News
Byzcath.org News provides news focusing on the Christian East from varous sources and offers links to other sites dedicated to providing the news about the Church.
Churches and organizations that provide news about the Eastern Churches are invited to submit their news stories to us for publication here (use the contact page for submission)..
Materials from the Vatican Information Service, Zenit, CWNews.com and other sources are published here with permission of their owners but may not be republished further without the permission of their original publishers. Please visit these sites to obtain additional general news about the Church. In addition to these sources EWTN News also provides a good general news summary.
Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
- Details
CWN - Another Coptic Christian has been killed by Islamic militants in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula: the 3rd such killing in two days and the 6th in a month.
Gunmen burst into the home of Kamel Youssef in the town of el Arish and shot him, as his family watched helplessly. An Islamic group with ties to the Islamic State had vowed to kill Christians in the region.
Hundreds of Christians are reportedly leaving their homes in the Sinai region to seek security elsewhere.
References:
- Details
CWN - The head of the Iraqi-based Chaldean Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic church in full communion with the Holy See, has called upon the faithful to offer their Lenten prayer and fasting for peace.
The Chaldean church’s season of Lent begins on February 26.
Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako called for prayer “in order to have peace in our country and the region and for the safe return of the forcibly displaced people back to their homes and properties, after having such a bitter experience in camps.”
References:
- Details
CWN - The Vatican’s UN envoy has urged that “all necessary steps should be taken to enforce the ceasefire in Ukraine.”
Archbishop Bernardito Auza spoke of the “grave concern” caused by escalating violence in Ukraine, and called upon all parties to observe human rights and to work toward a stable peace agreement. The archbishop noted that the cause of peace could be helped “not least by respecting international legality with regard to Ukraine’s territory and borders.”
References:
- Details
CWN - The Egyptian government is planning to build a road through land belonging to the Monastery of St. Macarius the Great.
The monastery, located between Cairo and Alexandria, was founded around 360, a century before the schism between the Holy See and the Coptic Orthodox Church.
The planned road would pass through cultivated land and places the monastery’s water supply at risk, according to the Catholic Information Service for Africa.
References:
- Details
Pastor’s Remarks: Mitrophoric Archpriest Roman Galadza, St. Elias Ukrainian Catholic Church
- Details
CWN - The Syrian Orthodox Church may convene a special synod session to address tensions that erupted after Patriarch Ignatius Ephem II raised a copy of the Qu’ran, in a gesture of reverence, during an inter-religious meeting.
Six metropolitan archbishops of the Syrian Orthodox Church condemned the gesture as a “betrayal of the faith,” and claimed that the Patriarch had forfeited his title as defender of the Orthodox faith. Their public criticism in turn prompted thirty other archbishops to come to the Patriarch’s defense and decry the critics for their “rebellion against the Church.” Although the six dissident archbishops have subsequently sent a letter of apology, the majority of prelates judged it inadequate.
Huddling this weekend at the headquarters of the patriarchate in Lebanon, prelates discussed a special synod meeting to “make the right decisions and take the suitable measures.”
References: