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Last Updated: 12 April 2013

6 April 2013, 20:28 | UGCC | risu.org.ua - The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Patriarch Sviatoslav Shevchuk, led a delegation of the UGCC to the Holy Land. The delegation is to stay there from April 4 to 10. The pilgrimage is organized on the occasion of the Year of Faith. The delegation is to visit Tel-Aviv, Haifa, Capernaum, Nazareth and other places.   

“Our main goal is pilgrimage. On the occasion of the Year of Faith and the 1025thanniversary of the Baptism of Rus-Ukraine, we decided to organize a prayer trip to the place from which the Gospel of Christ spread out all over the world,” said the primate in a commentary.

The delegation also intends to visit the Church of Jerusalem and meet with Ukrainians working there, the Information Department of UGCC reports.

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Last Updated: 04 April 2013

Damascus - “Holy Father, be our Saint Simon of Cyrene on the Way of the Cross!” was the appeal made by His Beatitude Gregorios III, Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, of Alexandria and of Jerusalem, in an open letter to Pope Francis. In this very personally expressed message, dated 29 March, Holy Friday, when the Pope celebrated the first Way of the Cross of his pontificate, Gregorios III outlined the “violence, terror, chaos and death” ravaging Syria.

Patriarch Gregorios III says he addressed to the pope “a plaintive and affectionate cry, as much as to say: come to the aid of Syria, which cannot bear such a long Way of the Cross.  It needs resurrection …through reconciliation and dialogue, to bring to an end the crisis that is destroying thousands upon thousands of Christians and non-Christians.”  He made a real call for help, admitting that he was expecting “a gesture, an initiative, a roadmap” from the Holy Father.

“We are expecting an initiative, a gesture and a word”
The Patriarch of Antioch and All the East exhorted “the Vatican, as a State, Pope Francis, personally and the Catholic Church, by way of the Episcopal Conferences”  to launch a joint appeal to save Syria.

“We are not afraid of Muslims,” he explains, “but we are afraid of chaos taking root in the Middle East. Syria has become a highly lucrative market-place for interested parties, while every aspect of democracy, freedom and secularism has been lost. Nowadays,” laments His Beatitude Gregorios III, “no-one cares about that.”

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Last Updated: 09 April 2013

CWN - Pope Tawadros (Theodoros) II of Alexandria, who was elected head of the Coptic Orthodox Church in November, has announced that he will soon visit Pope Francis in Rome. The announcement followed an April 3 meeting with Archbishop Jean-Paul Gobel, who was appointed apostolic nuncio to Egypt in January.

The Coptic Orthodox Church is not one of the Eastern Orthodox churches; rather, it is an Oriental Orthodox church that ceased to be in full communion with the Holy See following the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451. Pope Tawadros’s visit to Rome will be the first by a Coptic Orthodox pope since May 1973, when Pope Paul VI and Coptic Pope Shenouda III signed a common Christological declaration.

The Coptic Orthodox Church has nine million members, most of them in Egypt.

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Last Updated: 02 April 2013

CWN - Metropolitan Hilarion, the Russian Orthodox Church’s chief ecumenical officer, has urged the new Archbishop of Canterbury not to support female bishops or same-sex marriage.

“We know that the Anglican Church is now going through a difficult time and various views, positions, and parties co-exist in it,” he said in a meeting with Archbishop Justin Welby. “However, we really hope that the traditional understanding of Christian morals and the church system will prevail in this polemic.”

Metropolitan Hilarion expressed the hope that Welby will “prevent secular society from forcing on the Church of England the recognition of some forms of cohabitation which were never considered marriage by Christian churches.”

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Last Updated: 30 March 2013

Damascus
Great and Holy Friday 29/03/2013

Most Holy Father

This letter comes to you on Good Friday, called Great and Holy in our Eastern tradition, while you are celebrating the first Way of the Cross of your pontificate, as Bishop of the Church of Rome that presides in charity!

I am writing this letter in Damascus, whilst experiencing a harsh, bloody, painful, long Way of the Cross stretching over all Syria’s roads and that all Syrians have been experiencing and living for more than two years now!

Like Jesus, who fell three times under the weight of the Holy Cross, and whom Simon of Cyrene was fetched to help, we too need a Simon, and even more Jesus, to bear the Cross with us and to bring to an end without delay our harsh way of the cross, by enabling it to reach the joyful goal of the Resurrection!

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Last Updated: 26 March 2013

CWN - Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople has told reporters that he sees a possibility for reunion between the Orthodox and Roman churches, even if it “will probably not happen during my life.”

The Ecumenical Patriarch, who made history by traveling to Rome for the inaugural Mass of Pope Francis, said that he was surprised to receive an invitation from the new Pontiff to join in a dinner with cardinals.

Speaking in Turkey after his return, the Orthodox leader said that he saw a new attitude at the Vatican, which heightened his optimism about the prospects for restoring Christian unity. He said that “there is a possibility for the next generations to see the churches of the East and West.”

While he was at the Vatican, Patriarch Bartholomew invited Pope Francis to join him in a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to commemorate the historic meeting there 50 years ago between Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras.