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Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
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vatican.va - The Holy Father has appointed the Rev. George Demetrios Gallaro, of the clergy of the Eparchy of Newton of the Greek-Melkites (USA), as the Bishop of the Eparchy of Piana di Sicilia.
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Eminence and Most Reverend Bishop! Reverend, Reverend Fathers and vysokoprepodobni! Dearly beloved in Christ brothers and sisters!
Lent - a special period of the liturgical year, a spiritual awakening and cleaning. The Lord encourages us to attention and reflect on personal life, our relationship to God and neighbor; invites us to test how well we experience the historical circumstances in which we have to pass this year path of Lent.
Our relationship to God we Christians call faith. Living in complete trust in God and His dosvidchuyuchy active presence in our lives through prayer, we find in him a source of hope - become strong His power and His love vidrodzhuyemosya. To live with faith in God - means continually updated. In particular, during the Lenten journey we must endure "spiritual reform-renewal" - turning to God.
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CWN - Mar Dinkha IV, who became head of the Assyrian Church of the East in 1976, died in the United States on March 26 at the age of 79, according to the Assyrian International News Agency.
The church ceased to be in full communion with the Holy See following the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus (431). In the sixteenth century, some bishops from the Assyrian Church of the East sought full communion with the Holy See, giving rise to the Chaldean Catholic Church.
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CWN - Two Ukrainian bishops spoke with Aid to the Church in Need about the suffering they have encountered in their ministry in the past year.
“Wounded soldiers from the east are being cared for at a temporary military hospital set up in the Greek-Catholic cathedral in Kiev,” said Bishop Jaroslav Pryriz. “Never before have I seen so much suffering, sorrow and tragedy. I am 53 years-old and have never experienced war, but what I am seeing now—people without hands, without legs, without eyes, ears—will haunt me forever.”
The prelate said that his priests minister to soldiers on the front lines in 45-day rotations.
“Some who return never want to go back again because the psychological strain is just enormous,” he said. “However, they go back because they want to take care of the faithful.”
“No one expected that another war would be carried out on European soil in this day and age,” added Bishop Bronislaw Bernacki of Odessa-Simferopol, whose diocese includes Crimea.
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Despite devastation of war and threats of Islamic State, Syrian Christians returning to city of Homs
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CWN - Christians are gradually returning to the Syrian city of Homs, after a mass exodus that followed the outbreak of civil war in 2011, Aid to the Church in Need reports. But as Christians rebuild their homes and churches, they are threatened by the mounting activities of the Islamic State in the region.
The city of Homs has seen some of the heaviest fighting in Syria’s civil war, and thousands of Christians fled for safety. Eleven churches were destroyed or badly damaged, and the city’s industrial base was almost completely eliminated. Although the government regained control over the city last year, rebels still occasionally attack, and earlier this year a car bomb killed more than a dozen people in the center of the city. To this day, crime is rampant, as city officials struggle for practical control; fewer than half the city’s hospitals are functioning.
Nevertheless Christians are returning to their homes, and Church officials estimate that 40,000 Christians are active in the city’s churches today.
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Gospel of the Resurrection: Good News of Life
We bring this good news joyfully to all those who will read this letter. We express this good news in this, brief, marvellous and spontaneous Paschal greeting, as we say, “Christ is risen! – He is risen indeed.” This good news is shared between the one who brings it and the one who hears it, good news that is full of faith and joyful, a good news proclaimed by great and small, good news that we repeat hundreds of times on the day of Pascha and the whole paschal period – the good news of life.
- After church bombings, lynchings, Pakistani police arrest 200 Christians
- Indian Christian identity under attack, cardinal says
- Egyptian court upholds first-ever conviction of Muslim militant for blasphemy against Christianity
- Egyptian Christians, Muslims closer together in wake of martyrdoms in Libya, bishop says