News

Details

Last Updated: 22 April 2015

risu.org.ua - Parishioners of the Estonian churches of the Moscow Patriarchate are leaving for the UGCC, away from the Kremlin propaganda.

It was reported to Ukrinform by head of the Ukrainian Congress of Estonia, the deputy president of the World Congress of Ukrainians to Europe Vira Konyk.

“A lot of new obviously new people were present at this year’s celebration. It was found that most of them still visited the Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. Due to the fact that the Moscow Patriarchate supports Russian aggression against Ukraine, people stopped going there and found their way to a Ukrainian Church, the UGCC,” said Vira Konyk.

In addition, she said that this year the faithful not only from capital, but from all over the country gathered for the Easter Liturgy.

"Not only Ukrainians, but Estonians and people of other nationalities came,” she added.

Also the head of Ukrainian Congress of Estonia said that activists of "Stozhary" cultural and educational society organized traditional Easter “hayivky” in the church yard.

Details

Last Updated: 22 April 2015

CWN - Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says that his government will commemorate the mass deaths of Armenians at a 100th-anniversary observance on April 24. But he has refused to use the term “genocide” or to acknowledge Turkey’s responsibility for the killings.

“Reducing that happened to a single word and placing all the responsibility on Turkey is problematic,” Davutoglu said. But he said that the government wants to “share the pain” with the descendants of Armenians who lost their relatives in 1915.

The Turkish premier referred to the “deportations of 1915.” An estimated 1.5 Armenian people were killed in massacres and forced marches during the campaign.

Details

Last Updated: 22 April 2015

CWN - Maronite Catholic Patriarch Beshara Rai has called upon the government of Turkey to acknowledge the reality of the Armenian genocide.

The Lebanese prelate stop to reporters as he left for Yerevan, Armenia, where he will join other Christian leaders in marking the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. The ceremony, he said, “serves to sanctify the martyrs.” Questioned about Turkey’s adamant refusal to recognize the genocidal campaign of 1915, he said that a demand for a public apology for the mass killings “should always be called for.”

Details

Last Updated: 22 April 2015

CWN - Al Azhar University, the Egyptian institution that is regarded as the leading intellectual center of Sunni Islam, has issued a statement condemning the murder of Ethiopian Christians by the Islamic State as a “heinous crime” that “goes against any religion, law, or human conduct.”

The statement from Al Azhar has been attributed by Egyptian reports to Imam Ahmed al Tayyed, the head of the university. The statement includes a message of condolences to the people of Ethiopia, especially the victims’ families.

Details

Last Updated: 21 April 2015

CWN - Islamic State terrorists in Libya apparently killed 28 Ethiopian Christians, describing them as representatives of the “enemy Ethiopian Church,” in a new massacre.

A video that showed the beheading of 12 men and the shooting of 16 others was released on April 19. The beheadings occurred on a beach, while the 16 men were shot in the head in what appeared to be a desert location. The killings were grotesquely similar to the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians in another video made public in February.

In the new video, a spokesman for the Islamic State said that the victims were “followers of the cross,” representing “the nation of the cross.” The video also showed images of the destruction of Christian churches and cemeteries, and included a warning for Christians to convert to Islam or face a similar fate.

A spokesman for the Coptic Catholic Church, Bishop Antonios Aziz Mina of Guizeh, told the Fides news service that the timing of the video’s release suggests that Islamic State leaders are very conscious of relations among the Christian churches in the Middle East. Patriarch Mathias I, the leaders of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, had been scheduled to meet with the Coptic Orthodox leader, Pope Tawadros II. (That meeting was cancelled in the wake of the killings, as the Ethiopian prelate chose to remain with his grieving people.) In the February video, the Islamic State had identified the Coptic Church as its enemy in Libya.

In both massacres, the victims were migrant workers—first from Egypt, then from Ethiopia—who had been living in Libya. Christians living in Libya have been in danger since the Islamic State established a powerful presence there, after the collapse of the Qaddafi regime.

“The chain of martyrs has not finished,” Bishop Mina observed. “The Church has never complained of martyrdom, but has always celebrated martyrs as those in whom, while they are being killed, the great and consoling victory of Christ shines.”

Details

Last Updated: 21 April 2015

CWN - The apostolic nuncio in Syria has reporting mounting fears about the fate of two Orthodox bishops and a Catholic priests who remaining missing two years after being abducted.

Archbishop Mario Zenari, the Vatican’s representative in Damascus, told the AsiaNews service that there has been no news recently about the whereabouts of Orthodox Metropolitans Boulos Yazigi and Gregorios Youhanna Ibrahim, who were kidnapped in April 2013; or Father Paolo Dall’Oglio, an Italian missionary who has been missing since July of the same year. While the faithful still hope that they will be released unharmed, he conceded that the absence of information “makes this more difficult.”

The archbishop reported that at least 20,000 people are missing in Syria today, after years of civil warfare.

The Syrian Orthodox Church has issued an appeal to international leaders to intervene on behalf of kidnap victims. Orthodox Patriarch Yohanna Yazigi, the brother of one of the kidnapped prelates, said that the Church has tried to open negotiations with anyone who might be involved, but has received no answers.