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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

Rome, May. 4, 2007 (CWNews.com) - Maronite Catholic Patriarch Pierre Nasrallah Sfeir is in Rome this week for consultation with Vatican officials. The timing of his visit suggests both ecclesiastical and political goals.

The 40 bishops of the Maronite Catholic Church will meet in a Synod in June, under the leadership of Patriarch Sfeir, who has been head of the Maronite community since 1986. (He accepted an invitation to the College of Cardinals-- an unusual honor for an Eastern Catholic prelate-- in 1994 by Pope John Paul II). The Lebanese prelate is reportedly making preparations for that Synod assembly during his current stay in Rome.

But Patriarch Cardinal Sfeir, the most prominent Christian leader in Lebanon, may also have important political reasons for his visit. The Maronite leader has been outspoken in his demands for an independent, sovereign Lebanon, and in his criticism of outside-- that is, Syrian-- influence. He has repeatedly called for international help to restore the national integrity of Lebanon. He may be asking Vatican officials to help relay that message to world leaders-- notably including US President George Bush, who will visit the Vatican for a private audience with Pope Benedict XVI early in June.

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May. 4, 2007 (CWNews.com) - A spokesman for the Catholic Church in Turkey has said that the faithful are praying for a peaceful resolution of a government crisis there.

“One does not resolve political confrontations with violence, but with dialogue and negotiations," said Father Georges Marovitch, a spokesman for the Turkish bishops' conference. He was speaking about the conflict that has arisen over the disputed presidential candidacy of Abdullah Gul, the country's current foreign minister.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has strongly endorsed Gul's candidacy. But military officials are concerned that Gul, who is a Muslim, would jeopardize the country's commitment to secular government. Top military officials have said that they are ready to intervene in the nation's political affairs if necessary to uphold secular government.

Turkey's tiny Christian minority has generally avoided direct political involvement. In recent months, however, Christian leaders have prodded the government to provide equal treatment and equal protection for Christian churches. Their appeals have become more urgent in light of a propaganda campaign in which media outlets have frequently depicted Christians as agents of foreign influence and threats to Turkey's culture. The country's population is nearly 99% Muslim, and the rising influence of Islam has threatened the tradition of secular government.

Popular protests against Gul's candidacy have led Erdogan to call for parliamentary elections in June, so that new representatives will have a clear mandate from the public to resolve the question of presidential succession.

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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

Baghdad, May. 4, 2007 (CWNews.com) - In an urgent appeal to participants in an international conference on the future of Iraq, Chaldean Catholic bishops have pleaded for help in curbing violence and intimidation against Iraqi Christians, the AsiaNews service reports.

The Chaldean bishops, in a letter to the international leaders gathering this week in Sharm al Sheik, Egypt, decried the current violence in Iraq as "a folly of human reason." They asked for international help in restoring peace and order, making a special plea for "religious authorities to let their voices be heard" to prevent "the disastrous destruction of an ancient cultural and religious civilization."

"We particularly ask that the threats, kidnappings and forced emigration of our Christians people is stopped," the bishops continued, stressing that Christians have always composed an essential element of the Iraqi culture.

[The full text of the Chaldean bishops' message is available on the AsiaNews web site.]

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Last Updated: 19 February 2013

Sophia Kishkovsky | 3 May 2007 | 07-0340 |

Moscow (ENI). Patriarch Alexei II of the Russian Orthodox Church has made his first public appearance in Moscow following a swirl of recent rumours that he had died or fallen gravely ill while receiving medical treatment in Switzerland.

The Patriarch said on 2 May the rumours may have been part of an effort to scuttle the scheduled Ascension Day reunion of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia on 17 May. The church outside Russia is a staunchly anti-Soviet émigré group that separated from Moscow after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and agreed to restore unity only after several years of negotiations.

"As you can see, I'm healthy, I'm serving, I'm alive," Alexei told reporters after leading a service at Moscow's Pokrovsky Monastery on the feast day of Saint Matrona, who was canonised by the Russian Orthodox Church eight years ago for her steadfast religious faith during the Soviet era.

"Apparently someone wanted to ruin my vacation and medical treatment," the RIA-Novosti news agency quoted the Patriarch as saying. "Maybe someone thought that on the threshold of signing the Act of Canonical Union of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia with the Mother Church, with the Moscow Patriarchate, these rumours would affect the signing of the act."

Sergei Kravets, the director of the Orthodox Encyclopedia religious research centre, which is affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate, told Itar-Tass news agency that Alexei was not in Switzerland as had been reported. "The Patriarch has never had a coronary bypass," said Kravets. Some Russian reports said the Patriarch had experienced clinical death after undergoing bypass surgery.

Patriarch Alexei's absence last week at the funerals of former President Boris Yeltsin and Mstislav Rostropovich, the cellist and conductor, at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, helped fuel the rumours.

Both churches appear to have dissenters over the union, and the Moscow Patriarchate has accused some elements within the Russian Orthodox Church of seeking to derail the agreement, which is being treated in Russia not only as a spiritual, but as a political event.

Visits in 2003, and 2005, by President Vladimir Putin, a former lieutenant colonel in the KGB, to Metropolitan Laurus, the leader of ROCOR, gave impetus to reunion talks.

Sergei Markov, a political scientist who is a member of the Public Chamber, a Kremlin-connected civil society advocacy group in Russia, commented in the Tribuna newspaper: "The unification of the churches should become yet another important step on the path to overcoming the historical schism of the Russian people."

The Russian overseas church has been known for being staunchly anticommunist. It was created in the 1920s and is now based in New York. It has also been known for opposing ecumenism, but the Rev. Alexander Lebedev, a ROCOR priest, said his church had come to an understanding that the Moscow Patriarchate should remain in the World Council of Churches, for now.

© 1994 - 2007 Ecumenical News International.  www.en.ch

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04.05.2007, [17:28] // Pope Benedict XVI // RISU.ORG.UA

Vatican-Kyiv – The audience of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko with Pope Benedict XVI, planned for 7 May 2007, has been postponed in accordance with the mutual agreement of the Ukrainian and Vatican parties. The date of the meeting will be set through diplomatic channels in the nearest future. ww7.president.gov.ua posted the story on 3 May 2007.

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Vatican, May. 4, 2007 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI met on May 5 with former Iranian President Seyyed Mohammad Khatami, for a discussion of tensions in the Middle East and especially the difficulties facing Christians in the region.

In a brief statement released after the midday meeting, the Vatican said that the Pope had spoken with the Islamic leader about "the importance of serene dialogue between cultures," with the goal of "overcoming the severe tensions that mark our time."

Khatami had originally planned to visit the Vatican in October 2006, but he postponed his visit because of the angry reaction among Islamic leaders to the Pope's lecture at Regensburg in September. Prior to his meeting with the Pontiff today, Khatami told reporters that the tensions between Christians and Muslims remain "very deep."

In speaking with the Iranian leader, the Pope called attention to the severe difficulties that Christians face in the Islamic countries of the Middle East, and specifically in Iran. The Vatican statement did not mention Khatami's response to the Pope on that point.

The Pope and the Iranian ex-president spent some time discussing the prospects for international peacemaking efforts in the Middle East, and the initiatives under discussion at this week's meetings in Sharm al Sheikh, Egypt.

Although he relinquished the Iranian president in August 2005, Khatami remains a highly influential figure in that nation, and the Vatican treated him as major world leader. After his 30-minute meeting with the Holy Father he met separately with the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, and the Secretary for Relations with States, Archbishop Dominique Mamberti.