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A Coptic Orthodox church in British Columbia was destroyed in a fire on Monday, July 19, just days after an attempted arson attack damaged the church’s door. Local police said they were alerted to a fire at St. George Coptic Orthodox Church in Surrey around 3:17 a.m. on Monday. By the time the fire was extinguished, the building was almost entirely demolished and only a single wall was left standing. No one was reported injured in the fire. “While today is a day of sadness, we will not be deterred and we will rebuild,” said Bishop Mina of the Coptic...

Canada is pulling funds from groups still searching for alleged bodies buried at Indigenous residential schools funded by Catholics and other Christians. An organization and a committee of experts formed to search for the elusive remains have both lost funding in the past month, following four years of searches that have found zero remains. The Survivors’ Secretariat and the committee both say they have lost funding this year, the CBC reported. One of the committee’s founding members, Crystal Gail Fraser, told the outlet in mid-February that the National Advisory Committee on Residential Schools Missing Children and Unmarked Burials would have...

CLAIM: The Biden campaign is repeating a lie that former President Donald Trump tear-gassed peaceful protesters gathered outside of the White House in Lafayette Square for a photo-op. VERDICT: FALSE. This has been debunked countless times and has been proven false. The inspector general of the U.S. Department of Interior released a report in June 2021 that exonerated Trump from claims that he had tear-gassed peaceful protesters gathered in Lafayette Square in June 2020 to walk through the park to have a photo-op at St. John’s Episcopal Church.

WARNING: This story contains distressing details. (CBC Warning) In a barren field of sagebrush alongside a road through the Osoyoos Indian Band, Chief Clarence Louie stands atop a concrete pad and surveys the rubble in front of him. This used to be the front entrance to St. Gregory's, the simple wooden church that hosted countless community celebrations, dinners and religious services, on the reserve just north of the Canada-U.S. border in central B.C. The church had stood for more than one hundred years as a symbol of the Catholic faith, but on June 21, 2021, someone burned it to the...

On Thursday night, firefighters in Barrhead, Alberta, were called to suspected arson fires at two separate churches about an hour apart from each other. Police told Global News that damage to both structures was extreme despite fire teams being able to extinguish the flames quickly. Officials said that Glenreagh church, also known as St. Aiden's Church, was heavily damaged, and two brass candleholders and the offering plate were stolen. United Church on Range Road 54, also known as Pioneer Church was destroyed. Regional Fire Chief with the Town of Barrhead, Gary Hove told the outlet, "Definitely, these are suspicious fires."...

An arson investigation was underway on Tuesday after seven fires erupted overnight at two churches, a gas station and four other buildings near Mississippi's Jackson State University, officials told local media. Video footage showed the worst of the seven fires near the historically Black college left Epiphany Church in ruins. There were no reports of any injuries, ABC affiliate WAPT reported.

Two men are facing felony charges for their involvement in a church burning. On the morning of Sunday, June 26, 2022 at 10:26 A.M., Trooper D.L. Daniels was called to a reported structure fire at 2136 Irish Mountain Road, in Shady Spring, West Virginia.Once on scene, he was advised by the Beaver Volunteer Fire Department that the structure that was burned down was the Saint Colman Catholic Church. The church had been completely burned to the ground. Upon further investigation, it was discovered the church was burned the night before, but no one reported it to emergency services.

ABUJA, Nigeria, March 28, 2022 (Morning Star News) – Fulani herdsmen on Thursday (March 24) killed an estimated 50 Christians and abducted a Catholic priest in attacks on communities in an area of Kaduna state, Nigeria, area sources said. In late-night attacks on 10 predominantly Christian communities of Giwa County, herdsmen and others also took about 100 people captive and burned down a church building, area residents said. “They also burned houses, stores and killed animals,” resident Nuhu Musa told Morning Star News by text message. “These attacks continued and lasted up to the morning of Friday, 25 March. They...

An Auburn woman has been charged with setting fire to a historic Montgomery church last week. Xiaoqin Yan, 27, is charged with second-degree arson, according to court records made public Tuesday. Yan was arrested Oct. 4 and remains held in the Montgomery County Detention Center on $30,000 bond. According to charging documents against Yan, she used an “open flame to ignite an ignitable liquid,” causing $25,000 in damage to First Baptist Church on Perry Street. According to court records, Yan is a citizen of China who is in the U.S. on a student visa. Her visa has now been revoked....

A historical Polish Roman Catholic Church building near Redberry Lake burned down Thursday afternoon. The site is just under an hour east of the Battlefords. The fire follows a string of church-burning incidents across the country, coinciding with the recent discoveries of unmarked graves at residential school sites in British Columbia and Saskatchewan. There was no immediate comment from law enforcement on the cause of the blaze but images captured of the scene shows the blaze spreading quickly.

Canadian churches, mostly Roman Catholic and Anglican and often historic, have been burned down or vandalised in remarkable numbers in recent days, as anger has been whipped up over the discovery of unmarked graved — often wrongly described as “mass graves” by the mainstream media — at the sites of former Indian Residential Schools; institutions typically run by churches which the government used to require First Nations children to attend, in what is now seen as a misguided effort to integrate them into the cultural mainstream. The schools date back to the 1800s, and at least some of the graves...

<p>A California church that espouses anti-LGBTQ beliefs and has been the recent target of protests was bombed with an improvised explosive device early Saturday morning, authorities said.</p><p>The El Monte Police Department responded to calls around 4:30 a.m. about smoke at First Works Baptist Church. Officers discovered windows were broken and realized there had been a blast, Lt. Christopher Cano told reporters at the scene. There were no injuries or deaths.</p>

Denver Newsroom, Nov 18, 2020 / 03:40 pm MT (CNA).- Two church buildings— one Baptist, one Catholic— were damaged by fires in apparent arson attacks Sunday morning in Brewster, a town in central Washington. Sacred Heart Catholic Church suffered some fire damage near the sanctuary from an incendiary device dropped through a broken window early Nov. 15. New Testament Baptist Church, located a block away, suffered more serious fire damage to its interior the same morning. Investigators have deemed the fire at Sacred Heart to be intentional, police say. The police have not yet made the same pronouncement about the...

The Vietnamese Baptist Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was a “total loss” after being burned during Black Lives Matter protests and riots on Tuesday night, according to news reports and video footage released Wednesday.

SANTIAGO, Chile, October 20, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Two Catholic churches were destroyed in Chile’s capital city Sunday in the wake of riots marking the one-year anniversary of anti-government protests that called for a new constitution. “Television images from Santiago on Sunday showed masked protesters filming with their smartphones and cheering as the spire of the burning La Asunción church crashed to the ground,” the Wall Street Journal reported. “Demonstrators also set fire to San Francisco Borja church, which dates from the mid-19th century.” The Church of St. Francis Borgia is regularly used for law enforcement ceremonies. The Church of the...

The three Louisiana churches went up in flames in a span of 10 days, each doused in gasoline and torched with oily shop rags in the middle of the night. Each Baptist congregation was predominantly black, causing church leaders to fear that white supremacists may target their parish next. But as the fears swirled, the arsonist, 22-year-old Holden Matthews, was busy planning his next album cover, according to text messages obtained by prosecutors He burned down the three churches in St. Landry Parish, federal prosecutors said Monday, because he wanted “to raise his profile as a ‘Black Metal’ musician.” Matthews,...

GREENVILLE, Miss. — A member of an African American church in Mississippi has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for burning the church, which was also spray painted with "Vote Trump" a week before the 2016 presidential election. WLBT-TV reports 47-year-old Andrew McClinton was sentenced Thursday in Greenville. Circuit Judge Margaret Carey-McCray also gave him 10 years of supervised release after the 10 in prison. McClinton pleaded guilty to arson on March 28. Investigators said McClinton belonged to the church that was vandalized ...

Easter week is the holiest week for Christians. What a week we have had this year.Early this week, we watched in horror and devastation as the Notre Dame Cathedral was consumed by flame and the cathedral's spire collapsed.  Many of us felt a deep sense of loss and grief. Yes, we were concerned about the priceless relics, the art and building. But as Christians, we couldn't help wonder what does this mean to our faith and what symbolism or lesson should we draw from the burning of one of the most celebrated Christian churches during holy week.  After all, we...

The man taken into custody Wednesday night after allegedly trying to walk into St. Patrick's Cathedral, in the heart of New York City, with two gasoline cans and lighter fluid had booked a one-way $2,800 flight to Italy for Thursday, police said. He was also arrested days earlier at a New Jersey church, law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation tell News 4. Marc Lamparello, 37, would've been out of the country by Thursday night, NYPD officials said in announcing formal charges against him. Police said he had purchased the ticket to Rome Wednesday morning, hours before they say he...

<p>ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — The former president of Ethiopia's Somali region was arrested Monday, the state broadcaster ETV reported.</p> <p>The dismissal and arrest of Abdi Mohammed Omar, a well-known politician from the country's eastern area, came after unrest in the Somali region's capital, Jigjiga, and other towns in recent weeks in which ethnic Somalis, suspected to be connected to Abdi, attacked people from other ethnic backgrounds.</p>