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Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
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Introduction to Liturgy
The Byzantine Catholic Seminary of Saints Cyril and Methodius (BCS) located on Pittsburgh’s North Side is accepting applications for its second online course – Introduction to Liturgy – in the Certificate in Eastern Christian Studies.
Pittsburgh, PA, February 09, 2011 --(PR.com)-- The eight-week course - Intro to Liturgy - begins on February 14th and is designed to provide gifted people of faith with the skills necessary to read and critically assess liturgical materials with a particular focus on the Byzantine liturgical tradition. The online course is powered by The Learning House, Inc.
It will cover basic liturgical theology, liturgical prayer, monastic, cathedral, and hybrid liturgical offices and the historical development of the two Eastern Typika and conclude with an overview of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom as a pathway for thinking about the importance of liturgical language and translation, local liturgical traditions, and liturgical reform.
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CWNews.com - A Coptic Catholic bishop has told the Fides news agency that a consumerist culture spread by mass media has helped foster the recent uprising in the largely impoverished nation. And a Jesuit analyst in Alexandria agrees that young people-- not the Muslim Brotherhood-- are the main force behind the continuing public demonstrations.
But Coptic Orthodox leaders are fearful of the future, believing that the unrest could pave the way for an Islamic takeover in Egypt. The Coptic Pope Shenouda III has thrown his support behind the current regime and appealed to his followers not to join the demonstrations. And a spokesman for the Pontifical Missions in Egypt reports:
Coptic Christians — as well as Egypt’s Armenian, Greek Orthodox, Latin, Maronite and Melkite Greek Catholics — all fear a fate similar to that of Iraq’s Christians."
“It is especially the young people without prospects who are leading the revolt,” said Coptic Catholic Bishop Youhannes Zakaria of Luxor. “The media played a role in triggering their anger because they have spread a message of transient and consumerist culture in a country where most people are poor. At the cinema and on television, movies and TV series filmed in luxurious palaces are shown continually while many Egyptians struggle to feed their families”
“The world is experiencing difficult times, caused by the economic and global financial crisis, which takes a particularly heavy toll on developing countries,” he added. “Underlying everything is a policy that is focused on selfishness and not on the promotion of human dignity. If only the warnings contained in documents and messages of John Paul II and Benedict XVI had been heard, which clearly indicate that the way of peace is through the promotion of the dignity of all people.”
“What we’re seeing in Egypt could happen in any other country where there is a strong social and economic divide.”
Father Henry Boulad, who heads the Jesuit Culture Center in Alexandria, sees a danger that the Muslim Brotherhood could exploit the unrest. But the uprising, he says, is the result of frustration, particularly among the young, with a corrupt political system. The rebellion, as he sees it, is coming from "a people who had endured too long, suffered too much, borne too much-- a people tired of being crushed, exploited, trampled on, and who suddenly exploded."
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- “At the heart of the revolt is also the divide between the consumerism diffused by the media and the poverty of the people,” Bishop of Luxor tells Fides (Fides)
- “I have seen the best of Egypt,” Fr Luciano Verdoscia who saw the demonstrators in Tahrir Square tells Fides (Fides)
- “The opposition could talk with Suleiman if they want to assume power in the meantime,” missionary tells Fides (Fides)
- Egypt’s revolution belongs to the young people, not the Muslim Brotherhood (AsiaNews)
- Egyptian Christians worry about possible radical Islamic takeover (CNA)
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CWNews.com - An Iraqi archbishop has announced that the regional government has approved his plans to construct a Catholic university and a 100-bed Catholic hospital.
Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil (Arbil) in northern Iraq says that more than 2,000 Christians, including teachers and doctors, have fled to the relatively safety of his diocese following violence in other areas of the country.
“The plans we have been developing over the past few months are symbols of hope for the Christian presence in our country,” the 41-year-old prelate told Aid to the Church in Need. “The people arriving here from places of violence are receiving the gift of relative security. They themselves are willing to offer the gift of their services in a region which cannot cope with the demands of an increasing population.”
“We do not want Christians to leave Iraq,” he added. “It is clear that our society here needs schools, universities and hospitals and this provides us with an opportunity to encourage the Christians to build a future for themselves here.”
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CWNews.com - The laity of a largely Polish parish in Vienna are protesting Cardinal Christoph Schönborn’s decision to give their parish to the Serbian Orthodox Church. Pfarre Neulerchenfeld was constructed between 1733 and 1753. Austria’s largest newspaper reports that the parish has far higher Sunday Mass attendance than many other area parishes.
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Damascus - Newly returned to Syria via Lebanon after his annual pastoral visit to Egypt, His Beatitude, assisted by the Patriarchal Vicar, Archbishop Joseph Absi, and twenty-five priests of the Patriarchate, celebrated the Divine Liturgy for the Feast of the Three Hierarchs on the evening of Sunday 30 January 2011 at the Cathedral of the Dormition of the Mother of God in Damascus. Representatives from the Greek Orthodox and Syrian Orthodox Antiochian patriarchates and bishops of different Orthodox and Catholic Churches in Damascus attended the celebration. The week before, His Beatitude had celebrated his patronal feast of Saint Gregory the Theologian in Cairo.
V.C.
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At the gracious invitation of Patriarch Ignatios IV
Damascus - Patriarch Gregorios III attended the Divine Liturgy at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Dormition in Damascus and lunch afterwards in honour of the visit of Archbishop Ieronymos II of Athens and All Greece. His Grace arrived in Syria to visit (from January 24-31) the sister Orthodox Church of Antioch as is customary for a recently elected (2008) hierarch, and in a spirit of ecumenical and interfaith friendship to cement the friendly relations between Syria, Lebanon and Greece and the Catholic and Orthodox Churches and Christians and Muslims in the Near East. His Beatitude was able to converse in German with Archbishop Ieronymos, who expressed admiration for the exemplary spirit of fraternity, amity and peace that he and his delegation had encountered in Syria.
V.C