading of 21 Coptic Christians in Libya by forces sympathetic to Islamic State over recent days is sadly not an isolated case. On the contrary, it is the latest of countless outrages perpetrated against Christians in or near the Church’s Biblical heartlands over many years. The latest victims were migrant workers from Upper Egypt. The announcement by the authorities in Cairo of retaliatory bombing raids on terrorist training camps in Libya should not blind us to an inconvenient truth – that more than 600,000 Christians have left Egypt over the past…

Source: Get Religion by Terry Mattingly What can be said about the images that are coming out of Libya, in that hellish Islamic State video showing the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians – explicitly for their faith and their connection to “crusaders”? This is a story with so much religious imagery and language in it that there is no way for journalists to avoid the ghosts. Religion News Service, and some other news outlets, are using a very important quote from Pope Francis: “The blood of our Christian brothers is a witness that cries out,” Francis said in off-the-cuff remarks…

Source: The Algemeiner JNS.org – Israeli Arab Christians in Jaffa marked the beginning of the Christmas season in the Holy Land with an annual Christmas tree lighting celebration earlier this week. At the gathering in the ancient port city adjacent to Tel Aviv, men dressed up as Santa Claus met children, sang Christmas carols and lit fireworks. Orthodox Christian leaders also addressed the crowd of Jewish, Muslim and Christian onlookers, using the occasion to promote unity between the three faiths. “This is the best example for all the citizens of Israel to see how people can do things that we can…

Source: The Tablet by James Roberts The Prince of Wales this week followed up his impassioned plea for religious freedom at the 4 November launch of an Aid to the Church in the Need report on persecution, with a visit to St Yeghichè’s Armenian church in South Kensington, London. April next year marks the hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the genocide by the Ottoman Government against the Armenian population, in which 1.5 million were killed. Some of those who escaped fled to Syria, and the visit by the Prince of Wales comes as the descendants of those who fled…