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Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
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CWN - The head of the Russian Orthodox Church received a delegation from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople on May 24 and lamented the secularization of Europe and the United States.
“We are deeply worried to see what is going on in the Christian world,” said Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, who referred to the “ongoing de-Christianization of the European and American civilization” as “an apocalyptic scene: sin is affirmed by law.”
“As you know, we underwent a period of state atheism,” he said in reference to over seven decades of Soviet Communist rule. “However, the moral paradigm remained Christian in its major aspects. This is what saved us: our literature and fine arts were permeated with Christian ideas, hence the morality of our people remained Christian.”
Patriarch Kirill added that today the Russian Orthodox Church “has universities of her own, as well as over 40 seminaries, a thousand monasteries, Orthodox TV channels, journals, newspapers.”
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CWN - A Syrian bishop lamented ISIS attacks on Tartus and Jableh, two coastal cities located in territory held by the nation’s government.
Tartus and Jableh are located in a region to which hundreds of thousands of Syrians have fled from rebel attacks, according to Aid to the Church in Need.
“If there are no safe areas in Syria, still more people will leave the country-- probably for good,” said Maronite Catholic Bishop Antoine Chbeir of Lattakia. “Many of them will go by sea.”
“Our priests and people are on the scene,” he added. “We care for people not because of their particular religion but because they are human beings. In this month of May, we are praying to Our Lady to help us.”
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risu.org.ua - “Who are your people?” This question could be asked to all public officials who receive money for living not from the state but from “sponsors.” This corruption is destroying everybody. Even after the Revolution of Dignity, when the power passed to other hands, the new men of power defined the so-called quotas, by which each party must be guaranteed a certain number of people in their government. We, the religious leaders, have issued an open statement against this shameful practice.
The Head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church told it in an interview to Italian newspaper SettimanaNews.
Describing the current political situation in Ukraine, the Primate has said that Ukraine is a country with the Soviet past, for the last 25 years it has had a double identity. On the one hand, a developing civil society gained rapid growth with independence: it concerns above all the middle class that is able to establish connections with European and technological modernity. On the other hand, it has maintained the state apparatus as a relic of the Soviet era. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the Communist political class broke up, and the former communist elite has turned into oligarchs, keeping power in their hands. Communist leaders have direct access to the state heritage and at the time of privatization they managed to seize the public goods. Ordinary people who had no access to public holdings, or did not know how to protect their rights to benefits that are considered common property, have remained on the margins of society.
“Those who have money, His Beatitude Sviatoslav continued, “create their own policies, protect their interests, establish political parties ... Every new political protégé promotes interests of certain oligarchs. Over the past decade this vicious circle, which destroys the state, has created a whirlwind of corruption. I remember a Soviet comedy (“Ivan Vasilyevich changing profession.” - Ed.), in which a protagonist invented a time machine, by which Ivan the Terrible traveled to Soviet times. Wandering among the people, the king asked all the same existential question: “And who are your people?” This question could be posed to all public officials who receive money for living not from the state but from their sponsors.”
The Head of the Church also noted that civil society in Ukraine is one generation ahead of the dinosaurs of post-Soviet system, which, unfortunately, continue to implement its policy.
“We are now in the same situation as was Poland after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Imagine that there is an old car that can keep up with the times, and the driver is inside. You need to change the car, but the one who drives it will not do that as he is too attached to it. Civil society in Poland managed to destroy the old system due to "Solidarity" movement that was supported and in a sense led by John Paul II. President-Communist remained holding the wheel in his hands, but without the old car, so he happily signed all the agreements on integration with the European community. But the reform of the governance system and state apparatus was not launched and was not led by bureaucrats or politicians, but civil society. In Ukraine - two years after Euromaidan – we are experiencing a similar situation,” His Beatitude Sviatoslav says. It was reported by UGCC Information Department.
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CWM - In a recent talk on the challenges facing the Chaldean Catholic Church, Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako criticized “bureaucratic interference” from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Eastern Churches.
The patriarch was particularly critical of the Congregation’s decision to overturn his suspension of priests who fled Iraq without the patriarchate’s permission and were ministering in Chaldean parishes abroad.
Stating that the Eastern Catholic churches “know our situation better than anyone else,” the patriarch said that “it is expected that the Congregation of Eastern Churches would support and empower the patriarch.”
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CWN - Recalling the third anniversary of their meeting in Rome, Pope Francis has sent a letter to Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria, the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church.
The church, which has 9 million members, is among the Oriental Orthodox churches that ceased to be in full communion with the Holy See following the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451).
“Though we are still journeying towards the day when we will gather as one at the same Eucharistic table, we are able even now to make visible the communion uniting us,” Pope Francis wrote on May 10. “Copts and Catholics can witness together to important values such as the holiness and dignity of every human life, the sanctity of marriage and family life, and respect for the creation entrusted to us by God.”
Referring to the persecution of Christians, Pope Francis added:
Your Holiness, every day my thoughts and prayers are with the Christian communities in Egypt and the Middle East, so many of whom are experiencing great hardship and tragic situations. I am well aware of your grave concern for the situation in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Syria, where our Christian brothers and sisters and other religious communities are facing daily trials. May God our Father grant peace and consolation to all those who suffer, and inspire the international community to respond wisely and justly to such unprecedented violence.
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CWN - Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako, who has consistently urged Christians not to leave Iraq, has urged Chaldean priests who immigrated to the US without official permission to reflect on their priestly duties.
The Chaldean prelate made this recommendation as he announced the appointment of Archbishop Shlemon Warduni, who has been serving as an auxiliary bishop in Baghdad, to become apostolic administrator for the Chaldean parishes in the US. Patriarch Sako described this appointment as a “new beginning,” which should allow Chaldean prelates to examine their own consciences. “Please, do not let anyone separate you from your original dioceses or monasteries,” he said.
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