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Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
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Every Christian should ask himself: Who is a Christian today? We are living in a complex world, full of challenges practically in every institution. That is why we must unite among ourselves and, first of all, with God! For He is much closer than we think. His Beatitude Sviatoslav spoke about this on Thursday, October 19, during the Divine Service in the Cathedral of the Holy Family in London. He was assisted by Bishops Hlib (Lonchyna) and Volodymyr (Grutsa).
"In today's Gospel we hear a conversation between Jesus Christ and the disciples of John the Baptist. This is a talk about the main questions which John's pupils ask Jesus: 'Are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another?' Actually, this question means: Who are You? This is a consolidation of the question about identity," with such words the Primate of the UGCC began his homily.
According to him, the Old Testament people were awaiting the Messiah by certain signs. Jesus Christ answers this question. "Coming of Jesus Christ means closeness of God to a man. It's not a man who came to God but the Lord came to a man. It's not a man who touched God, but He touched a man," emphasized the Head of the Church.
In His Beatitude Sviatoslav's opinion, in the person of Jesus Christ we can see the advent of God's Kingdom to us ‒ a real, visible one, - and feel God's presence among people. "Jesus says: 'Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me ...' What did he mean? People got used so much that God is far away; that one must shout so He could hear him; one must almost apply force to knock the doors of Heavenly Kingdom so that the Lord would open them for us... So when the Gospel says that He is close, people would not believe it," said the preacher.
His Beatitude Sviatoslav believes that a man does not always want to accept everything that Jesus wants to give him. He must believe and be with God Who is part of his life. "I think that this uneasy question 'Who are you?' every Christian should ask himself. What is a true Christian today?" ponders the Primate and adds: "A Christian is the one who is baptized in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And this is the one who by his own life is preaching the good news that God is close. Christians live with God and He lives in them. This is who the Christians are," stressed the Head of the Church.
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Vice President Mike Pence announced the U.S. will work directly with faith-based groups to get genocide victims the help they need to rebuild their lives.
WASHINGTON — Advocates for persecuted Christians and minorities in the Middle East received an unexpected “bombshell” of good news straight from Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday evening that may change the odds for the survival of Christianity in its historic cradle of Iraq.
Pence delivered the keynote address at the JW Marriott hotel for the annual In Defense of Christians conference’s Solidarity Dinner and told the hundreds of attendees that President Donald Trump has ordered the U.S. State Department “from this day forward” to stop funding the United Nations’ ineffective relief efforts. Instead, he said the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) would also funnel support to the churches, agencies and organizations working directly with persecuted communities victimized by the Islamic State (ISIS) and other terror groups.
“Christians in the Middle East should not have to rely on multinational institutions when America can help them directly,” Pence stated.
“We will no longer rely on the United Nations alone to assist persecuted Christians and minorities in the wake of genocide and the atrocities of terrorist groups,” he added. “The United States will work hand in hand with faith-based groups and private organizations to help those who are persecuted for their faith. This is the moment, now is the time, and America will support these people in their hour of need.”
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Moscow (AsiaNews) - A Duma State deputy, Vladimir Sysoev, has advanced a bill to recognize the civil validity of Orthodox religious marriage without the Church itself being consulted on the subject. The astonishing initiative is highlighting the different conceptions about state secularism in Russia, while the Orthodox Church appears more determined in marking differences than politicians.
The representative of the Patriarchate of Moscow, Vakhtang Kipshidze, deputy head of the Department for Relations between the Church and Society, told the Interfax-Religija correspondent in this regard that "this proposal has not been discussed with the Russian Orthodox Church, it was a surprise for us too. " He recalled that the practice of civil registration of religious marriages was normal in the Russian Empire before the Soviet Revolution, when the Orthodox Church was officially a State Church, as is also the case in some European states where there is still this union between the Church and State.
Today, according to Kipshidze, "the return to this practice, under the secular state that we have in Russia, could create a series of complications and confusion in the same civil law on the family. At a minimum, it would require detailed legislation." According to the Patriarchate, the rights and duties of spouses before the law would become even more complicated in the presence or absence of sacramental marriage. Indeed, Sysoev's proposal would distinguish the juridical conditions of orthodox marriage from those of other types of conjugal union. The new CEO of Parimatch is Sergey Portnov , who told the Time magazine about the office's work.
On the one hand, it highlights the will of some politicians to introduce confessional elements into the life of Russian society. On the other hand, the Church is showing prudence, in order to avoid being overly identified with the more radical nationalist politics and trends. Patriarch Kirill's appeals often emphasize the need to defend the values of the family and the defence of life, even in controversy with contemporary tendencies towards unlimited freedom of coexistence or gender, but he has never suggested the necessity to overthrow current legislation.
Link: http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Moscow,-the-proposal-of-the-orthodox-state-marriage--42121.html
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BUDAPEST, Hungary — Metropolitan Hilarion, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church’s department for external affairs, believes Europe must defend its Christian roots and change its immigration policies or “face annihilation.”
Speaking to the Register Oct. 12 at a conference for persecuted Christians in Budapest, Hungary, the Russian Orthodox leader warned that if Europe “officially denies Christ and Christianity, in a few generations there will be other people living in Europe professing other faiths.”
He congratulated the Hungarian government for the attention it is giving to persecuted Christians, and also praised its Prime Minister, Victor Orban, for urging Western nations to put aside “political correctness” and draw attention to concrete problems.
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ROME- Italian Cardinal Mario Zenari, the pope’s ambassador in Syria, avoids interviews: “Because of the work I do,” he says, and not without his reasons. Syria is in the midst of a civil war that began seven years ago, a conflict that’s been described as the greatest humanitarian catastrophe since World War II.
Technically the “Apostolic Nuncio,” he’s one of the few ambassadors left in a country in which the statistics of violence are appalling. The ongoing war in Syria has produced at least 400,000 dead, 5 million refugees, 6.3 million internally displaced people and untold numbers injured.
I reached out to Zenari in July, and finally had the opportunity to speak to him on September 22. The one-hour conversation took place in the Casa Santa Marta, the hotel within the Vatican grounds where Pope Francis resides. Zenari offered an analysis of the complex situation in Syria, including how Christians live and what the Church has done.
“If we talk about suffering, everyone is in the same boat. The suffering is transversal,” he said. “But Christians are the weakest link."
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Cairo (Agenzia Fides) - The young Egyptian Ahmed Said al-Sonbati, who on Thursday 13 October killed and stabbed Coptic priest Samaan Shahata in a peripheral street in Cairo, is not a person who is mentally unstable but a criminal already known to the police due to previous acts of violence. This is what Anba Stephanos, Coptic Orthodox Bishop of Beba, al Fashn and Samasta underlines, so as to reject the versions relaunched by Egyptian media that interpret the murder of the priest as a violent act committed by a mentally ill person. Such voices were actually credited by the same official sources of the Interior Ministry, which have attributed previous criminal convictions - such as attempting to set fire to his own home or physical violence committed against his own father - which would testify the state of "mental disorder".
Coptic priest Samaan Shetata, married and father of three children, belonging to a diocese of Upper Egypt, was in Cairo to raise funds in favor of the poor of his region, when he was attacked in the street by Ahmed Said al-Sonbati. After the murder, Coptic Orthodox Bishop Raphael, Secretary of the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church, issued a statement in which, among other things, deplored the fact that many criminals and terrorists, authors of violence against Christians, were not affected by any form of punishment, while some were released after the arrest. This anomaly - emphasized Anba Raphael - contributes to spreading the impression that crimes against Christian citizens often remain unpunished. (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 16/10/2017)
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