Free Republic

Mike Bickle, founder and director of the International House of Prayer of Kansas City, just gave a nod to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. The intercessory prayer pioneer has endorsed Cruz for president. "Our nation is in a great crisis in this hour," Bickle said. "We need a president who will first be faithful to honor God's Word. We need a president who will work to defend religious liberty, uphold our Constitution, keep our country safe and our economy sound and speak truth to the nation. We have been praying for righteous leaders, and Ted Cruz is such a leader. I...

While today was long scheduled to bring the traditional release of the Pope's message for World Communications Day, as he ever tends to do, Francis suddenly gave the news something of a Turbo Boost: a week after granting the first private audience in memory to a leading corporate executive – the Google chief Eric Schmidt – the noontime Holy See briefing announced that the pontiff met this morning with the Apple CEO Tim Cook (above). Unless Vatican diplomacy's amazingly been called upon for mediation between the oft-warring Silicon Valley titans, the dots look to be lining up for something very...

Jim Daly is president of Focus on the Family, one of the country’s biggest and best-known evangelical organizations, a group that considers opposing abortion one of its very top values. Yet Friday will be the first time Daly has come to Washington for the huge March for Life, the country’s biggest antiabortion event each year. March attendees are always overwhelmingly Catholic, but this year an influx of evangelicals will be joining them on the Mall. Daly co-sponsored the brand-new Evangelicals for Life event, held Thursday and Friday, part of an effort to refocus a generation of young Christian conservatives who...

Relics which escaped Reformation and became a symbol of resistance to Communism return to site of murder after 800 years in gesture of unity between Anglicans and CatholicsA fragment of bone believed to come from the body of Thomas Becket is to return to England from Hungary for the first time in more than 800 years in a vivid symbol of reconciliation between Anglicans and Roman Catholics. The relic, held in the Basilica of Esztergom, the country's most important Catholic church, is to form the centrepiece of an elaborate week-long "pilgrimage" to London and Canterbury involving the Hungarian President Janos...

Moscow, January 22, Interfax - The topic of a possible burial of Lenin is not presently on the Kremlin's agenda, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov has said. "There is no such question, neither in the field of discussions, nor in the field of some applied arguments and preparations. This issue is not on the agenda at all," he told reporters. He was responding to requests to comment on the remarks made by President Vladimir Putin earlier on Thursday, in which he criticized the actions and ideas of the leader of the revolution which in his view eventually led historical...

"The violence suffered by civilians in Iraq remains staggering," says U.N. report.NEW YORK - A new United Nations report has tried to count the civilian toll of continuing conflict in Iraq, largely at the hands of Islamic State militants, and the numbers are "staggering." "Even the obscene casualty figures fail to accurately reflect exactly how terribly civilians are suffering in Iraq," Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Jan. 19. "The figures capture those who were killed or maimed by overt violence, but countless others have died from the lack of access to basic food,...

In light of President Obama placing his hand on the ETERNAL RIGHTEOUS WORD of Almighty God and being sworn into a second term... it is no secret that our current president is the greatest advocate for the barbaric act of abortion in the history of this nation. He loves it! He truly loves it! What else are we to think when we look at his voting record and out spoken zeal to preserve this horrific evil (Matt. 7:20)? President and High Priest of Moloch; Barack Hussein Obama vowed Friday to join Planned Parenthood in their war on life and against...

Panel at Evangelicals for Life discusses the future of the prolife movement on Thursday, January 21, 2016. From Left to Right: Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention; Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family; Charmaine Yoest, president & CEO of Americans United for Life; and the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. Evangelicals in the pro-life movement need to go on offense in spreading their message, Jim Daly argued. Daly, president of the Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family, was part of a Thursday panel...

Athens, January 21, 2016 Hierarchs of the Church of Greece have commented on the decision of local authorities to open a crematorium in the city of Patras, reports AgionOros. Bishop Chrysanthos stressed that "the war against the Church is now being waged openly. Cremation and other manifestations of the new morality (for example, "free cohabitation", civil partnerships and so on) have nothing to do with the Orthodox tradition of Greece". *** Metropolitan Justin of Kalamaria, commenting on the decision to open the crematorium, said: "Many claim that the Church should care for people's souls only and leave the body alone....

Tbilisi, January 21, 2016 On January 19, 2016, the feast of Holy Theophany, the 42nd mass baptism of infants took place at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Tbilisi. 659 infants became new godchildren of His Holiness Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II of All Georgia. In 2008 Ilia II announced that he would become godfather of every third and subsequent baby born into a family whose parents were married in the Church. This decision was caused by the demographic crisis in Georgia at that time. In connection with this, many Georgian residents recall the story once related by the saint of our...

Lyon, France, Jan 20, 2016 / 03:06 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After sustaining a damaged leg tendon in 1982, 34-year old international footballer Jean-Pierre Adams thought that a routine knee surgery at a hospital in Lyon, France would relieve some of his discomfort. By the end of the day, the surgery had left Adams in a comatose state, unable to perform normal bodily functions like walking or talking. That was over thirty years ago. Today, his devoted wife Bernadette personally cares for Jean-Pierre in their home near Nimes, France, where the beloved footballer remains bedridden and comatose. "I think he feels...

The United Methodist Church has rejected an Intelligent Design group's request to have an information table at the denomination's 2016 General Conference. Reaffirming a decision from December, the UMC's Commission on the General Conference decided last week to not allow the Seattle-based Discovery Institute an information table at the Mainline Protestant denomination's gathering in Portland, Oregon. Diane Degnan, spokeswoman for the UMC, told The Christian Post that this was the first General Conference to allow for "outside exhibitors." "The Commission on the General Conference determined that the application by the Discovery Institute did not meet the guidelines established for exhibitors...

NEW YORK - His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew will convene under his chairmanship, Jan. 21-28, 2016, a Synaxis of the Primates of the local Orthodox Churches at the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Chambésy, Geneva.The Synaxis will deal with matters related to preparation for the Holy and Great Council, which has been decided to convene this year. His Eminence Geron Archbishop Demetrios of America will be a member of the Delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.The official announcement of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, issued yesterday January 18, 2016, follows:ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE COMMUNIQUEThe Ecumenical Patriarchate announces that, following an invitation by...

Latakia, January 19, Interfax - Russian servicemen deployed at the Hmeimim airbase in Syria's Latakia celebrated the Feast of the Baptism of Christ, one of the oldest Orthodox holidays, overnight into Tuesday. "Today, the entire group will take part in the Epiphany blessing of the waters because for a person wearing army shoulder boards, especially not on Russian soil, faith is not an idle word. The Feast of the Baptism of Christ has always been celebrated very warmly," Armed Forces Priest Ilya has said. An ordinary army tent is housing the Russian airbase's field church, where the blessing of the...

IRBIL, Iraq (AP) - Satellite photos obtained by The Associated Press confirm what church leaders and Middle East preservationists had feared: The oldest Christian monastery in Iraq has been reduced to a field of rubble, yet another victim of the Islamic State group's relentless destruction of heritage sites it considers heretical. St. Elijah's Monastery stood as a place of worship for 1,400 years, including most recently for U.S. troops. In earlier millennia, generations of monks tucked candles in the niches, prayed in the chapel, worshipped at the altar. The Greek letters chi and rho, representing the first two letters of...

Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has caused controversy by blaming the rise of Daesh--in part--on homosexuality. In an interview published on the church's official website, he claimed that people were flocking to join the group because of the "godless civilization" of the West which celebrates gay pride.He lamented what he apparently considered to be persecution of so-called religious values in the West, before going on to offer that as an explanation as to why one may join a group like Daesh."We can have parades for the sexual minorities - that is supported - but a million...

Germany's ambassador to the Vatican, Annette Schavan, still sees religion as a peacemaker, despite wars and terrorism. In an interview with DW, she calls for more interfaith dialogue and respect between all religions. Deutsche Welle: After the New Year's Eve harassment incidents in Cologne, a highly charged atmosphere with regard to migrants has developed in Germany. How do people in Rome assess the events in Germany?Annette Schavan: The Vatican knows about all the new attempts to exploit religion as a justification for violence. Germany is viewed as a country that does a lot for refugees. The pope has explicitly commended...

Prague (AFP) - Czech President Milos Zeman, known for his fiery anti-migrant rhetoric, said on Sunday it was "practically impossible" to integrate the Muslim community into European society. "The experience of Western European countries which have ghettos and excluded localities shows that the integration of the Muslim community is practically impossible," Zeman said in a televised interview. "Let them have their culture in their countries and not take it to Europe, otherwise it will end up like Cologne," he added, referring to the mass New Year's Eve assaults on women in Germany and elsewhere. "Integration is possible with cultures that...

A 70-year-old hermit who has spent her entire life in the Siberian wilderness has been introduced to the 21st century after being airlifted to a hospital for leg pain. Agafya Lykova was born in the wilderness after her family fled civilization in 1936, The Guardian reported. On Wednesday she called for help using an emergency satellite phone and said she had pain in her leg, according to a release from the Kemerovo regional government. Lykova's remarkable story first surfaced in the late 1970s after geologists flying overhead discovered her remote family, the Siberian Times reported. When contacted, her family reportedly...

Moscow, January 18, Interfax - Russian sculptors have frozen the project of a Christ statue in Syria. "We were planning [it], and there were talks to create a Christ statue of a relevantly large size. As of now, it has been frozen at the stage of a working 8-meter model, which was planned to be enlarged afterwards. Perhaps, it's pointless talking about this story, as nobody knows where the current events will eventually lead," Russian People's Artist sculptor Salavat Shcherbakov said in a live broadcast of the Russkaya Sluzhba Novostey (Russian News Service) radio. Shcherbakov also revealed that another statue...