[ditty_news_ticker id="27897"] August, 2014 - Orthodox Christian Laity - Page 2
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Monthly Archives: August, 2014

Source: The National Herald BY ANDRE GEROLYMATOS Torture, rape, murder and mass killing – it is not a page from the Roman Empire or the Ottoman Turks; but life for Christians under the current Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Shockingly, crucifying Christians, forcing them to pay a head tax to keep their lives, destroying religious structures, are daily practices in Iraq and Syria. This is the first time that terrorists have acquired a physical space where they can practice their perverted versions of Islam. Indeed, finally George W. Bush and his associates can say there is truly a…

Source: Interfax Moscow, August 15, Interfax – Members of far-right groups disrupted a religious service being conducted by Priest Vladimir Navozenko at the Church of the Holy Intercession in the village of Chervonaya Motovilovka outside of Kiev.A video posted on YouTube shows several dozen people entering the church holding Ukrainian flags and symbols of the far-right party Svoboda (Freedom) and the Radical Party led by Ukrainian MP Oleg Lyashko.They insulted Father Vladimir, accused him of “supporting the terrorists” and Russia and threatened to punish him for that. The nationalists gave him one week to leave the village.One of the women who came together with…

Source: The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America The recent wave of violence against innocent families and children in Iraq has rendered the world shocked and horrified. We will not remain indifferent or silent before such irrational persecution, cultural intolerance and appalling loss of life, especially when it is caused by religious hatred and racial hostility. The targeting of tens of thousands of Christians (including Arameans, Chaldeans, and Assyrians) and other religious minorities (including Turkmens, Yazidis, and Kurds) can never be justified in the name of any religious creed or conviction. What we are witnessing before…

Source: First Things by Mark Movsesian This past weekend, the United States began to intervene in the humanitarian crisis unfolding in northern Iraq. The Islamist group ISIS has made a lightning conquest of much of the region, persecuting religious minorities, and even some Sunni Muslims, everywhere it goes. In response, the U.S. has begun air drops of food and water to up to 40,000 Yazidi refugees stranded on Mt. Sinjar, where ISIS militants have them surrounded. And the U.S. undertook airstrikes against ISIS positions threatening the Kurdish city of Erbil, where hundreds of American advisers are stationed. Other Western nations…

Source: Christian Today by Ruth Gledhill Severe conditions in Gaza are leaving the struggling Christian community open to the temptations of “an extremism which does not differentiate between race and religion,” warns a report today. Christians in Gaza have been prevented from visiting holy sites in Bethlehem and Jerusalem since 2007, which disrupts their ability to uphold their religious faith, in contrast to other Christians from around the world who are freely able to visit these sites. Their number has declined by nearly a fifth in under two decades, according to the first ever survey of the small embattled population.…

Source: The National Herald ATHENS – Greece’s major opposition party leader, Alexis Tsipras of the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) is back from a two-day visit of the monastic community of Mount Athos, located in Halkidiki Peninsula, northern Greece. Tsipras and his aides left via a Coast Guard vessel at the Monastery of Xenofontos harbour, after having attended the morning mass and had a meal with the monks. The Abbot of the monastery Alexios and the monks saw Tsipras and his associates off. Tsipras was accompanied by his office director Nikos Pappas, SYRIZA MP and the party’s parliamentary group…

Editor’s Note: First Open Forum of Clergy and Laity at the Assembly of Bishops September 15, 2014 is the first meeting of Bishops, Clergy and Laity in an Open Forum related to developing a blueprint for a unified Orthodox Church in the USA.  The “Clergy-Laity gathering” will take place following a doxology at Holy Trinity Church, Dallas,Texas.   The bishops will welcome questions and answers from those gathered to exchange ideas.  The Very Reverend Archimandrite Dr. Nathanael Symeonides, Director of Inter-Orthodox, Ecumenical & Interfaith Relations for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of  America, will moderate the Forum.  His email is: [email protected]. Father Christopher Constantinides is the…

Source: The Christian Post By Dan Wooding/ Assist News Faced with a widening crisis over the spread of the deadly Ebola virus in Sierra Leone, a courageous rock star turned missionary, Fr. Themi Adams, has cancelled a fund-raising trip to Australia, to be with his flock of about 3,000 families in Freetown, the country’s capital city, to see them through the terrifying spread of the virus. At the same time, Sierra Leone’s government said on Tuesday that it would deploy hundreds of troops and police officers to ensure that patients and family members who may be infected remain isolated. The…

Source: The American Conservative By ROD DREHER A friend passed on to me a must-listen Fresh Air interview with Jason Hamacher, an American punk drummer who went to Syria just before the war to record ancient Sufi and Christian liturgical music. From the transcript: And then two days later, the Archbishop of the United States for the Syrian Orthodox church emailed me from Teaneck, New Jersey. He was very supportive and said that he did not have the music I was looking for but had music that was similar, that was of a different practice, inside the Orthodox church.…

Source: Orthodox Christian Network World Council of Arameans, Beirut: Last night, two Aramean children and a mother were killed as a result of a shameless attack by ISIS terrorists against Baghdeda (Qaraqosh) in North Iraq. At the same time, in the middle of the night, more than 40,000 Aramean families – comprising at least 200.000 human beings – fearfully fled their ancestral homes, towns and villages in the Nineveh region. Another unprecedented humanitarian disaster is now unfolding in Iraq. Most recently, thousands of Aramean families had already escaped the Mosul region to the Nineveh province, after the Islamic State of Iraq…

Source: The Daily Star by Samar Kadi BEIRUT: The heads of Eastern churches expressed outrage Thursday over the displacement of Christians in north Iraq, appealing to the international community, and Arab and Islamic states in particular, to take swift action to stop the onslaught at the hands of jihadist groups. The patriarchs’ call came at the end of a meeting, held at the summer seat of the Maronite Church in Diman in north Lebanon, overshadowed by news of a fresh exodus of Iraqi Christians fleeing attacks by militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). “Christians in countries of the Middle East are suffering from harsh persecution,…

Source: The Times of Israel BY TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF Gaza City’s Greek Orthodox church compound, a site that sheltered hundreds of Palestinians who fled their homes during IDF shelling in the area, was used by members of Hamas to launch rockets at Israeli territory, a prominent Christian leader in the Strip said Wednesday. When the Israeli army expanded its offensive in the Palestinian enclave several weeks ago, Archbishop Alexios of the Saint Porphyrios church made the decision to open the holy site’s doors in a show of interfaith solidarity, offering food, drink and shelter to all Gazans, regardless of their religion. But…