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Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
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CWN - Catholic and Orthodox prelates, including the patriarch of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, have traveled to Brussels and Geneva to present EU and UN officials with a children’s appeal for peace.
More than one million Syrian children have signed the appeal, according to Aid to the Church in Need.
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CWN - Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin met in Moscow on October 6 with Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations.
Metropolitan Hilarion spoke about the history of Russian Orthodoxy and its rebirth over the past 25 years. According to the Moscow Patriarchate, he also discussed the “fruitful development” of ecumenical relations, with “protection of the traditional family, aid to persecuted Christians, and cooperation in the sphere of education and culture” being seen as “the priority areas in the Orthodox-Catholic cooperation.”
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CWN - Aleppo has become a divided city, like Berlin during the Cold War era, a Syrian archbishop told Vatican Radio.
Archbishop Joseph Tobji, the head of the Maronite Catholic archdiocese in Aleppo, said that the city has been divided and battered by rival armed forces. The constant bombardment is causing an enormous number of civilian casualties, he said, reporting that his archdiocese schedules at least ten funerals daily for innocent victims.
Archbishop Tobji told Vatican Radio that he recently met with Pope Francis, and presented the Pontiff with a photo album, put together by young Catholics in Aleppo, showing pictures of their friends who had been killed in the fighting. He said that as the Pope looked at the pictures, “his eyes filled with tears.”
The Syrian archbishop said that the current warfare in Syria serves the benefit of no one in Syria, but is prolonged by the support of foreign powers who “see the country as a pie” to be divided up as spoils.
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CWN - Kurdish fighters are occupying historically Christian villages in northern Syria and recently destroyed homes in one village as part of a military training exercise, according to an Assyrian media report.
The villages had fallen under the control of the Islamic State before Kurdish forces entered the area. As belligerents in the Syrian Civil War who oppose the Syrian government as well as the Islamic State, Kurdish forces now control one-fifth of Syria and have established Rojava, a semi-autonomous state.
The Kurdish fighters are part of the US-backed YPG (People’s Protection Units), the major armed group in Rojava.
In September, Kurdish forces fired bullets into the home of a Syrian Catholic archbishop as part of a campaign of intimidation against Christians. Archbishop Jacques Behnan Hindo, who is based in the northeastern Syrian city of Al-Hasakah, narrowly escaped being shot in the head. Directory for female scat lovers. Free scat porn videos at ScatNude scat sex tube. Share your favorite scat video clips for free and get tons more in return! Scat Porn Tube Be careful, as it's going to be fun and messy here. At Scat Porn Nude we love going all filthy and dirty watching horny babe playing with poo and shitting all over the place. In case you share our enthusiasm for scat porn, this place full of best scat sex videos will be your favorite place to be!
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CWN - During his October 5 general audience, Pope Francis spoke about his recent apostolic journey to Georgia and Azerbaijan.
“This visit complemented my visit to Armenia in June, and fulfilled my desire to visit all three nations of the Caucasus to confirm the Catholic community and to encourage all the people in their journey toward peace and fraternity,” the Pope said to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square, according to the official English-language synthesis of his remarks.
“In Georgia, our cooperation is naturally with our Orthodox brothers and sisters,” the Pope said. “Our unity is seen in the blood of so many Christian martyrs of different Christian confessions, especially the Assyrian-Chaldean, with whom we prayed for peace in Syria, Iraq and the whole Middle East.”
He added, “In Azerbaijan, a primarily Muslim country, I was able to participate in an interreligious meeting and to celebrate Mass with the small Catholic community. Our communion of faith inspires us to deepen our encounter and dialogue with all who believe in God, so that together we can build a more just and fraternal world.”
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CWN - A Russian Orthodox official has said that relations with the Catholic Church are critically important at a time when the world’s two largest Christian institutions face a powerful trend of secularization.
“The Orthodox and Catholic Church remain a bastion of traditional morality, and feel their responsibility for the future of civilization,” said Hieromonk Stefan, the secretary of the ecumenical department of the Moscow patriarchate. He told the AsiaNews service that the Catholic and Orthodox faiths are “moral reference points” for a society that is in danger of losing any firm sence of morality.
Commenting on the document recently produced by a joint Orthodox-Catholic theological commisison, on the nature of primacy as understood during the first Christian millenium, the Russian cleric said that “at that time, the attitude towards this issue, in the West and in the East, was different, but this difference did not abolish the fundamental unity of Christians.” He said that the commission’s document focused on “our common heritage” as a possible basis for future ecumenical progress.
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- Ecumenical setback as Orthodox boycott papal Mass in Georgia
- Christian life is woven with faith and service, Pope tells Catholics of Azerbaijan
- In Georgia, Pope speaks of ‘world war’ against marriage, decries gender theory; ‘never proselytize the Orthodox!’
- His Beatitude Sviatoslav offers remarks upon the ocassion of the move of the Sheptytsky Institute from Ottawa to Toronto