Holy Glorious Prophet Elias

July 20, 2025

Feast of the Holy Glorious Prophet Elias

And [Elijah] said to her, “Give me your son,” and he took him out of her arms and carried him up to a loft where he slept and laid him on his own bed. He cried to the Lord and said, “O Lord, my God, have You brought tragedy upon the widow with whom I live by killing her son?” And he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord and said, “O Lord, my God, I pray that You let this child’s soul come into him again.”

The Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came into him again, and he was revived. Elijah took the child and brought him down out of the chamber into the house and returned him to his mother, and Elijah said, “See, your son lives!” (1 Kings 17:19-23)

The icon is of the Holy Glorious Prophet Elias (July 20th).

Iraqi religious leaders: a law is needed to punish fanaticism that instigates hatred

Baghdad (Agenzia Fides) - Heads of religious communities in Iraq will ask the Iraqi parliament to pass a law to punish forms of religious propaganda that instigate hatred and violence. This is what was reported by the Patriarchate of Babylon of the Chaldeans, spreading the report of a singular meeting among Iraqi religious leaders, gathered at the invitation of the Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako at the church of St. Joseph, in the district of Karrada, on Thursday 1 March. The meeting was attended by about thirty religious representatives – Shi’a and Sunni Muslims, Christians, Sabeans and Yazidis - and by the heads of political offices in charge of the various religious communities, together with Archbishop Alberto Ortega Martín, Apostolic Nuncio in Iraq. During the meeting - according to official sources of the Chaldean Patriarchate, consulted by Agenzia Fides - the proposal to organize similar meetings in other cities of the country was also taken, such as Najaf, and to establish a permanent council that would periodically meet scholars and senior representatives of the different religious communities. What was highlighted and discussed was the proposal to monitor religious preaching in places of worship and to examine with greater care the courses given in religious education centers, always with the aim of contrasting the seed of fanaticism,. "On the Judgment Day", among other things, said Patriarch Louis Raphael, in his opening speech, "we will not be asked, whether we are Shi'a Muslim or a Sunni? Christian Catholic or Orthodox, Mandae, or Yazidi? But rather the question of God would be, what did you do for your brother? and what have you offered to your people?". (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 2/3/2018)