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Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
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CWNews.com - As Russian recalled the 65th anniversary of victory over the Nazis in World War II, the deputy head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations blasted Communist dictator Joseph Stalin.
“An inhuman system was established under Stalin's regime, and nothing can justify it-- neither industrialization, nor the atomic bomb, nor keeping of the state borders, not even the victory in the Great Patriotic War [World War II], because it was not the personal merit of Stalin, but the achievements of our multinational people,” said Hieromonk Philipp Ryabykh.
“We should understand that the Great Patriotic War had a redemptive meaning,” said Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, at a prayer service commemorating the event, adding that the war “disclosed God's truth about ourselves, punished us for the sin, showing us strength and weakness of our people.”
“We had strength to win and now we're bearing a great responsibility not to deviate from this great historical duty-- to be winners.”
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CWNews.com - A spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow has charged that European leaders allow unrestricted criticism of religious beliefs, but do not give believers the same right to voice their opinions.
Abbot Philipp Ryabykh, the deputy director of ecumenical affairs for the Moscow patriarchate, told Interfax: "In the Western world the right to criticize every religious point of view is often claimed, but at the same time symbols of faith are censored and the religious approach to political and social life of citizens censored."
The Russian Orthodox spokesman was responding to a statement by Thorbjon Jagland, the secretary-general of the Council of Europe, who said that criticism of religious "myths and ideas" should be acceptable in a democratic society. Abbot Ryabykh noted that religion "is relegated to the realm of mythology: an insult to people who believe." At the same time, he pointed out, religious ideas and symbols are being pushed out of public life.
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of Antioch and All the East
of Alexandria and of Jerusalem
Prot. /2010D
Damascus, 12 April 2010
His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
Vatican City
Most Holy Father,
On 16 April, the eve of your Apostolic Visit to Malta in the steps of Saint Paul, Your Holiness celebrates another birthday, your eighty-third.
On this occasion, I am happy to send you, Most Holy Father, in the name of my brother Hierarchs, members of the Holy Synod of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church and in my own name, our warmest wishes for the Holy Spirit to continue to help you during your onerous Petrine ministry.
At the moment when, once more, an insidious media campaign is being orchestrated, I want to assure Your Holiness of our full communion and total solidarity in prayer for you, which is an integral part of the daily Divine Liturgy.
As in the Acts of the Apostles (12: 5), so today, the whole Church is praying without ceasing to God for Peter.
Whilst awaiting our forthcoming meeting in Malta, I beg Your Holiness to bless us, your beloved in Christ.
Most devotedly and most respectfully and faithfully,
+ Gregorios III, Patriarch
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SECTION FOR GENERAL AFFAIRS
From the Vatican, 22 April 2010
N. 146.100
Beatitude,
With all the Bishops of the Holy Synod of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, you have addressed to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, a message of good wishes and support on the occasion of his birthday. He thanks you most warmly for that.
As the Church is going through a painful time, the unity of pastors and faithful around the Successor of Peter acquires a special significance. In this year dedicated to priesthood, the Holy Father wishes to demonstrate his trust with respect to your priests, and he encourages you to remain close to them in order to help them move forward along the paths of priestly holiness and to find the means for leading a really balanced life. At the prayers of the Virgin Mary, may the risen Christ grant bishops and priests to live in truth the commitments undertaken on the day of their ordination.
With all his heart, the Holy Father sends an affectionate apostolic Blessing to you and to the Bishops, priests and all the faithful of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church.
Associating myself with His Holiness' regards, I assure your Beatitude of my cordial and devoted regards in the Lord,
Tarcisio Card. Bertone
Secretary of State to His Holiness
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of Antioch and All the East
of Alexandria and of Jerusalem
Prot. /2010D
Damascus, 1 March 2010
His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
Vatican City
Most Holy Father,
The decision of Your Holiness to convoke a Special Assembly of Bishops for the Middle East is one of the tokens of your deep, fatherly love for the Christian communities of the Holy Land and the countries of this region, which was the first to be evangelised by the Apostles.
I have already had the opportunity of thanking you personally for this during your meeting with my brother Patriarchs and Major Archbishops at Castel Gandolfo on 19 September, 2009.
But, without waiting for the holding of this Special Assembly next October, I feel it my duty to tell Your Holiness the concern I feel at the way the regional situation is developing and becoming increasingly dangerous for everyone, but particularly for Christians in our countries.
There is a diffuse but sure rise of Islamic extremism, provoked by the threats of the Israeli government against Palestinians, Lebanon, Syria (and Iran), which is spreading throughout all the countries in the region. Even in Syria, where such extremism has been up to now very limited, its advance has become more and more evident, despite efforts from the government against it.
This extremism does not hesitate to use terrorist methods, especially against Christians (in Iraq and in Egypt particularly), provoking a new wave of emigration of the latter.
But Christians, though they are the primary victims, are not the only ones. Once more we find ourselves facing a new danger of outburst across the whole region, which may well degenerate on a wider scale.
I beg Your Holiness, humbly but insistently, most insistently (instanter et instantius), that besides ardent prayer and outside the context of public speeches, which can only be limited, like the most recent appeal of Your Holiness to the highest authorities in Iraq, the Holy See's diplomacy redouble its efforts to persuade the Tel Aviv government, despite the views of its most intransigent wing - probably via the United States and those European countries which, having sponsored the birth of the State of Israel and supported it ever since, should be able to exert effective pressure on it - of the grave danger of this development which in the medium and perhaps short term, runs against the interests and future of the State of Israel itself, which needs peace in the region just as much as Arab countries, to be able eventually to live normally all together.
Having delivered to Your Holiness these thoughts, which have haunted me during this Lent, and trusting in the power of your prayer and the effectiveness of your directives, I can only assure you once more, Most Holy Father, of my filial devotion and deep respect in the Lord.
+ Gregorios III, Patriarch
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From the Vatican, 21 April 2010
N. 146.277
Beatitude,
You recently wrote to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to share your thoughts about developments of the situation in the Middle East, for which His Holiness thanks you warmly.
The Holy Father is particularly aware of the situation of the Christian Communities in the region. He sends his strong encouragement to the faithful and their pastors in the ordeals they are undergoing, as he desires their legitimate rights to live in peace and security on their land and for them to be able to participate fully in national life.
The Pope also wishes the special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East, which will be held next October, to contribute to tightening the bonds of communion between the Eastern Catholic communities, so that they carry out their mission with vigour, in a spirit of ecumenical and inter-religious openness. May it be an opportunity for faithful the world over to continue to show genuine, concrete solidarity towards their brothers and sisters from this region!
As the whole Church is in the joy of Paschaltide, the Holy Father, entrusting you to the motherly intercession of the Virgin Mary, sends to you and to all the Bishops, priests and faithful of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, an affectionate apostolic Blessing.
Please accept, Beatitude, my warmly devoted regards in the Lord.
Tarcisio Card. Bertone
Secretary of State to His Holiness
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Baghdad - The patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church has issued a call for “prayer and pardon” following the murder of Christian students in Mosul.
“Today our eyes are filled with tears. We are stunned by this attack on innocent young Christian students: two explosions in an act of brutal violence, of which the effect, only thanks to God, was not worse,” said Cardinal Emmanuel Delly in a statement. He continued:
"We are close to the victim's families, we express sincere condolences to those who lost loved ones. We pray for the eternal repose of the souls of the dead, for the recovery of all the injured, some in serious conditions, and for the consolation of the parents. Our reaction today is one of prayer and pardon. We are all brothers and sisters, we are all children of God, and the Iraqi people are called to accept this truth and embrace it.We pray the Lord will illuminate the minds and hearts of our rulers and also of those who bloody their hands with these and similar acts of violence, that they may convert and take the path of peace and reconciliation. Our Christian response to the violence we suffer day after day is and will always be this: certainty that the Lord is with us and that He makes Himself visible in the love and help shown to us by the Christians of the world."
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Moscow - The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church has called upon the faithful to have more children in order to repopulate their vast nation.
“What's the good of having economy, if our nation is sick?” said Patriarch Kirill. “How will we reclaim these boundless spaces, vast lands, not only in European part of Russia, but in Siberia as well?”
Heartened by news that Russia’s birthrate has increased, he added, “We hope this tendency will be stable and our people rather than strangers with alien culture and alien faith will inhabit our vast lands inherited from God and our hardworking forefathers and this greatest treasure-- our land-- will be cultivated by descendants of those who merged it to the great Russian state.”
Russia’s population has declined by nearly 7 million since 1991.
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