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PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A woman sought for causing “significant damage” to a Denver cathedral was arrested in Portland days after Denver officials said she might be in the Rose City. Madeline Ann Cramer allegedly damaged the Cathedral Basilica in Denver on October 10, authorities said. Though authorities don’t know where she is, investigators said they believe she may be in the Portland area. On Thursday, police said Cramer was arrested on SE Division around 121st after tips from the public led them to her. KDVR in Denver, a sister station with KOIN, reported the vandalism included messages of symbols...

"In France there is a low-noise destruction of the Christian roots", said the philosopher Michel Onfray. "There are about one or two anti-Christian acts a day and it takes a burning cathedral to start talking about it". Six major French cathedrals and churches have caught fire during the last year and a half: Notre Dame, Nantes, Rennes, Saint-Sulpice, Lavaur and Pontoise. Perhaps that is why historian Rémi Brague called the fire at Notre Dame "our 9/11". The Observatory of Religious Heritage listed a total of 20 French churches that caught fire in just one year. Little publicized and less condemned,...

Unidentified arsonists placed a large trash bin against a side door of the Saint-Pierre cathedral in Rennes late last week and set the contents on fire, in an apparent attempt to torch the church. Rennes firefighters arrived in time to put out the fire, which they believe to have been intentionally set since the bin was brought from an adjacent street and deliberately placed outside the door. The incident took place during the night from the 11th to 12th of June. It was the owner of a neighborhood restaurant who sounded the alarm, shortly before 2:00am. “I started to smell...

"The reconstruction of the cathedral was a symbol of the resurrection of Russia, a sign of hope for better times for the people who had turned away from God, but are now returning to Him." On December 5, 1931, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow was destroyed by the Bolsheviks. It was built more than half a century after Russia's 1812 victory over the French, and was in use for about the same length of time. Under the Soviets, this cathedral, Russia's largest, was destroyed in just one day. In its place, they planned to build a Palace...

France currently 'worst country in Europe' for 'secularist, anti-religious intolerance'French monitoring groups have cited an increase in attacks on churches and religious sites, with a record 47 documented in February, despite appeals for better protection from the country's Catholic bishops. The groups' report said 15 vandalism attacks had been registered nationwide during the month, along with 15 robberies, 10 acts of profanation and one torching incident. It added that the worst had occurred at the gothic cathedral of Saint-Denis, near Paris, the historic burial place of French monarchs, which assailants had entered by smashing a historic stained-glass window, before wrecking...

University of Chicago Rockefeller Chapel Carillon and Choir - Domenico Cimarosa - Sonata No 15 - Pavel Chesnokov - Salvation is Created - Johann Sebastian Bach - Prelude in C Minor

A British organization has launched an ambitious project aimed at restoring old, abandoned synagogues across Europe and bringing them back to community life, and commemorating communities that were wiped out in the Holocaust. The Foundation of Jewish Heritage has identified 3,300 pre-Second World War buildings used for Jewish prayer, of which at least 19 could be brought back into use - out of an estimated total of 17,000 that were in use before the Second World War. The remaining buildings, of which just 718 are still being used as synagogues, have been carefully catalogued based on their artistic, urban, and...

Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral is in a dismal state of disrepair and needs $70 million for urgent renovations, according to Michel Picaud, head of Friends of Notre Dame de Paris. One possible solution for the famous church and other religious monuments is to ask patrons to pay an entrance fee, but so far the Church has been against that. Taking a tour of the decrepit parts of the cathedral (its construction began in the 1100s), is a long, breathtaking and dispiriting experience. Around the back of the cathedral, Picaud points to a collection of stones – including finely worked pinnacles...

* In Islamic symbolism, Córdoba is the lost Caliphate. Political authorities in Córdoba dealt a blow to the Catholic Church's claim of ownership of cathedral by declaring that "religious consecration is not the way to acquire property". But this is how history works, especially in the lands where Christianity and Islam fought hard for dominion. Why are secularists not pressing Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to give Christians back the Hagia Sophia? No one has raised an eyebrow that "Christendom's greatest cathedral has become a mosque". * The Spanish left, governing the region, would like to convert the church into...

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, are becoming cheaper and easier to use all the time. Combined with cheap high-quality cameras, and we’re living in a new age of video recording. A drone plus an HD camera can enable a regular person take absolutely breathtaking video from angles never before possible (or at least that were very, very difficult to do before). While YouTube is chalk-full of amazing videos shot with drones, here is just a sampling of videos shot with drones of beautiful Christian sites. For each video, I’ve included a picture, a few gifs, and then...

For your Just Too Cool file… a reader alerted me to a post at Daniel Mitsui’s blog.This, if true, really is just too cool: SOLAR-POWERED NANOTECH-PURIFIED AIR in MEDIAEVAL CHURCHESInformation Week:The glaziers who created gold-painted stained glass windows for mediaeval churches in Europe… developed a solar-powered nanotech air-purification system.According to Zhu Huai Yong, an associate professor at Queensland University of Technology in Australia, the gold paint used in mediaeval-era stained glass windows purified the air when heated by sunlight.For centuries people appreciated only the beautiful works of art, and long life of the colors, but little did they realize that...

Searching Among A Haitian Cathedral's Ruins The collapse of Notre Dame Cathedral in Port-au-Prince struck at the heart of a religiously fervent people. By Tracy Wilkinson January 16, 2010 Reporting from Port-Au-Prince, Haiti - The woman wailed outside the ruins of the Notre Dame Cathedral of Port-au-Prince, the iconic Roman Catholic church that symbolized Haiti's religious fervor. "This is what God did!" she cried Friday morning. "See what God can do!" Tuesday's earthquake brought down the roof of the enormous pink-and-cream church, filling the apse and nave with tons of rubble. The quake punched out its vivid stained glass windows,...

On Europe's Cathedrals "Beauty Is a Privileged ... Way to Approach the Mystery of God" VATICAN CITY, NOV. 18, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of Benedict XVI's address today during the general audience, which was held in Paul VI Hall. * * * Dear brothers and sisters, In the catecheses of recent weeks I have presented some aspects of Medieval theology. However Christian faith, profoundly rooted in the men and women of those centuries, did not only give origin to masterpieces of theological literature, of thought and of faith. It also inspired one of the loftiest artistic creations of...

PARIS (AFP) — US President Barack Obama and his family received a hero's welcome in Paris on Saturday as they were given a private tour of the famed Notre Dame cathedral. Thousands of cheering Parisians and tourists lined bridges over the River Seine as the presidential motorcade swept past, desperate for a glimpse of Obama, his wife Michelle, 10-year-old Malia and seven-year-old Sasha. Applause and whistles erupted as Obama's 20-vehicle motorcade pulled in to the large square in front of the cathedral, closed off to the public specially for his visit. With Paris abuzz, the presidential party spent more than...

BOONE, NC(Singing News) - Legacy Five pianist Roger Bennett died today as a result of complications encountered though his long battle with leukemia. He was 48 years old. Born March 10, 1959, Roger grew up in Strawberry, Arkansas. In November of 1979, Roger fulfilled his life-long dream of being a part of professional Southern Gospel music when he was invited by Glen Payne and George Younce to join the legendary Cathedral Quartet. Though he would leave the group for two years (1987-1989) to serve as the president of Journey Records, Roger was the group's pianist at the time of the...

What do Yoda and Gothic cathedrals have in common? More than being several hundred years old, as it turns out. Computer animation software used in newer "Star Wars" films to bring the pint-sized Jedi to life has now been modified to investigate the mysteries of cathedral architecture. Along with having many practical uses for architects today, the technology could unlock some of the trade secrets guarded by stonemason guilds for centuries. Pressure pointsEngineers and architects working together at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed the software, known as particle-spring systems. It works by turning the lines and points of pressure...

In our last “class” on Greco-Roman, Early Christian and Byzantine Art, we saw how the realism of Greece and Rome was repudiated for more spiritual abstraction. The Christians saw the soul as more important than the weighty, physical body, and thus their works were flat and filled with the gold of paradise. My connection to spiritual twentieth century abstraction received mixed results, but that’s fine. Today, we’ll see how artists gradually added some bulk and realism to their work from 1000-1400. Then in the next “class,” we’ll study how the Italian Renaissance united a rebirth of Greco-Roman realism with Christian...

Singing News has learned that the legendary George Younce has passed away. According to George's son-in-law, Ernie Haase of Signature Sound, George passed away at approximately 3:30 a.m., Monday, April 11, 2005. In a conversation with Singing News' Danny Jones, Ernie Haase asked for everyone's prayers for the entire Younce family during this difficult time. He further states that the family wants everyone to know that George loved the people of Southern Gospel Music and often spoke of the kindness and love he encountered from the fans. George never forgot the fans . . . and the fans will never...

BISHOP ALLEN VIGNERON, shepherd of the Roman Catholic Diocese, heard something he didn't like from his flock about Diocesan plans for the 17-story Christ the Light Cathedral last week at a community meeting. These were not sheep-like Catholics, and they knew the scriptures. What the bishop heard was a respectful bleating. "Baaaaa ..." Several who spoke said the $131 million price tag for building the cathedral complex should instead be spent on the poor and homeless as taught by Jesus Christ and the Bible. The proposed soaring edifice would be a "symbol of wealth and the pride of man," said...