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Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
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CWN - A Syrian Orthodox cleric who was wounded by gunfire in Aleppo on November 6 is expected to make a full recovery.
Msgr. Raban Boutros Kassis, the Syrian Orthodox patriarchal vicar for Aleppo, Syria, was hit twice in the shoulder by rifle fire as he drove toward his residence in Aleppo. Surgery to remove the bullets was successful.
“I thank God who protected and kept me alive,” the Orthodox cleric said to the Fides news service. “I thank God because in this condition and in this experience I can share the cross that so many people today suffer in Syria, especially in Aleppo.”
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CWN - Journalist Patrick Cockburn has written a report on the Syriac Catholics of Bakhdida (Qaraqosh), whose town was recently liberated from ISIS control.
Two years ago, the town’s Catholics fled 40 miles away to Erbil as ISIS advanced. Though Bakhdida is now liberated, it lacks electricity and water, and buildings have been destroyed by ISIS and its opponents.
Above all, the Catholics “know that if they do [return] they will be at the mercy of Arab and Kurdish authorities eager to fill the vacuum left by the fall of ISIS and wishing to stake new claims to territory and power.”
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CWN - World Watch Monitor, a news agency that reports on the persecution of Christians, has published a profile of Alqosh, a northern Iraqi town of four churches, two monasteries, and 500 Christian families that once was close to being taken over by ISIS.
“Christianity in Alqosh is like gold,” a Chaldean Catholic priest who ministers there. “It is tested in the fire. It hurts, but the result is that the gold will be purer.”
“I see people changing, not just in faith but also in their behavior,” he added. They have felt for themselves that, when everything could be taken from them, God is all that remains. When the government soldiers leave you, when IS comes, when you run out of bullets, who do you cry out to?”
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CWN - The Maronite Catholic hierarchy has welcomed the election of Michel Aoun as president of Lebanon. The election ends a stalemate that left the country without a president for well over two years.
At a monthly assembly, the Maronite bishops—led by Patriarch Bechara Rai—offered thanks to the cooperation that had finally ended the “critical” political impasse, and called for national unity. The bishops’ statement emphasized the “huge responsibility” that the new government will face, and encouraged President Aoun to move quickly in appointing a goverment to address the nation’s political and economic needs.
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CWN - As the Iraqi army and Kurdish forces advanced on Mosul, the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church met with other prelates and called for a true respect for religious freedom of Christians in Iraq.
Joined by Syriac Catholic, Syrian Orthodox, and Assyrian Church prelates, Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako said that “we expect to safeguard our rights and freedoms, and guarantee our protection with deeds, not speeches, so that we remain in our land and contribute to the revival of our country.”
They added: "The displaced Christians from Mosul and the towns of the Nineveh Plain want to return to their homes on condition of safety and compensation for what they have lost and the reconstruction of what was destroyed by Daesh [ISIS] … The priorities of the Iraqi State and the government of Kurdistan should be to ensure these guarantees."
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CWN - The Romanian Orthodox Church has taken a stand in favor of preserving unity among the world’s Orthodox churches in the wake of the Pan-Orthodox Council that was held in Crete in June.
The Pan-Orthodox Council was intended as an expression of unity in the Orthodox world, but because some of the autocephalous churches did not participate in the meeting in Crete, critics have argued that the statements approved at that meeting cannot be considered definitive. The Patriarchate of Moscow has downplayed the importance of the Crete meeting, while the Patriarchate of Constantinople has supported the authority of the meeting’s statements. That disagreement threatens to fuel the rivalry between Moscow and Constantinople.
The Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church, taking a stand that might serve as a compromise, said that the Crete meeting did not define any new doctrines or canonical norms for the Orthodox world. However, the Romanian Synod went on to say that the statement from Crete could be further developed by a future “Holy and Great Council”—provided that all of the Orthodox churches were included in the deliberations.
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