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After several years of deadly occupation by ISIS and Al-Qaeda the Christians in Aleppo, Syria were free to celebrate Christmas this year. Thousands of Christians flooded the city center to celebrate Christ’s birth today in Aleppo. Thousands of Syrians peacefully enjoying Christmas celebrations and festivities in the streets of #Aleppo, #Syria, free from Obama and Hillary’s Al-Qaeda “rebels”. Aleppo had the largest population of Christians in Syria prior to 2011. It was overtaken by jihadists in 2016 & since been liberated. #Christmas celebrations in the ancient city of #Aleppo, #Syria, are a beautiful sight to see. Thank God, Al-Qaeda &...

Why he continues to exist despite Islam's continued slaugher of Christians. The phenomenon of the Islamo-Christian” deserves wider attention, and the word wider use. An “Islamo-Christian” is, in its strictest sense, a Christian Arab who identifies with and works to advance the Islamic agenda, out of fear or out of a belief that his “Arabness” requires loyalty to Islam. Islamization by the Arab Muslim conquerors of Mesopotamia, Syria, and North Africa was a vehicle for Arab imperialism. This imperialism, the most successful in human history, convinced those who accepted Islam to also forget their own pre-Islamic or non-Islamic pasts. It...

Gregory III Laham, the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem and All the East, has proudly declared: “We, the Arab Christians, always defend Islam and our Muslim brothers – no one defends Islam like the Arab Christians do.”

Students and faculty at the University of Notre Dame who go to the university’s chapel on Sundays may be hearing something different from the usual Mass opening of “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”“Blessed is the kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and always and forever and ever,” Father Khaled Anatolios recently chanted, as he made the sign of the cross with the book of the Gospels lifted high above the altar.He faced the altar, away from the congregation, and there were icons on either side. Those in the congregation sang...

The family of Syrian refugees being hosted by the Vatican parish of Santa Anna had the opportunity to thank Pope Francis in person for his hospitality, the Vatican reported. Their Saturday morning visit came shortly before the Holy Father departed for Cuba and the United States.The family, consisting of mother, father and two children, are members of the Greek Catholic Melkite Church in Damascus. They fled the war in their country and are living in an apartment belonging to the Vatican in the vicinity of St. Peter’s Basilica. They have already asked for international asylum.On Saturday, they were accompanied by the Pontifical...

Hopes are high, ahead of the meeting of the Catholic patriarchs of the Middle East with the Pope. Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako, the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, which is in full communion with Rome, spoke to the international Catholic pastoral charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), remarking that he expects much from the meeting. “We are hoping for greater closeness towards our Churches in these difficult times. We need more support from the Holy See, more encouragement and more solidarity.”Patriarch Louis Raphael expressly thanked Pope Francis and his predecessors for being on the side of...

Wearing crimson and white vestments and clearly at ease in this beautiful shrine Pope Benedict smiled as Patriarch Laham welcomed him in German to celebrate this important event together on this Feast day of the Exaltation of the Cross. Byzantine chants accompanied the ceremony here at St Paul’s - an eastern rite Catholic shrine recalling an ancient Byzantine tradition in its interior layout and its richly gilded mosaics decorating its domes and apses. The basilica is part of a big mid 20th century complex also comprising a major seminary. Upon entering here, Pope Benedict could not fail to notice...

Patriarch Gregorios III Laham. Damascus, Syria, Aug 3, 2012 / 05:06 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The head of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church encouraged Syria's Eastern Catholics to offer prayers for peace during their church's traditional August 1–14 fasting period in honor of the Virgin Mary. During the run-up to the August 15 feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God (known in the West as the Assumption), Melkite Catholics will be “praying especially for the safety of all Syrians and for the cessation of the violence,” Patriarch Gregorios III said in a letter marking the two-week fast. “We...

(Vatican Radio) Starting August, Christians throughout the Middle East will begin a simultaneous prayer marathon in the lead up to Pope Benedict XVI’s arrival in Lebanon on September 14th. From Bkerke to Baghdad, through Gaza’s tiny parish of the Holy Family, the same set of prayers will be recited weekly by Maronites, Melkites, Chaldeans, Syrian Catholics and Armenian Catholics. As well as the faithful of other denominations. The Christians of the Middle East are waiting for Pope Benedict. “The excitement is building”, says Fr. Marwan Tabet, general co-ordinator of the Papal trip to Lebanon in an interview with Emer McCarthy...

Bishop Paul P. Chomnycky of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Stamford, Conn., concelebrates Mass with U.S. bishops from Eastern Catholic churches at the Altar of the Tomb in the crypt of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome May 15. Bishops from Chaldean, Ruthenian, Maronite, Ukrainian, Armenian, Melkite, Syriac and Romanian Catholic churches were making their "ad limina" visits to the Vatican to report on the status of their dioceses. (CNS/Paul Haring) VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- While their numbers are small and their material resources are few, members of the Eastern Catholic churches in the United States have much to offer the...

Bishop Nicholas Samra was enthroned as Bishop for Melkite Catholics in the USA in August, 2011 At his recent enthronement as the Melkite Greek Catholic Bishop in the USA, Bishop Nicholas Samra stated that the Melkite Catholic Church (an Eastern Catholic Church in union with the Pope of Rome) will begin ordaining married men to the priesthood in the USA.Bishop Nicholas Samra, Bishop of the Melkite Eparchy of Newton, Massachusetts made the comment in a dinner speech following his enthronement on August 23, 2011. The Bishop’s speech, newly published in the Melkite journal Sophia, contains the first published public statements...

Because I'm not a member of his church, perhaps I shouldn't let it bother me that the archbishop has taken it upon himself to proclaim that the Bible is wrong and the Jewish people are no longer chosen by God, especially since my Bible doesn't say anything of the kind. But it does bother me. It bothers me because it is a blatant contradiction of at least a dozen perfectly clear verses in the Holy Scripture, which the Catholic Church - both Greek and Roman - claims to uphold as the Word of God. It bothers me because it's impossible...

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sep 2, 2010 / 02:06 pm (CNA).- The prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, called on Melkite Catholics in Argentina to be a bridge of communion between the East and the West.Catholic Melkites, he said, “are very rooted in the Eastern world but they are also ‘traditionally’ united to the Petrine See.” Cardinal Sandri made his comments during a Mass in the city of Cordoba, at which he was joined by the Greco-Melkite Patriarch of Antioch, His Beatitude Gregory III Laham; the Apostolic Exarch Abdo Arbach of the Melkites of Argentina; and...

On Sunday evening, 10 May 2009, the Holy Father blessed two foundation stones, at Bethany beyond the Jordan, one for a Latin church and one for a Greek Melkite church. The Pope recalled, in addition to the Baptism of Christ, the biblical association of the prophet Elijah with this area. Dear Brother Bishops, Dear friends, It is with great spiritual joy that I come to bless the foundation stones of two Catholic Churches to be built beside the river Jordan, a place marked by many memorable events in biblical history. The prophet Elijah the Tishbite, was from this area, not...

On Saturday 9 May 2009, during his apostolic journey to the Holy Land, the Holy Father celebrated Vespers at the Greek-Melkite Cathedral of St. George in Amman, with the clergy, religious, seminarians and members of ecclesial movements. Dear Brothers and Sisters, It is a great joy for me to celebrate Vespers with you this evening in the Greek-Melkite Cathedral of Saint George. I warmly greet His Beatitude Gregorios III Laham, the Greek Melkite Patriarch, who has joined us from Damascus, Emeritus Archbishop Georges El-Murr and His Excellency Yaser Ayyach, Archbishop of Petra and Philadelphia, whom I thank for his kind...

Over dinner at the Ambassador Hotel in East Jerusalem, I talked with Danny Seidemann, a Jewish man from upstate New York who moved to Israel as a youth more than 30 years ago. Danny is recognized worldwide as an expert on the religious and cultural differences that divide, and potentially unite, Jerusalem. "The Christian community of Jerusalem is the canary in the coal mine," he told me. "When it starts dying, we know all of us are going to die."   Seidemann, himself a Zionist, believes preserving the Christian presence in the Holy Land is crucial to its future....

Vatican City, May 8, 2008 / 11:14 am (CNA).- Pope Benedict received a large delegation of Melkite Greek Catholics this morning at the Vatican. The Pontiff called on the clergy to refrain from becoming involved in politics and exhorted the local Church to open the path to peace by proposing the light of the Gospel. The 300 Melkite Greek Catholics were lead by Patriarch Gregorious III Laham on a pilgrimage to Rome. The Melkite Greek Church is in communion with the Pope.Noting that the Church lives in an area that is a cultural and religious crossroads, Pope Benedict praised "the...

JERUSALEM (CNS) -- A Catholic archbishop scheduled to accompany U.S. President George W. Bush on a tour of the Mount of Beatitudes said he would talk to him about Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Melkite Archbishop Elias Chacour of Akko, Israel, said since the holy sites do not speak the importance of the sites must be conveyed by the person introducing them to Bush. Bush, who arrived in the Holy Land Jan. 9 to discuss peace with Palestinian and Israeli political leaders, was scheduled to visit the ruins at Capernaum, Israel, and the Mount of Beatitudes Jan. 11, the last...

Widespread concern is again being focused on the present condition and the destiny of the Christians in the Middle East. There are those who, following the Pope, express in this way their anxiety about the tragedy and suffering undergone by the helpless flock of Christ in the lands where Christianity began. In other cases, the great zeal often appears predetermined by factors of cultural-political alignment.       Few listen to the arguments and the reasons of the Arab Christians. Few take as their starting point a look at what is happening in the Middle Eastern powder keg.       Which is why...

Some readers intimated that I had perhaps read too much into Canons 209-210 by suggesting that it implied supporting one's local parish (see Jan. 16). Although the expression "particular church" usually means "diocese" in canonical terms, most Catholics support their local church through their parish. Likewise, according to Canon 107, Catholics, unlike most Protestants, generally acquire their pastor through place of residence (technically domicile or quasi-domicile) as canon law presumes laws to be territorial. Even when, as frequently happens in the United States, a Catholic registers and worships in a parish different from his or her territorial parish, this latter...