Free Republic

The Coptic Christian pope has canceled a meeting with the US vice president in Cairo, in protest against America’s move to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Palestinian leader Abbas also snubbed Mike Pence. In a statement released on Saturday, the Coptic Church said it “excused itself from hosting Mike Pence” when he visits Egypt, citing US President Donald Trump’s decision made “at an unsuitable time and without consideration for the feelings of millions of people.” Egypt’s Coptic Church said it would pray for “wisdom and to address all issues that impact peace for the people of the Middle East.” The...

Biblical scholars have discovered the first-known original Greek copy of an ancient forbidden Christian text that purportedly describes Jesus’ secret teachings to his “brother” James, an early leader of the Church. Geoffrey Smith and Brent Landau, religious studies scholars at The University of Texas at Austin, located the rare text in Oxford University archives earlier this year. The experts found several fifth- or sixth-century A.D. Greek fragments of the First Apocalypse of James, one of the books from an ancient collection known as the Nag Hammadi library. Previously, the text was thought to be preserved only via translations in the...

For Abba Estiganous, bishop of Beba, religion is behind the murder of "martyr" Sam'an Shehata. His murderer, Mohamed Sonbaty, attacked his own relatives in the past and set fire to their home. For neighbours, he is a known radical. The Catholic Church shares the pain and offers prayers. Cairo (AsiaNews) – The killer of Saman Shehata, a Coptic Orthodox priest stabbed to death last Thursday, is well known to law enforcement. His name is Mohamed Sonbaty, said Abba Estiganous, Bishop of Beba, in a statement released today on the priest's "martyrdom". The lethal attack appears to be religious in motivation....

John Anton – OCP News Service – 12/1017 +Memory Eternal+ Cairo-Egypt: A Coptic Orthodox Christian priest was murdered and another was injured in a knife attack this morning in the Capital city of Cairo. Father ‘Samaan Shihata’ (Fr Simon) from Bani Suief, Upper Egypt, was on a visit to Cairo with another priest. They were attacked by some unknown person who killed Fr Simon. Local media reported that police have arrested the culprit and he is currently under investigation. The ancient Coptic orthodox christian community in Egypt face various persecution from religious fanatics . May be the memory of the...

"Islamic State" militants reportedly carried out the execution-style killings in early 2015. A detained IS militant who witnessed the mass murder clued in authorities to the site.Libyan authorities have recovered the remains of 21 Coptic Christians who were beheaded by so-called "Islamic State" (IS) militants more than two years ago, the anti-IS organization al-Bonyan al-Marsous announced Saturday. The gruesome discovery was made in the seaside city of Sirte — the home town of former dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was toppled in 2011. A statement said officials were led to the site by an IS militant who had witnessed the attack...

Christians have lived in Iraq for centuries but are being ethnically cleansed from the region. In Egypt, Coptic Christians are under constant threat as well. And yet, the international community seems obsessed with accepting Muslim refugees when there is no real ethnic cleansing of Muslims anywhere. It is the Christians in the Middle East who need help and it is they who should be allowed into Western countries as refugees video at source

As more and more details emerge concerning Friday’s Ramadan attack on a busload of Christians on pilgrimage, the more it becomes evident that these 29 martyrs died solely because they were Christians. Survivors of the attack said that the ten masked Islamic State militants did not merely open fire on the bus full of Christian pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of Saint Samuel the Confesor, but that the victims were made to descend from the bus and asked one by one whether they were Christians before being shot by the assailants. According to one of the chaplains of...

Egyptian fighter jets have struck militant camps following the deadly attack on Egypt’s Coptic Christians, President Abdel Fattah Sisi has announced. The strikes were carried out in eastern Libya, state television said.Egypt’s president also vowed to continue striking bases used to train militants and who carry out terrorist attacks in his country, regardless of the camps' location.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV4jfKiaSsk  

Ten masked gunmen, who used machine guns, opened fire at two buses carrying Egyptian Coptic Christians to a monastery south of Cairo on Friday, killing 26 including children and injuring 26 others, Al Arabiya News Channel reported. The Christian group was travelling in two buses and a truck through the province, which is home to a sizeable Christian minority, the governor of Egypt’s Minya province, Essam al-Bedaiwy, said. The health ministry said there were between eight and 10 attackers dressed in military uniforms, according to witnesses. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which came on the eve of...

Who are these sisters and brothers suffering persecution for Christ?  From the Aleteia archives:  With the news of the terrible bombing during Divine Liturgy in a Coptic Orthodox church in Cairo, December 11, 2016, attention is being drawn again to the sufferings of Christian brothers and sisters in the Middle East. Who are these Coptic Christians? What do we share with them?1. The Coptic Church is among the oldest Christian communities in the world.Coptic Christians trace the founding of their church to a missionary journey by the evangelist St. Mark in the year 42. According to tradition, Mark spent his...

FULL TITLE: Heartbroken Egyptian families weep over the coffins of their loved ones after Palm Sunday massacre kills nearly 50 Coptic Christians in two ISIS suicide bomb attacks Mourners filled a church in Egypt that had been torn apart in a terrorist bombing to commemorate the victims claimed in one of two attacks on Palm Sunday. People in Tanta packed the streets leading to the Coptic Church of Mar Girgis - or St. George - to pay their respects while relatives inside laid their bodies across the coffins and wept. A suicide bomber slipped past security and detonated the bomb...

An explosion on Sunday morning at the Mar Girgis Coptic church in the central Delta city of Tanta has left at least 21 dead and over 40 people injured, according to officials. Worshippers were celebrating Palm Sunday.

Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Patriarch Tawadros II has assured people that the persecuted and displaced Christians of the Sinai Peninsula can soon return to their homes, saying the Islamic State's attacks were isolated incidents in the country.In an interview broadcast by CBC satellite channel on March 27, Pope Tawadros talked about the string of ISIS attacks targeting Christians in North Sinai last month. He said the jihadist attacks affected not only Egypt’s Christians, but also its police, army, and judiciary, the Independent Catholic News relays. Hundreds of Coptic Christian families left Sinai after seven believers were murdered from Jan. 30 to...

Islamic State published a video on Sunday threatening Egyptian Christians and showing the last statement of a man it said was responsible for the deadly bombing in December of a Coptic cathedral in Cairo. The masked man in battle-dress, whom the group identified as Abu Abdallah al-Masri, is seen encouraging militants all over the world not to give up and promising Islamists jailed in Egypt they will be freed soon, when the group "liberates" Cairo. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had already identified the bomber as a 22-year-old student called Mahmoud Shafik, and it is believed Abu Abdallah al-Masri was his...

The Egyptian army has completed the renovation of a church in central Cairo that was the scene of a bomb attack that killed 27 people earlier in December, a military spokesman announced on Saturday. President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi ordered that St. Peter and St. Paul’s Church be renovated after the attack on 11 December, which was claimed by a local ISIS affiliate, before Coptic Christians celebrate Christmas on 7 January. "The Armed Forces Engineering Authority was able to restore the church’s destroyed areas while preserving the church's architectural heritage in 15 days to be ready to receive Christians for Christmas," read...

CAIRO - A bombing at Egypt’s main Coptic Christian cathedral killed 25 people and wounded another 35 on Sunday, in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. The attack came two days after a bomb elsewhere in Cairo killed six policemen, an assault claimed by a shadowy group that authorities say is linked to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. Islamic militants have targeted Christians in the past, including a New Year’s Day bombing at a church in Alexandria in 2011 that killed at least 21 people. Egypt’s official MENA news agency said an assailant...

Big bold Drudge lines [*h*] ... CIA PLANS CYBER STRIKE ON RUSSIA 'DEFCON WARNING UPGRADE' MOSCOW READY FOR WAR Obama wants to not only wag-the-dog, but who knows? A cyber-war could disrupt internet communications -- time to blind Trump supporters. And it all boils down to their bribe money to take out the Syrian government. Obama and Hillary want you to think that Bashar Assad is the very devil. In many ways he is. Worst of all is his defense of Christians and Jews so far as the Establishment thinks. ISIS is cool -- they enslave Christians and Jews for...

Manama (Agenzia Fides) - Coptic Orthodox priest Royce George, engaged in the pastoral care of the Orthodox Coptic community in Bahrain, has confirmed the donation of land by King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa for the construction of the second Coptic church in the Kingdom. The new building of Christian worship will rise in the capital, Manama, and will become a point of reference for the liturgies and pastoral activities that will involve approximately 1,500 Coptic families resident in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The donation was announced after the meeting which took place in late April between the King of...

Coptic Orthodox priest Royce George, engaged in the pastoral care of the Orthodox Coptic community in Bahrain, has confirmed the donation of land by King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa for the construction of the second Coptic church in the Kingdom. The new building of Christian worship will rise in the capital, Manama, and will become a point of reference for the liturgies and pastoral activities that will involve approximately 1,500 Coptic families resident in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The donation was announced after the meeting which took place in late April between the King of Bahrain and Coptic Orthodox...

Residents of the Coptic neighborhood in central Yaffo continue their protest on Sunday against the construction of a religious Jewish school in Yaffo saying that they object to “The settlers' conquest,” according to the Arabic newspaper, Falastin. A member of neighborhood council, Yosef Asfur, told the newspaper that the residents of the neighborhood are protesting against the settlers who came to the neighborhood with the support of the government. According to Asfur, if the municipality won’t listen to the loud call against the “settlers,” they will succeed in in fulfilling their goal of creating a Jewish religious school in Yaffo,...