Free Republic

The worst Christian massacre—complete with mass graves, tortured-to-death women and children, and destroyed churches—recently took place in Syria, at the hands of the U.S.-supported jihadi “rebels”; and the U.S. government and its “mainstream media” mouthpiece are, as usual, silent (that is, when not actively trying to minimize matters). The massacre took place in Sadad, an ancient Syriac Orthodox Christian habitation, so old as to be mentioned in the Old Testament. Most of the region’s inhabitants are poor, as Sadad is situated in the remote desert between Homs and Damascus (desert regions, till now, apparently the only places Syria’s Christians could...

How the Domestic Church Preserved the Faith in Soviet Russiaby DAVID CLAYTON on NOVEMBER 15, 2013 And how it can do the same here…and be the foundation for evangelisationThis is an interview with His Excellency Athanasius Schneider ORC, auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan and titular of Celerina. Bishop Schneider is a noted author and speaker. His best known work is Dominus Est – It is the Lord! – a defense of the traditional discipline of receiving communion.This is a translation of an interview, first published in Polish after his recent visit to Poznan, Poland, and it first appeared in Polonia...

Archbishop Nassar Calls For Christian Solidarity, Ecumenical Collaboration as War Rages OnChristians in Damascus are clinging to hope despite the rising death toll in the ongoing conflict in Syria. In an interview with Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, Maronite Archbishop Samir Nassar of Damascus pleaded for support and solidarity to Christians in Syria. “There has been war [in Syria] for three years, and it is destroying the whole country,” he said. “The people feel lost and without support.” As of now, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights have released figures stating that 110,371 people have died in...

MOSCOW, November 22 (RIA Novosti) – A meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pope Francis scheduled for next week is especially important in the context of the ongoing Syrian civil war, a senior Russian Catholic priest said. Igor Kovalevsky, a secretary general of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Russia, told RIA Novosti in a recent interview that the meeting “has not only a religious aspect, but also humanitarian and political” ones. He said that the Kremlin and Vatican share a similar stance on war-torn Syria and the protection of “traditional Christian values in the modern world.”

Moscow, November 21, Interfax - Rector of St. George Church in Baikonur Archpriest Sergy Bychkov said that astronauts, including foreigners, feel reverence for Orthodoxy. "Everyone is awesome. Catholics try to come to the church and confess before the flight as in any case a person understands that he won't be able to make an emergency stop in the places where he goes to," the priest told BBC Russian Service. According to him, every of them tries to take a blessing, to kiss the cross and asks to be blessed with the holy water. Foreigners confess in Russian, "even if it's...

Kazan, November 18, Interfax - Two churches were set on fire in the Chistopol Diocese of Tatarstan in the early hours of November 17, Tatarstan's Metropolia said in a statement. One of the churches, a prayer house in honor of the Great Martyr Dimitry Solunsky, located in the village of Lenino, in the Novosheshminsky District of Tatarstan, was completely destroyed in the fire. The other church, a church in honor of new Russian martyrs of confessors, located in Chispotol, which is under construction, was salvaged by emergency services, the report says.

The ordination was held on November 14 at the Cathedral of St. Mark in Cairo. The ceremony is the first after Islamist attacks against the Christian community. Since his election in 2012 , the patriarch has ordained 38 priests and three bishops.Cairo (AsiaNews ) - As debate rages in Egypt on the new Constitution and the recognition of full citizenship to the Copts , the Coptic Orthodox Patriarch Tawadros has ordained 18 new priests who will serve in parishes especially in Cairo. The ordination ceremony was held on November 14 at the Cathedral of St. Mark in Cairo in front...

Between 1944-1945, Communism took over the Christian country of Romania. An experiment of terror was performed on the young generation, on students from the age of eighteen to twenty five. Among those students was a man who is alive today after surviving sixteen years in the anti-human communist prison system. His name is Father George Calciu. After His release from prison, he was exiled to America in 1984. Below follows part of an interview by Nun Nina from this year. (1998) Nun Nina: This may be more difficult for you to talk about – I know a little bit about...

Thank you all my friends. It has been a trying time. May the Lord God Almighty have mercy upon me.

MOSCOW, November 13 (RIA Novosti) – The head of the Russian Orthodox Church and a powerful Roman Catholic Church cardinal on Tuesday voiced readiness for collaboration ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to the Vatican for a meeting with Pope Francis on November 25. “We live at an epoch when many of our historic differences should stop playing the critical role they have played in relations between our churches. We have very many common commitments and common goals,” Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill said at a meeting with Milan Archbishop Angelo Scola. Relations between the two churches have been strained...

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has met with the foreign minister of the Russian Orthodox Church ahead of a Nov. 25 visit to the Vatican by President Vladimir Putin. The Vatican released no details of Tuesday’s meeting with Metropolitan Hilarion, in Rome for a Catholic-Orthodox conference on family values. Simultaneously in Moscow, a top Italian cardinal involved in Catholic-Orthodox dialogue, Cardinal Angelo Scola, met with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill.

I could just say: “Read this magnificent post.” but being long-winded I cannot. American Protestants, especially Evangelicals, are not loved by “outsiders.” Nobody writes romance novels about them they way they do about the Amish. Nobody thinks they have cool hair, the way they admire Orthodox beards. No movie like the “Bells of Saint Mary’s” has ever featured a pop star like Bing Crosby as a noble Calvary Chapel pastor . . . no “Pit Band of The Gathering” will ennoble the pop-religion of those strip mall churches. Atheist wrath is so often directed against Evangelicals that popular atheist debaters...

“It seems he’s focusing on bringing back the left that’s fallen away, but what about the conservatives?” said Ms. Kurt, a hospice community educator. “Even when it was discouraging working in pro-life, you always felt like Mother Teresa was on your side and the popes were encouraging you. Now I feel kind of thrown under the bus.”

The Fruits of the Rosary by Patrice Fagnant-MacArthur on October 31, 2013 ·  When I was growing up, my mother and I would say the rosary every day together. Before each decade, she would announce the mystery and the fruit, or virtue, associated with it. I have continued the practice of saying the rosary in my adult life. Indeed, it is one of my favorite devotions and can’t imagine life without it. I do remember all the mysteries of the original Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious sets of five decades. It took me a while, but I even managed to...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis will receive Russian President Vladimir Putin on November 25, an encounter that could help mend strained relations between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church. Russian-Vatican relations have been fraught since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, with Moscow accusing the Roman Catholic Church of trying to poach believers from the Russian Orthodox Church, a charge the Vatican denies. But Putin is the first Kremlin leader since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution to publicly profess religious faith - to the Orthodox church - and has several times advocated ending the long feud between the...

The Vatican says Pope Francis will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Vatican City on Nov. 25. Details are still being worked out, but the Vatican press office said Thursday the private audience would likely take place that afternoon.

Archbishop Amel Shamon Nona of Mosul: The greatest challenge in facing death because of our faith is to continue to know this faith in such a way as to live it constantly and fullyHow can we live our faith in a time of great difficulty? What can we do for those who are persecuted because of their faith? To ask this question means above all interrogating ourselves about the meaning of our faith. In order to be able to speak about the time of persecution Christians must really know their own faith. In 2010, when I was appointed bishop of...

Islamist rebel forces in Syria have killed 45 Christians in the west-central town of Sadad, the largest massacre of Christians yet in the Syrian conflict. In the wake of the killing, an Orthodox archbishop has mourned, “We have shouted aid to the world but no one has listened to us. Where is the Christian conscience? Where is the human consciousness? Where are my brothers?” According to Agenzia Fides, Syrian Orthodox Archbishop Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh reported that Islamist rebels entered the town on October 21st; a week later, it was re-captured by the Syrian army. “What happened in Sadad is the...

BEIRUT — In the midst of a conflict rife with sectarianism, a giant bronze statue of Jesus has gone up on a Syrian mountain, apparently under cover of a truce among three factions in the country’s civil war. Jesus stands, arms outstretched, on the Cherubim mountain, overlooking a route pilgrims took from Constantinople to Jerusalem in ancient times. The statue is 12.3 meters (40 feet) tall and stands on a base that brings its height to 32 meters (105 feet), organizers of the project estimate. That the statue made it to Syria and went up without incident on Oct. 14...

Addressing the World Council of Churches, the Russian Orthodox Church’s leading ecumenical official questioned the effectiveness of the ecumenical body and warned that Christians must face the challenges of secularism and radical Islam. “The World Council of Churches today remains a unique instrument of inter-Christian cooperation that has no analogy in the world,” said Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk. “However, the question arises as to how effective this instrument is … While we continue to discuss our differences in the comfortable atmosphere of conferences and theological dialogues, the question resounds ever more resolutely: will Christian civilization survive at all?” The “two...