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 - King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa of Bahrain has donated the land for the construction of a Coptic Orthodox Church, the Fides news service reports.
The church, to be built in the capital city of Manama, will serve the estimated 1,500 Coptic families living in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. This will be the 2nd Christian church built in Bahrain. In 2013 the king gave land to the Catholic Church for the construction of a cathedral in Awali.
References:
- Details
The clergy of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of St. Josaphat in Parma held their annual retreat October 4-7, 2016 at the Loyola Retreat Center in Clinton, Ohio (USA).
ugcc.org.ua - The retreat was led this year by Bishop Kurt Burnette, Eparch of the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Passaic (New Jersey). After Bishop Bohdan Danylo, Eparch of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of St. Josaphat in Parma, introduced Bishop Kurt to the retreatants, the retreat master commenced his first spiritual conference. He began by talking about beauty. He said that the beauty of the world around us can lead us to behold the beauty of God Himself. As Psalm 19 says, “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims His handiwork” (19:1). Yet, “the most beautiful thing in the world is you,” said the hierarch, addressing the retreat’s participants. Having been created in God’s image and likeness, man supersedes any creature fashioned by God and, although man lost the likeness of God due to the original sin, the image of God always remains in him. Moreover, Bishop Kurt implied that God’s likeness in man could be renewed through the Holy Mysteries of Baptism and Reconciliation. The hierarch continued by saying that man is the most dignified being among the Lord’s creatures – even higher than the Angels. Man can also know and understand – a feature unique to the creatures with the intellect – that gives man an ability to appreciate beauty. One of the most distinctive features of man though is his ability to take part in God’s creative power through the gift of procreation of offspring: the power to create immortal beings that possess the Lord’s image and likeness. Bishop Kurt concluded his first conference by saying that if man truly knew how beautiful he was, he would never commit even a smallest sin.
- Details
CWN - Following his October 12 general audience, Pope Francis renewed his appeal for peace in Syria.
“I want to emphasize and reiterate my solidarity with all victims of inhuman conflict in Syria,” he said, adding:
"It is with a sense of urgency that I renew my appeal, begging, with all my strength, those responsible, that steps be taken toward an immediate ceasefire, one imposed and respected at least for the time necessary to allow the evacuation of civilians, especially children, who are still trapped under cruel bombardment."
References:
- Details
CWN - A religious sister who lives in Aleppo questioned why Western journalists are focusing on civilians killed by the Assad regime and its allies in attacks on rebel-held areas to the exclusion of civilians killed by rebels in areas controlled by the Syrian government.
“It is not fair,” Sister Annie Demerjian said while in England. “We don’t see a balance.”
“This is very important to us: stop thinking about victory for one side or the other,” she added. “We want peace, we have had enough.”
References:
- Details
republicanherald.com | By John Usalis | Published: October 11, 2016
SHENANDOAH — The 32nd annual Father Walter Ciszek Day 2016 Divine Liturgy will be celebrated at 2 p.m. Sunday at St. Casimir Church, 229 N. Jardin St., which is the home church of Father Walter J. Ciszek, S.J., whose cause for canonization is being investigated in the Catholic Church.
St. Casimir is the worship center of Divine Mercy Roman Catholic Church.
The new Father Walter Ciszek Prayer League Center, 218 W. Cherry St., (the former Annunciation BVM Church rectory), will be open to the public from noon to 1:30 p.m. that day.
The guest homilist is the Most Rev. Kurt Burnette, J.D., Ph.D., J.C.L., fifth bishop of the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Passaic, New Jersey. He succeeded the Most Rev. William C. Skurla, who was appointed Metropolitan Archbishop of Pittsburgh in 2012. Burnette was appointed on Oct. 29, 2013, by Pope Francis as bishop, and enthroned in a Divine Liturgy at the Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel in Passaic on Dec. 4, 2013.
Click to read article at The Republican Herald's website.
Additonal information: www.ciszek.org
- Details
risu.org.ua - On October 6-9, Monaco hosted the Plenary Assembly of the Council of Episcopal Conferences of Europe. On Saturday, October 8, the regular working meeting of the heads of Catholic Dioceses across Europe heard reports on pastoral challenges the Church faces in their communities.
In his speech, His Beatitude Sviatoslav told his brothers-bishops about the third year of sufferingafflicted to the Ukrainians by war. The patriarch stressed that despite diplomatic efforts and other activities of the international community, no lasting cease-fire has been achieved in Ukraine.
“Apart from the annexed Crimea, seven percent of the Ukrainian territory was occupied in Donbas. Today our country has more than two million internally displaced persons. Millions of people have been directly affected by the fighting, with hundreds of dead and missing, thousands of injured, are in need of long-term treatment. Hundreds of people remain in captivity in the occupied territories and now the international community and the churches and religious organizations are trying to facilitate their release,” thePatriarch of the UGCC said.