Free Republic

Chapter 11 of the Acts of the Apostles says that Antioch was the city in which, for the first time, the disciples of Jesus were called “Christians.” Tradition has enthroned Peter as the founder of the Church of Antioch, following the narration of the very same Book of Acts, which tells not only of the arrival of Peter and Barnabas to the Turkish city, but also of their preaching.Moreover, this very same tradition claims that it was in the Knisset Mar Semaan Kefa (“Grotto of St. Peter” in Aramaic) where Peter would celebrate the Eucharist for this community. That is to...

TRYING TO PLEASE EVERYONE Trying to please everyone is by far the worst disease the West contracted. Today, critiquing any other religion besides Christianity is considered a sin while mocking Christianity is applauded. I argue that anyone who tries to combat anything without using biblical concepts is an idiot no mater how ‘brilliant’ society thinks they are. A Christian will always be attacked no matter what they say. I as a Christian could type any sentence and instant objections will arise. I could even publish a single line article that says: “Mankind does good and evil” and someone will object....

When amateur archaeologist Dennis Fabricius Holm got off work early last Friday and decided to spend a couple of hours searching a little field in Funen with his metal detector, little did he know he was about to make history. Holm stumbled across one of the most extraordinary finds in recent times near the little town of Aunslev when he discovered a crucifix that dates back about 1,100 years – Denmark’s oldest crucifix ever found. It could rewrite Danish history. “It’s a completely sensational find that dates back to the first half of the 900s,” Malene Refshauge Beck, a curator...

Unearthed in the central Turkish region of Cappadocia, the unique church contains remarkable frescoesLast February, archaeologists unearthed a unique rock-carved underground church in Nevsehir, in the central Turkish region of Cappadocia. The church was decorated with never before seen frescoes depicting JesusÂ’ Ascension, the Final Judgement, Jesus feeding the multitudes, and portraits of saints and prophets. The discovery, made during excavations and cleaning operations in an underground city recently uncovered as part of an urban project in Nevsehir, is located within a castle that might date back to the fifth century. Authorities expect it will make Cappadocia an even more...

Christians in Turkey have become a tiny minority. The few remaining Christian churches in Anatolia are also on the path to total annihilation. Christians in Turkey have – throughout the centuries -- been turned into a tiny, dwindling minority. The remaining few Christian churches in Anatolia are also on the path to total annihilation. Hagia Sophia in Trabzon: Church-mosque-museum and now mosque again. The Hagia Sophia, Greek for “Holy Wisdom,” was one of the many historic Orthodox churches located in the city of Trabzon. ... The city of Trabzon .. is located in the ancient land of Pontos, in the...

In 2016 more than half of converts in Vienna were Muslim, according to reports An increasing number of Muslim migrants in Austria are converting to Christianity, according to reports. According to Austrian website Kurier, 83 adults were approved for baptism in Vienna in 2016, with Friederike Dostal of the Austrian Bishops’ Conference estimating that about half of them were Muslims, mainly from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iran. This figure is up from one-third in 2015. There is expected to be a further rise of Muslim converts in 2017 due to the fact that there has been an increase in the number...

Around the world, people are beginning to turn their backs on religion. For some time, researchers have observed this trend as it ripples through developed countries, with the United States standing out as the exception. Now, a new study reveals this is no longer the case; with each passing generation, Americans too are steadily becoming less religious. --snip-- Researchers found each generation is subsequently less religious than the one before. In one example, the team found that 41 percent of people aged 70 and older reported they attend church services at least once a month. For people just under that...

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association is hosting an international summit on religious persecution in Moscow in collaboration with the Russian Orthodox Church. The summit, called 'The World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians,' will be taking place from October 28-30, 2016. Franklin Graham announced on his Facebook page on Wednesday morning that 'The World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians' is called in view of rapidly increasing persecution of Christians around the world in recent years, as also documented by last year's study on persecution by Open Doors, which found that 2015 was the worst year of Christian persecution.

This is a nice problem to have to solve.Details (via Google translate): With faulty acoustics and its 200 seats, the former cathedral of St. Olav, consecrated in 1973 no longer met the needs of the Catholic community in Trondheim, Norway’s third largest city.While in 1973 there were only 500 Catholics in the city and its surroundings, they are now more than 6,000, arrived with the oil boom and economic prosperity. The city also has a technical university that attracts foreign students and researchers. “Today there are more than 25% of Norwegian origin” among registered Catholics in the diocese of...

For the first time in a millennium, as I said, the Arabs are in charge for their own affairs, responsible for their own affairs. (...)Khomeini in one of his writings talks about the need to drive out the Americans and that little protégé, the illegitimate offspring, he calls it, in the region.(...) In much of the Islamic world the defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union is seen as an Islamic victory.

Britain's Prince Charles has warned that Christianity might be entirely erased from the land of its birth in the Middle East within five years. "Their suffering is symptomatic of a very real crisis which threatens the very existence of Christianity in the land of its birth," Charles said at the Archbishop House in central London, reported the Express on Thursday. "In fact according to Aid to the Church in Need, which is a truly remarkable organization, Christianity is on course to disappear from Iraq within five years unless emergency help is provided on a greatly increased scale at an international...

When President Obama unveiled the U. S. Department of Education's new college scorecard, he indicated it would be inclusive, reviewing every school. Well, they missed three--Christendom, Hillsdale and Grove City College. Officials at the Department of Education informed Hillsdale's administrators that they didn't make the list because the college did not confer enough 4-year degrees, something Hillsdale has been doing since the 19th Century. The DOE claimed that Grove City College (GCC) did not make the list because the college did not provide Title IV funds, GCC president Paul McNulty said at the Heritage Foundation on Monday November 16. Ironically,...

Western countries do not identify themselves with the Christian tradition and harass those who defend Christian values, said Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill on Wednesday at a meeting with US preacher Franklin Graham at the St. Daniel Monastery. "Russian Church during the Cold War was actively developing relations with Western Christians. We were living in difficult conditions of atheistic ideology and perceived Western civilization as Christian civilization. We appreciated the freedom in which they lived, Christians in the West, and considered them our brothers and allies" - said the Patriarch. He stressed with regret that in recent years...

The death of Europe is in sight. Still hazy and not yet inevitable, but nevertheless visible and drawing nearer—like a distant planet in the lens of an approaching satellite. Europe is reaching its end not because of its sclerotic economy, or stagnant demography, or the dysfunctions of the superstate. Nor is the real cause the massive influx of Middle Eastern and African migrants. Those desperate people are just the latest stiff breeze against the timber of a desiccated civilization. Europe is dying because it has become morally incompetent. It isn’t that Europe stands for nothing. It’s that it stands for...

Whilst many people remember Sept. 11 2001 for the Islamic terrorist attack on the USA and also the Western world by extension, few people are aware of another significant battle that saved Western Christendom for many generations that also occurred on Sept. 11 and Sept. 12 1683: The Battle of Vienna. It was this very battle that we in the West have reaped the benefits of and taken for granted but few know or bother to know the details. It will be my sincere attempt to not simply bring out the details of the Battle but rather, to seek to...

The Islamic State has managed to destroy two thousand years of Christian civilization in the Middle East in just a couple of years, Lt. Col. Ralph Peters noted on The O’Reilly Factor last week. And he placed the blame squarely on President Obama’s cowardly, feckless, incompetent foreign policy.ISIS has been spreading across the Middle East like a plague of locusts, and as they have spread, they have targeted religious minorities, particularly Christians, for destruction. In Syria, tens of thousands of Assyrian Christians have been attacked and displaced.They are the forgotten refugees.A Catholic priest who visited Kurdish Iraq last fall described...

“Let me put it a different way. During the rule of Communism, Russia found itself in the grip of a culture of death, but she is returning to life, in the sense of Christian culture with a strong awareness of the historical roots and continuity.” The situation in the West is the complete opposite. We celebrate death and have surrendered to the satanic view of man in a self-righteous rage and rant against God. We can divorce with ease on-line. We prioritise work and career above family responsibilities especially raising children. We favour euthanasia, abortion on demand, homosexual rights and...

Once a solid, vibrant Lutheran stronghold, Scandinavia today is probably the most secularized region of the Western world. Spiritually, Scandinavians have become “the people that dwell in darkness.” Scandinavia is filled with large, beautiful, empty churches. This has not happened by accident. . . It is probably the case today that a randomly selected African has a better chance than a randomly selected Scandinavian of hearing the Gospel clearly preached.  There was a time when every Swede was Lutheran from birth by law, and no other denomination was permitted. The Church of Sweden took to calling itself Den Svenska...

(The link is to a map supposedly showing the spread of world religions through time. Conveniently, It fails to show that Palestine, North Africa or the Middle East was Christianized prior to Mohammed, or, in fact, ever. This is the BS the machine is spreading as fact.) Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are five of the biggest religions in the world. Over the last few thousand years, these religious groups have shaped the course of history and had a profound influence on the trajectory of the human race. 

At the level of sweeping stereotypes, most Westerners tend to think of India and its dominant religion, Hinduism, as bastions of tolerance. Ever since the Beatles traveled to an ashram to study meditation, there’s been a chic about Indian spirituality as the ultimate in “all paths lead to the same place.”One might profitably ask Christians in today’s India, however, whether those stereotypes have anything to do with their reality. The answer you’re likely to get is, “Are you kidding?”In truth, India’s small Christian minority has felt under the gun for a long time, and they say things have become considerably...