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Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
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CWN - Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria, the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, has devoted his 2016 Christmas encyclical letter to “one of the main objectives of the Birth of Christ, that is, giving joy to mankind.”
The church—one of the Oriental Orthodox churches that ceased to be in full communion with the Holy See following the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451—celebrated Christmas on January 7.
“Our Lord Jesus Christ came to give joy to every heart,” wrote Pope Tawadros. “The first element of joy in the Nativity is the Virgin St. Mary. She gladdened us with her righteousness and purity. No person can gladden others unless he or she is righteous and pure.”
For the second year in a row, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi attended the Coptic patriarch’s Christmas Eve Divine Liturgy at St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo. “The greetings [el-Sisi] received from the hundreds of faithful present were jubilant,” the Fides news agency reported.
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Vatican City, 7 January 2016 (VIS) – Today, the Holy Father erected the apostolic exarchate for Syrian Catholics in Canada with territory taken from the Eparchy of Our Lady of Deliverance of Newark. The Holy Father appointed Fr. Antoine Nassif as first exarch of the newly-erected apostolic exarchate. Bishop-elect Nassif was born in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1969 and ordained for the Syrian Catholic patriarchal eparchy in 1992. After ordination he served in various roles including: principal of the school of Charfet, Lebanon; vice-pastor in two parishes; and, most recently, as rector of the Patriarchal Major Seminary of Charfet. He speaks French, English, and Italian.
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CWN - Pope Francis has established an exarchate for Syrian Catholics in Canada.
The new exarchate will take over jurisdiction for Canadian territory previously within the Eparchy of Our Lady of Deliverance of Newark, which was set up in 1995 to care for the Syrian Catholics in North America. Father Antoine Nassif, the rector of the Syrian Catholic seminary in Lebanon, has been named by the Pontiff to head the exarchate, with headquarters in Montreal.
The Syrian Catholic Church, which shares its liturgical traditions with the Syrian Orthodox Church, has been in communion with the Holy See since the late 18th century. It is a self-governing body, with headquarters in Beirut, led by Patriarch Ignace Joseph Younan of Antioch.
The establishment of a Syrian Catholic exarchate in Canada comes only a few days after the Pope erected a new eparchy for another ecommunity of Eastern Christians in communion with the Holy See: the Syro-Malankara Catholics of the US and Canada.
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CWN - Relations with Russia take precedence over relations with the European Union and the United States, the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church said in an interview.
Patriarch Irinej told Sputnik, a news agency operated by the Russian government, that “our relations with Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church are those of two brotherly, same-blood, same-faith people.”
“We want friendly relations with everyone who wants it too, with Europe, with America, with Russia above all, but if those interests are conflicting and raising questions, there is no dilemma for us,” he added. “Russia comes first.”
Serbia, a nation of 7.2 million people, is 85% Orthodox, 6% Catholic, and 3% Muslim.
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CWN - Its numbers on the rise as Iraqi Christians emigrate to the United States, the Chaldean Eparchy of St. Peter the Apostle-- an Eastern Catholic diocese whose territory includes 19 states-- now has ten parishes and two missions in California alone, according to the magazine of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association.
The city of El Cajon has “two convents, a monastery and a seminary alongside a catechetical program serving 1,000 children, who learn to pray and celebrate the Qurbana, the Eucharistic liturgy of the Chaldean Church, in a modern form of the Aramaic language,” the magazine reported.
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CWN - The former editor of an official Russian Orthodox journal, who was dismissed last week because of disagreements with the Moscow Patriarchate, says that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is drawing away from Moscow.
Sergei Chapnin, the former editor of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, said that his firing was “the beginning of a settling of accounts,” as Moscow’s Patriarch Kirill consolidates his control over the Russian Orthodox hierarchy.
Chapnin said that Patriarch Kirill’s strategy for growth, which has included a doubling of the number of Russian Orthodox bishops, has produced a rigid, controlled, and bureaucratic structure. In effect the Orthodox Church has become a civic religion, he said: “Orthodoxy without God.”
Years ago, then-Metropolitan Kirill recognized how the Orthodox faith had suffered from identification with the Soviet regime, Chapnin argued. But since coming to power the Patriarch has strongly supported the policies of Russia’s President Putin. “It is dangerous to mix religious and national identity,” he remarked.
In Ukraine, the Moscow Patriarchate’s support for Russia’s territorial claims has alienated many Orthodox believers, Chapnin continued. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church allied with Moscow has lost support to its rival, the independent Orthodox patriarchate of Kiev. The Russian journalist predicted that Patriarch Kirill will go down in history as the Russian Orthodox leader who lost Ukraine.
The loss of Ukrainian Orthodox dioceses and parishes would also be a major setback to Patriarch Kirill’s plans for expansion, Chapnin pointed out, since the Orthodox Church in Ukraine accounts for a large proportion of the active believers counted by the Moscow Patriarchate under its jurisdiction.
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