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Last Updated: 21 March 2017

CWN - The Melkite Greek Catholic Archbishop of Aleppo has called upon Christians who fled the city during the Syrian Civil War to return.

“The lucky ones,” said Archbishop Jean-Clément Jeanbart, “do not require specific assistance and can therefore return to Aleppo autonomously,” while “those who are poor ... need economic and moral support in order to return.”

He cautioned: "We still lack that security which is necessary for a lasting peace. Despite this, there seems to be less fear among the people of new attacks by ISIS."

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Last Updated: 21 March 2017

CWN - The Chaldean Catholic Patriarchate has announced that it cannot supply priests for all of the Chaldean communities living outside Iraq, and has urged those communities to find their own candidates for the priesthood.

Because of the enormous exodus of Christians from Iraq to Australia, the US, Canada, and other countries, the patriarchate explained, there are not “sufficient Chaldean priests to be sent in all the cities were new Chaldean communities are created.” The patriarchate notes that other Eastern Christian churches based in the Middle East are experiencing the same problem.

Chaldean bishops leading communities in the “diaspora” have been asked, therefore, to look for their own internal solutions to the shortage of priests. The patriarchate specifically suggested the ordination of married men, which is allowed in the tradition of the Eastern Catholic churches.

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Last Updated: 21 March 2017

CWN - Greg Burke, the director of the Holy See Press Office, has announced that Pope Francis will visit Cairo on April 28 and 29.

The visit—the Pope’s eighteenth apostolic journey outside Italy—follows invitations from President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the nation’s Catholic bishops, Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria, and the Grand Imam of al-Azhar.

References:

• Statement by the director of the Holy See Press Office, Greg Burke, 18.03.2017 (Holy See Press Office)

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Last Updated: 13 August 2017

Amidst a cathedral of trees once charred by the Aspen Fire, a small chapel is under construction in the mountain village of Summerhaven.

tucson.com - The 853-square-foot Byzantine Catholic chapel is being built on Tucson Avenue just east of the Mt. Lemmon General Store and Gift Shop. If construction proceeds on schedule, the chapel dedicated to Our Lady Undoer of Knots should open this fall for public use.

Other than services in the community center and other buildings, Mount Lemmon resident Bob Zimmerman said he doesn’t know of any other dedicated church building in Summerhaven. Zimmerman’s father opened a sawmill and juggled other endeavors on the mountain after falling in love with the area on a hunting trip in the 1930s. Bob Zimmerman, now 81, spent summers on Mount Lemmon as a child and moved back to Summerhaven in adulthood. He runs Mount Lemmon Realty, Sawmill Run Restaurant and the post office, he said.

“When I had the inn before it burned down, we had church in the ballroom,” he said. The family lost it in the 1970s to fire. “And on Saturday nights after dancing we would clean up and clear out for church the next morning.”

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Last Updated: 18 March 2017

The following article was published in the Arlington Catholic Herald:

Children hold their icons during a special blessing at Epiphany of Our Lord Byzantine Catholic Church in Annandale March 5 on the Sunday of Orthodoxy.

CatholicHerald.com - Imagine you are a Christian living in the eastern part of the Roman Empire in the eighth century, and your essential instrument of prayer is an image of Jesus, Mary or a saint. Suddenly, the emperor bans the veneration of icons. Soldiers strip holy images from churches, and those caught with an icon are punished. Nearly 100 years later, icons and holy images were welcomed back.

Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Christians commemorate the restoration of holy images on the first Sunday of Lent when they were returned to the empire in 843. The celebration is known as the Sunday of Orthodoxy, and parishioners of Epiphany of Our Lord Byzantine Catholic Church in Annandale marked the day by bringing icons and holy images to be blessed March 5.

Children stood in the church’s aisle during Divine Liturgy, holding icons of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, St. George and other saints to be blessed by Father John G. Basarab, the pastor.

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Last Updated: 17 March 2017

“Give me tears, O God”

“I want to wash away with tears the record of my sins, O Lord” (Lenten Sunday Vespers, Stichera of repentance, Tone Four)
With this spiritual hymn we welcome Great and Holy Lent. And with the sinful woman, we say in the prayer of Sunday Vespers, “Give me tears, O God, as once thou gavest them to the woman that had sinned; and count me worthy to wash thy feet that have delivered me from the way of error. As sweet-smelling ointment let me offer thee a pure life, created in me by repentance; and may I also hear those words for which I long: `Thy faith has saved thee, go in peace.´” (Lenten Sunday Vespers, Stichera of Repentance, Tone 8)

Beloved, I should like to contemplate with you the power of tears of repentance, along the way of the Fast that leads us to the joy of the Resurrection.
 
That is why I am setting out for you in this letter, through the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the Holy Fathers, stations to help us stand before the Lord Jesus, who addresses us thus: “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”  (Matthew 6: 6)