Free Republic

Islamic State published a video on Sunday threatening Egyptian Christians and showing the last statement of a man it said was responsible for the deadly bombing in December of a Coptic cathedral in Cairo. The masked man in battle-dress, whom the group identified as Abu Abdallah al-Masri, is seen encouraging militants all over the world not to give up and promising Islamists jailed in Egypt they will be freed soon, when the group "liberates" Cairo. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had already identified the bomber as a 22-year-old student called Mahmoud Shafik, and it is believed Abu Abdallah al-Masri was his...

The Egyptian army has completed the renovation of a church in central Cairo that was the scene of a bomb attack that killed 27 people earlier in December, a military spokesman announced on Saturday. President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi ordered that St. Peter and St. Paul’s Church be renovated after the attack on 11 December, which was claimed by a local ISIS affiliate, before Coptic Christians celebrate Christmas on 7 January. "The Armed Forces Engineering Authority was able to restore the church’s destroyed areas while preserving the church's architectural heritage in 15 days to be ready to receive Christians for Christmas," read...

CAIRO - A bombing at Egypt’s main Coptic Christian cathedral killed 25 people and wounded another 35 on Sunday, in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. The attack came two days after a bomb elsewhere in Cairo killed six policemen, an assault claimed by a shadowy group that authorities say is linked to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. Islamic militants have targeted Christians in the past, including a New Year’s Day bombing at a church in Alexandria in 2011 that killed at least 21 people. Egypt’s official MENA news agency said an assailant...

Big bold Drudge lines [*h*] ... CIA PLANS CYBER STRIKE ON RUSSIA 'DEFCON WARNING UPGRADE' MOSCOW READY FOR WAR Obama wants to not only wag-the-dog, but who knows? A cyber-war could disrupt internet communications -- time to blind Trump supporters. And it all boils down to their bribe money to take out the Syrian government. Obama and Hillary want you to think that Bashar Assad is the very devil. In many ways he is. Worst of all is his defense of Christians and Jews so far as the Establishment thinks. ISIS is cool -- they enslave Christians and Jews for...

Manama (Agenzia Fides) - Coptic Orthodox priest Royce George, engaged in the pastoral care of the Orthodox Coptic community in Bahrain, has confirmed the donation of land by King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa for the construction of the second Coptic church in the Kingdom. The new building of Christian worship will rise in the capital, Manama, and will become a point of reference for the liturgies and pastoral activities that will involve approximately 1,500 Coptic families resident in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The donation was announced after the meeting which took place in late April between the King of...

Coptic Orthodox priest Royce George, engaged in the pastoral care of the Orthodox Coptic community in Bahrain, has confirmed the donation of land by King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa for the construction of the second Coptic church in the Kingdom. The new building of Christian worship will rise in the capital, Manama, and will become a point of reference for the liturgies and pastoral activities that will involve approximately 1,500 Coptic families resident in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The donation was announced after the meeting which took place in late April between the King of Bahrain and Coptic Orthodox...

Residents of the Coptic neighborhood in central Yaffo continue their protest on Sunday against the construction of a religious Jewish school in Yaffo saying that they object to “The settlers' conquest,” according to the Arabic newspaper, Falastin. A member of neighborhood council, Yosef Asfur, told the newspaper that the residents of the neighborhood are protesting against the settlers who came to the neighborhood with the support of the government. According to Asfur, if the municipality won’t listen to the loud call against the “settlers,” they will succeed in in fulfilling their goal of creating a Jewish religious school in Yaffo,...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYQDSQM0Mb4 Saint Maurice's feast day is on the 22nd of September. (Two days from right now.) So for my Catholic and Coptic viewers, I present to you, this diddy on the life and martyrdom of St Maurice. Saint Maurice (also Moritz, Morris, or Mauritius) was the leader of the legendary Roman Theban Legion n the 3rd century, and one of the favorite and most widely venerated saints of that group. He was the patron saint of several professions, locales, and kingdoms. He is revered in the Catholic Coptic and Orthodox churches. He is the patron saint of soldiers, veterans, armorers,...

In September 2012 Hillary blamed an “awful internet video” for the deaths of four American heroes in Benghazi. Hillary Clinton made the statements as the bodies of the four dead Americans were brought back to US soil. She made the public comments just three days after the assault on the compound that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. But thanks to leaked Wikileaks emails we now know that Hillary Clinton wrote Chelsea during the Benghazi attacks telling her Americans were killed by an al-Qaeda like group. Hillary later lied and blamed the attack on a...

In a lengthy and disturbing piece on Egypt’s Coptic Christians this week, Rod Nordland of the New York Times described them as a community at the “breaking point,” to borrow the words of Bishop Makarios of Minya. This is not what a casual consumer of Egyptian news would expect, and it is not what the Copts expected, either. Nordland writes of high hopes for protection after the Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohammed Morsi was topped by the current Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who is often given solid marks by foreign observers for his stance against Islamist oppression. Egypt’s Christians...

Egyptian citizens, whatever their religious affiliation, “all have the same rights and duties under the constitution.” And the Egyptian Christians have “displayed prudence and a spirit for the homeland” in the way in which they have reacted to sufferings and provocations in past years. They have remained sensibly united against the attacks of those who “want to use religion to sow discord and spread extremist ideas.” These are the significant thoughts expressed by Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi during his meeting with Coptic Orthodox Patriarch Tawadros II, as he received him in the presidential palace, together with a delegation of...

Minya, Egypt, Jul 19, 2016 / 12:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- For Christians in Egypt, the possibility of martyrdom is not a remote one. Icon of the 21 Martyrs of Libya. Image courtesy of Tony Rezk, via tonyrezk.blogspot.com“It is something they concretely feel, it is part of their Christian life,” Father Paolo Asolan, an Italian priest who recently visited Egypt, told CNA. “And for a mother and a father, the fact that one of their sons can become a martyr is always a great gift.” The Islamic State’s beheading of 20 Coptic Christians and another man shocked the world in February...

A Muslim mob in southern Egypt stabbed a Coptic Christian to death over a personal feud, officials said Monday, stoking anger among Christians amid a spike in assaults on their community. Bishop Macarious of the southern Minya governorate said the mob attacked the families of two priests with knives and batons in the village of Tahna al-Gabal late Sunday. A family member, Fam Khalaf, 27, was killed and the father of one of the priests was wounded. Police said they arrested four people in connection to the incident. …

Minya (Agenzia Fides) - An appeal to ask the police to enforce the law protecting citizens from any sectarian discrimination was launched yesterday by Anba Makarius, Coptic Orthodox Archbishop of Minya, after the series of incidents which in recent weeks have again recorded a sharp rise in cases of violence suffered particularly by Egyptian Christians. Now – highlighted Coptic Orthodox Archbishop - such violent attacks from the assault on homes to targeted kidnappings for ransom, are continuing at an average of one every ten days. In recent times the assault on homes of Christian families perpetrated in the village of...

LAPORTE, Ind., Feb. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- C. Jack Trickler presents a clear and accessible study of the people who wrote the books of the Bible, their motivations and the historical, political and social settings in which they wrote in his new book, "A Layman's Guide to Who Wrote the Books of the Bible?" (now available through AuthorHouse). Trickler discusses his own theories, as well as those of other religious scholars, to offer a thorough, well-researched argument. "When you get into the Bible, you see enough evidence that the Bible was written by humans that you have to say, 'Well, who...

In the video, the Egyptian Christian teens laugh playfully as a couple of them kneel down, imitating Muslim prayers, then another slides his hand under one boy’s neck, imitating the trademark beheadings of the Islamic State group. The boys were playing around, satirizing the extremist group, and their school supervisor just happened to be videoing them, their defenders say. The result has been catastrophic: they were sentenced to prison under Egypt’s blasphemy laws — they were mocking Muslim prayers, prosecutors said — and have fled into hiding, leaving behind shattered families. […] … Two years ago, the military ousted the...

"I am proud of my father--not just for my own sake, but because he has honored the whole Church. He did not deny his faith. That is something wonderful. We pray for the perpetrators, that they may be converted." CAIRO—The gruesome images of the 21 Christians who were beheaded in last February by Islamic State terrorists have left a deep imprint on the memory of Christian Egyptians. Now a new church dedicated to the martyrs—who are formally recognized as such by Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church—will honor their memory in a tangible fashion: this week—after a long delay—work began on laying...

In the coming days, construction will commence on a new church in Egypt dedicated to the martyred Coptic Christians beheaded by the Islamic State in Libya in February.The new church, bearing the name “Church of the Libyan Martyrs,” will be built in the Minya Governorate, south of the capital, Cairo. The church will cost $1.3 million, half of which has already been raised.Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi granted permission for the construction of the church last February after Islamic State militants murdered 21 Coptic Christians on a Libyan beach.According to Father Rafic Greiche, spokesman for the Catholic Church in Egypt,...

Work will begin in the coming days in Minya on a church that was planned to honour the deaths of 20 Egyptian Coptic Christians who died in a brutal sectarian attack by militants in Libya earlier this year. Plans and licences for the ‘Church of the Martyrs’ have been finalised to begin the work, head of the Samalout municipality in Minya said, as reported by MENA state news. Major General Gamal Mubaral Qinawy confirmed that the church will be built in the village of Al-Awar, in the district of Samalout. Qinawy said that work on the construction of the church...

A star student in Egypt was fails all seven of her exams, without scoring a single mark. A star student in Egypt was shocked to discover she has failed all seven of her exams, without scoring a single mark. Mariam Malak who had aspirations to go to medical school, had scored high marks in previous exams in that past few years. Malak and her family believe she is a victim of corruption in the Egyptian education system, it has been reported. "I was completely shocked. I couldn't hear anyone, I couldn't speak. I thought how can that happen? How can...