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Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
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CWNews.com - The harsh life facing Christians as a religious minority in the Middle East and the absence of religious freedom in Islamic countries were prominent themes in the discussions of the Synod of Bishops on October 13 and 14.
Armenian Catholic Patriarch Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni made the observation that the faithful should be prepared to accept sacrifices. “Christians enlightened by the Holy Spirit think they should be spared difficulties,” he said. From the earliest days of the Church, Christians regularly found themselves in a despised minority, he observed. “It is important to point this out, and in this sense to re-evangelize our faithful by presenting them the faith as it was lived during the first centuries of Christianity.” While always working for justice, therefore, the Church should place top priority on fidelity to the Gospel, the Armenian prelate insisted.
Patriarch Ignace Youssif III Younan of the Syrian Catholic Church agreed. “Our salvation lies in courageous adherence to His message, and in fearless proclamation of truth in authentic charity,” he said. The Synod’s message to the Church should underline this message, he said, and inspire the Christian people of the region. “Our who have the right to hope as they live their lives in this tormented region of the Middle East, expect a great deal from this Synod,” he said. “It is up to us to give them reasons for their faith, a faith inseparable from hope in our beloved Lord Who assures us: 'Do not fear, little flock.’”
Several Synod fathers, reporting on conditions in the Islamic world, reinforced the general concern about the lack of religious freedom for Christians there. Bishop Camillo Ballin, the apostolic vicar of Kuwait, reported: “In Muslim tradition, the Gulf is the land sacred to the Prophet of Islam, Mohammed, and no other religion should exist there.” Bishop Paul Hinder, the apostolic vicar for Arabia, confirmed the problem, speaking about the lands of the Arabian peninsula: “There is no freedom of religion (no Muslim can convert but Christians are welcome into Islam), and only limited freedom of worship in designated places, granted by benevolent rulers (except in Saudi Arabia).”
Archbishop Berhaneyesus Demerew of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, cited a particularly vivid example of this lack of religious tolerance: “It would seem that Christians who die in Saudi Arabia are not allowed to be buried there; their bodies are flown to Ethiopia for burial. Could the Saudi authorities be requested to allocate a cemetery for Christians in Saudi Arabia?”
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CWNews.com - Setting a new precedent at the Vatican, two Muslim leaders addressed the Synod of Bishops on October 14.
Representing the two main strands of Islam, the Sunni scholar Mohammad al Sammak of Lebanon and the Iranian Shi’ite Sayyed Mohaghegh Ahmadabadi spoke in favor of religious freedom, with both Muslim leaders claiming that the Qu’ran affirms the rights of non-Muslims to practice their faith. They also agreed that religious beliefs should not be used as a pretext for political violence.
Tolerance is even more necessary today, when people of different faiths and cultures live together, Ahmadabadi argued. He said that it is important to distinguish between religious conflicts and political rivalries between people of different faiths.
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CWNews.com - Speaking from Rome, where they are participating in the Middle East Synod, the archbishops of Detroit and Toronto said that they would not object if the Eastern Catholic churches chose to ordain married men in North America.
Although the Eastern Catholic churches allow for married priests, they have generally adhered to a longstanding agreement not to ordain married men in North America, in order to avoid conflicts with their Roman Catholic neighbors. Archbishops Allen Vigneron of Detroit and Archbishop Thomas Collins of Toronto agreed that the ordination of married men for the Eastern churches would not cause such conflicts today. However, the two North American prelates reported that their colleagues from the Eastern churches were divided on the advisability of ordaining married men in America.
The two archbishops made their remarks at an October 13 press conference in Rome. Reporter John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter notes that both Detroit and Toronto have a substantial presence of Catholics from the Middle East-- many of them belonging to the Eastern churches.
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CWNews.com - The Christian presence in the Middle East is gravely endangered by political conflicts and by accelerated emigration, several prelates agreed in presentations to the Synod of Bishops on October 12 and 13.
After plenary sessions on Tuesday, the Synod fathers met on Wednesday morning in smaller groups, broken down by language, for a more extended discussion of the themes that had emerged in the opening sessions. For the first time, Arabic is one of the languages for these working groups.
Patriarch Gregory III Laham of Antioch, the leader of the Melkite Catholic Church, said that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the root of the region’s political instability. Islamic fundamentalist movements like Hamas and Hezbollah, he said, have arisen because of the conflict, “as well internal dissension, slowness in development, the rise of hatred, the loss of hope in the young who constitute 60% of the population in Arab countries.” As war and emigration cut into the Christian presence, the Melkite Patriarch observed, there is a risk that the Middle East will become simply a Muslim enclave, facing the Christian society of Europe. He warned: "Should this happen-- should the East be emptied of its Christians-- this would mean that any occasion would be propitious for a new clash of cultures, of civilizations and even of religions, a destructive clash between the Muslim Arab East and the Christian West."
Latin-rite Patriarch Fouad Twal of Jerusalem appealed to Catholics in other lands to show their love for their Christian brothers in the Holy Land—through prayers, pilgrimages, and concrete gestures of both economic and political support. “To be silent because of fear before the dramatic situation you all know about would be a sin of omission,” he said.
Syrian Catholic Archbishop Basile Casmoussa of Mosul, Iraq—whose archdiocese has been battered by anti-Christian violence, and who was himself a kidnap victim in 2005—said that the Christian presence is decreasing for several related reasons: a loss of confidence, campaigns of intimidation by Islamic fundamentalist, a drop in the birth rate, and a sense that Christians are viewed as representatives of an alien Western presence in the Middle East.
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CWNews.com - The challenge of maintaining an active Christian presence in the Middle East, despite a increasingly assertive Muslim majority, emerged as a key theme during the first full day of discussions of the Middle East Synod.
Armenian Catholic Archbishop Boutros Marayati of Aleppo, Syria, posed the question in dramatic fashion during the October 12 discussions: “Are we waiting for the day when the world-- as a spectator amidst the indifference of the Western churches-- will sit back and watch the death of the Christians of the East?”
Melkite Archbishop Elias Chacour of Akka, Israel issued an impassioned call for help: “I insistently invite you and plead with the Holy Father to give even more attention to the living stones of the Holy Land.”
The Tuesday session began with reports from each of the continents. Representing Africa, Cardinal Polycarp Pengo of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, made the observation that Christians have been able to coexist with Muslims in some regions. “Today, no Christian on the coasts of Eastern Africa feels obliged to hide his Christian identity despite the fact that Islam continues to be the religion of the majority,” he reported. Cardinal Pengo said that the experiences of sub-Saharan Africa could offer some guidance to the Christians of the Middle East.
The report from North America was delivered by Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, who devoted most of his attention to questions of immigration. He observed that many Catholics of the Eastern churches have arrived in America (as well as Europe and Australia), posing new challenges for the Church there. Roman Catholics should help the Eastern churches to maintain their traditions, rather than pressing them to conform to the Western model, he said. A distinct pastoral challenge, he added, is to encourage the immigrants in “forgiving those enemies who quite often are the principal reason for their leaving their homeland to find peace and justice on our shores.”
Archbishop Orlando Quevedo of Cotabato, the Philippines, voiced his sympathy for the Christians living as a religious minority in the Middle East. Christians are a “little flock” in Asia, too, he said. “In light of rising religious suspicions and extremism, sometimes erupting in violence and death, we can surely be afraid or timid.”
Cardinal Peter Erdo of Budapest, Hungary, took a different approach in offering a European perspective. “Europe is in debt to the Middle East,” where the faith arose, he said. Now Europe should examine its conscience and ask whether the legacy of faith is being properly nurtured there. Moreover, he added, European Christians should ask themselves whether they are showing true charity toward their brothers in the Middle East: “Do we pay enough attention to the reasons that force thousands if not millions of Christians to leave the land where their ancestors lived for almost two thousand years?”
Representing Oceania and Latin America, Archbishops John Dew of Wellington, New Zealand; and Raymundo Damasceno Assis of Aparecida, Brazil took note of the ties between their regions and the Middle East: the immigrant Christians from the Eastern churches now living in the diaspora, the pilgrims from their own nations that travel to the Middle East, the charitable programs founded there.
After these reports, the Synod turned to general discussion, with a number of prelates and a few experts making their observations. The theme of the endangered Christian presence in the Middle East continued to arise. Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk, Iraq, posed the problem simply, saying that “emigration is the biggest challenge which threatens our presence.”
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The mumified body of Simeon the Godbearer or the Righteous, the temple priest who held the Lord Jesus in his hands at His presentation in the Temple of Jerusalem (Luke 2, 25-35), has been kept and venerated in the city of Zadar for more than 800 years. It was first transfered from Jerusalem to Constantinople and then in the year 1273 from there it was destined to be taken to Venice. Apparently a storm in the Adriatic sea, in the surroundings of Zadar interrupted the transfer and the body remained in Zadar. It was first deposed in the church of St. Mary Major and later, in 1632, transfered to the Church of St. Stephen that until this day became the Sanctuary of St. Simeon the Godbearer. In 1380 the Hungarian-Croatian Queen Elisabeth Kotromanić comissioned a silver and golden chest to be made for the Saint's body. It is a masterpiece of medieval art under protection of UNESCO, over 350 kilograms of weight, ornated with carvings comemorating historical and biblical events. St. Simeon is one of the patrons of Zadar, toghether with St. Anastasia and St. Chrysogon, and his feast is solemly celebrated on October 8 every year.
The late Archbishop Ivan Prenđa of Zadar, during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2007, met with His Beatitude Theophilus III, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, who informed the Archbishop that there is a monastery of St. Simeon the Godbearer in Jerusalem called „Katamon“ where the empty tomb of the Saint is venerated. They agreed that the Archdiocese of Zadar would hand over a piece of the body of the Saint to the Patriarchate of Jerusalem to be kept and venerated in the Church of the Katamon Monastery of St. Simeon. Arrangements were made with the Congregation of Divine Worship and Cult of Saints in Rome and a piece of the Saint's body was removed (5 x 2,50 cm) and put in a small silver reliquiary to be handed over to the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. The reliquiary constains the inscription: Ex corporis Sancti Simeoni Iusti Zadar 7. octobris 2010. The handing over was preformed by Msgr. Prenđa's successor, the Archbishop of Zadar Msgr. Dr. Želimir Puljić, who handed over the relics to His Eminence Archbishop Theofylactus of Jordan and Archimandrite Macarios of Qatar, as representatives of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, during a solemn celebration of Vesper in the Saint's church in Zadar in the presence of the clergy and the faithfull of Zadar. The document of authenticity was read in Latin and Croatian and presented to be seen by all those present. During Vespers, the short reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews was chanted in Greek by Archimandrite Macarios and also the Troparion and Kondakion to St. Simeon. At the beginning a sign of peace was exchanged by the Archbishops Puljić and Theofylactus.
Archbishop Želimir Puljić emphasised in his homily the great ecumenic importance of this occasion. „The Ecumenical Treaty signed in Strasbourg in 2001 states that Christians and Christian Churches should go towards each other, to act and pray together. Ecumenism lives by this mutual walk. Evenso the painful fact that Christians still do not celebrate the Eucharist in communion remains, nevertheless different ecumenical services, praises and prayers, especially the 'Our Father', are a great sign of our mutual connection... Christians should never get tired of spreading love, tollerance and forgiveness. This is especially the call of Catholics and Orthodox because they are bound together by the same holy books and traditions, kerygma and liturgy, and the magisterium of the first seven ecumenical councils“. Most spaces couples tend to use for weddings https://daretodream.nyc/central-park-wedding-packages/ in Central Park are quite small, so keep that in mind and chairs are generally not allowed for weddings in the park.
Archbishop Theofylactus, at the end of Vespers, expressed the joy and gratitude of the church of Jerusalem on this historical occasion. He said: „This is a great and significant occasion that will be inscripted in the history of the Church of Jerusalem with golden letters. You can only imagine the joy of the Christians of the Holy Land and all the pilgrims that visit the holy places from all over the world“, exclaiming – „Ispolla eti despota!“ (Many years, Archbishop!) to Archbishop Želimir at the end of his speech and then carried the reliquiary through the church. During his meeting with Archbishop Puljić, Archbishop Theofylactus announced that the Holy Synod of the Patriarcharte of Jerusalem invested the Archbishop of Zadar with the Order of the Holy Sepulchre as a sign of gratitude for the hand over of the relics to the Monastery Church of St. Simeon in Jerusalem.
Press Release of the Archdiocese of Zadar
Livio Marijan
Office of the Archbishop of Zadar
00385-23-208-653