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Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
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CWN - Advancing toward Mosul, the Iraqi army has liberated Bakhdida from the forces of the Islamic State.
Once a city of 50,000, Bakhdida, also known as Qara Qosh, was home to ten Syriac Catholic and Orthodox churches.
Christians who fled the Mosul area for Iraqi Kurdistan during ISIS’s 2014 advance rejoiced at Bakhdida’s liberation.
“The first thing I want to do is to give thanks to God,” Father Martin Baani told Aid to the Church in Need. “I am so happy … We are praying to be able to return to our homes one day. Now the eyes of the whole world are on Mosul.”
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CWN - Pantelis Kalaitzidis, director of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies in Greece, has published a work arguing against the desirability of the alignment of Church and state that has historically characterized the Orthodox churches.
Kalaitzidis’s book, Nel mondo ma non del mondo [In the world but not of the world], received favorable treatment in the October 20 edition of L’Osservatore Romano, which published the preface and a lengthy excerpt.
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risu.org.ua - All Feasts of Our Lady are celebrations of a certain event from the earthly life of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Feast of Protection has a totally different character because it is a celebration of something which is happening today, now.
This is a holiday which is not closed only in the past but which opens to us something happening today, not on earth but in heaven.
With these words the Father and Head of the UGCC His Beatitude Sviatoslav addressed the faithful during his homily at the Hierarchical Divine Liturgy in the church of the Protecting Veil of Our Lady in Vinnytsia on October 14.
"Today the Christ's Church is observing one of the most solemn, deep and favorite feasts among people - the Protecting Veil of the Mother of God. It is special not only because you're living in Vinnytsia under the Veil of the Blessed Virgin Mary, not only because it was initiated in our history back in the times of Kyiv Christianity, but because it differs by its character and content from all other holidays established in honor of Virgin Mary", explained the Primate of the UGCC.
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risu.org.ua - The annual meeting of the Bishops of the Catholic Eastern Churches in Europe is taking place this year at Fatima (Portugal), 20-23 October at the invitation of the Patriarch of Lisbon, Cardinal Manuel Clemente, President of the Portuguese Bishops’ Conference.
In this meeting-pilgrimage at the Marian Shrine of Fatima, which in 2017 is celebrating the centenary of the apparitions, the bishops representing 15 Catholic Eastern Churches in Europe, along with bishops representing various episcopal conferences from Western European nations (France, Germany, Portugal, England and Wales and Spain), will examine the challenge of pastoral care of Eastern Catholics in these countries. In effect, since the collapse of the totalitarian regimes in Eastern European countries, a massive flow of Eastern Rite Catholic migrants, therefore belonging predominantly to sui iuris Churches, have started new lives in Western countries. After twenty years, with a fairly constant flow of new migrants and the birth of the second generation among those first arrivals, the welcoming local churches, largely Latin Rite in the Western nations, are faced with new challenges in terms of the preservation of the cultural and ecclesial identity of these migrants.
At the Marian Shrine, along with the Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, participants will therefore analyse some issues and challenges linked to this particular migratory phenomenon. The economic situation of the countries of Eastern Europe which leads to migration will be examined with the help of the economist Prof. João Luís César das Neves; the issue of integration will be enriched by the tesimonies of a Romanian family and a teacher working daily with the “children” of migrants; and there will also be an examination of the relationship between the welcoming church and the church of origin.
The meeting, marked by the daily celebration of Mass in various Eastern Rites, testifying to the riches of the different liturgical traditions in the Catholic Church, also envisages a visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Nazaré and a prayer of entrustment, in the Shrine at Fatima, presided over by the Secretary of the Vatican dicastery in charge of the Oriental Churches, Slovakian Archbishop Cyril Vasil’.
Participants at the meeting, organised by the Council of European Episcopal Conferences (CCEE), also include Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, attending his first meeting as the new President of CCEE.
The meeting will end on Sunday 23 October with the celebration of the Divine Liturgy presided over by His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Major Archbishop of Kyiv-Halyč, in the Church of the Most Holy Trinity and the procession through the Holy Door of Mercy.
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risu.org.ua - The Ukrainian embassy has criticised the Queen for inviting the head of the Russian Orthodox Church to Buckingham Palace this week, The Times informs.
Natalia Galibarenko, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, said that Patriarch Kirill was a former KGB agent who has been outspoken in his support of Russian aggression. She said that the invitation risked legitimising Russia’s foreign policy in the eyes of the world. She added: “Patriarch Kirill is a Kremlin mouthpiece.”
The church leader arrived in London on Saturday for a four-day visit, culminating in the royal visit and a meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury. Yesterday the patriarch led a service at the Russian Orthodox Church in London to mark the 300th anniversary of the church in Britain. Justin Welby and Prince Michael of Kent were among the guests.
Patriarch Kirill has described Russia’s actions in Syria as a holy war and said of the action in Ukraine that the Russian people had a “right to be united”.
The Foreign Office said that the meeting was part of the Queen’s duties as supreme governor of the Church of England and it was “appropriate to recognise shared history and links”.
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risu.org.ua - On Sunday, October 30 at 3 p.m. a special moleben prayer and panakhyda service in memory of the late Bishop Soter Ortynsky will be led by Metropolitan-Archbishop Stefan Soroka at the golden domed Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, 830 North Franklin Street, Philadelphia, Pa. Archbishop Soroka will be joined in the prayer service by brother bishops of the Ukrainian Catholic, Byzantine Catholic and Latin Catholic Churches, together with the priests and deacons of the Philadelphia Archeparchy.
This year, 2016, the Ukrainian Catholic Church observes the 150th anniversary of his birth in 1866 and the centennial anniversary of his death in 1916.