Free Republic

It is now well over a year since Vladimir Putin's Russia passed 'anti-missionary' laws and more than 180 cases have since been brought. Activities ranging from prayer meetings in homes, posting worship times on a religious website and praying in the presence of other citizens have been interpreted as 'missionary activity' with Christians making up the vast majority of the law's victims. One case is that of Donald Ossewaarde, an American Baptist preacher living in Oryol, who was expelled for hosting a church meeting in his house. Having lost appeals throughout the Russian judiciary system, Ossewaarde's case is now with...

Red Simple CHRISTIANS from all parts of the world have ever flocked to Rome as to the rock of faith and the foundation of the Church, and honored with the greatest reverence and piety the spot hallowed by the sepulcher of the Prince of the Apostles. These words of Holy Church are exemplified in the Martyrs of today. Forced with ambition to have some part and fellowship in the glorious Society of the holy Apostles and Martyrs, they left all things and hastened to the Eternal City, there to receive in fullest measure what they sought. Like the Magi...

Reprinted from the Gatestone Institute.Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Luc Ravel, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Strasbourg “went against the grain of Church leaders in France who have largely remained politically correct,” says a report, because he criticized “the demographic shift in France, saying Muslims are having far more children than native French and slammed the widespread ‘promotion’ of abortion.”  He said, “Muslim believers know very well that their birthrate is such that today, they call it … the Great Replacement, they tell you in a very calm, very positive way that, ‘one...

How should comtemporary Russians remember Soviet-era political repressions?OrthoChristian.com continues its endeavor to publish material on the theme of the 1917 revolution towards the end this centennial year. In this article, Vasiliy Shchipkov, who holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Moscow State Institute of International Relations, discusses the Christian approach to remembering the terrible time of Soviet repressions vs. a mentality of retribution.Great Consecration of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ and the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church in Sretensky Monastery. Photo: G.Balayants / Pravoslavie.ru My family knows about repressions, about political and religious persecutions, not from...

Two Chinese Christian pastors who are preparing to evangelize in North Korea say they are ready for whatever trials come, even death. According to ChristianToday.com, the two pastors are aware of the dangers they will face in North Korea, but they maintain committed to sharing the gospel with the North Koreans. North Korea is ranked as the number one worst country for Christian persecution by Open Doors World Watch List. One example of a Christian missionary facing horrendous violence in North Korea is the case of a Korean-Chinese church leader who evangelized in the country for 17 years before his...

These saints were killed for their faith during a dark time in England's history. After King Henry VIII proclaimed himself supreme head of the Church in England and Wales, a violent wave of anti-Catholic persecution began — and lasted over a century. It started with the executions of Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher, but didn’t end there. Hundreds were killed between 1535 and 1679; the Church recognized the heroism of 40 martyrs from England and Wales in a canonization ceremony on October 25, 1970. (Later, a separate feast on May 4 was created to recognize the 284 canonized or beatified...

How the grandparents of today’s Christian victims of ISIS were Editor’s Note: The following review was written by Raymond Ibrahim, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. The book reviewed is Year of the Sword: The Assyrian Christian Genocide, a History (published by the Oxford University Press, 2016), by Joseph Yacoub, an Honorary Professor of Political Science at Catholic University of Lyon. A significantly shorter version of this review first appeared in the Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2017. This important contribution to genocide studies documents how the world’s oldest Christian communities—variously referred to as Chaldeans, Syriacs, and Arameans,...

Red Simple CHRYSANTHUS was united, in his confession of our Lord, with her whom he had won to Christianity and to the love of the angelic virtue. Our forefathers had a great veneration for these two martyrs who, having lived together in holy virginity, were together buried alive in a sand pit at Rome for refusing to honor the false gods. Dying like the seed in the earth, they yielded the fruit of martyrdom. On the anniversary day of their triumph, numbers of the faithful had gathered in the catacomb on the Salarian Way for the liturgical Synaxis, when...

White (for St. Mark), Red (for St. Sergius)   MARK, successor to Sylvester the Pontiff of peace, has been honored on this day from time immemorial. According to the testimony of St. Damasus, his virtues no less than his name recalled St. Mark the Evangelist. He occupied the supreme See only eight months; but in that short time, he followed up the recent triumph of the Church by wise organizations. He built two new sanctuaries in Rome. He gave the Pallium, of which this is the first mention in history, to the Bishop of Ostia, to enhance his high...

Suffering for the Gospel: Pondering a Picture of Apostolic Times Msgr. Charles Pope • July 25, 2017 • Death of St. James by Stefan Lochner (c. 1435)Writing as I am on the Feast of Saint James, likely the first Apostle to be martyred, I’d like to ponder the kinds of sufferings the Apostles endured in order to announce the Gospel and win souls for Christ. In the “softer” Church of the declining West, it is hard for us even to imagine. How many Catholics today can barely rouse themselves to get to an hour-long Mass on Sunday? How many...

As more and more details emerge concerning Friday’s Ramadan attack on a busload of Christians on pilgrimage, the more it becomes evident that these 29 martyrs died solely because they were Christians. Survivors of the attack said that the ten masked Islamic State militants did not merely open fire on the bus full of Christian pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of Saint Samuel the Confesor, but that the victims were made to descend from the bus and asked one by one whether they were Christians before being shot by the assailants. According to one of the chaplains of...

Fr. Don Miller, OFM Image: Mary and Child with Saints Felicity and Perpetua (Sacra Conversazione) | Anonymous Saints Perpetua and Felicity Saint of the Day for March 7 (d. 203)  Saints Perpetua and Felicity’s Story “When my father in his affection for me was trying to turn me from my purpose by arguments and thus weaken my faith, I said to him, ‘Do you see this vessel—waterpot or whatever it may be? Can it be called by any other name than what it is?’ ‘No,’ he replied. ‘So also I cannot call myself by any other name than what...

This month marks the second anniversary of the martyrdom of 21 Coptic Christians at the hands of Islamic terrorists. Their crime? Loving Christ enough to die for Him. Would Roman Catholics do the same? What motivates martyrs, if not love? Michael Matt asks the question: Is it because the New Order no longer speaks of Holy MOTHER Church that so few of her sons seem willing to die for her anymore? What have we lost? What was life in the Church like just 40 years ago? Growing up Catholic...and remembering what we lost. Scapulars. Meat-less Friday. Ember Days. Midnight Masses....

NEW YORK (ChurchMilitant.com) - Following news of the murder of a French priest by ISIS militants Tuesday, an editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal is announcing his conversion to the Catholic faith. In a tweet posted Tuesday, Sohrab Ahmari stated "this is the right moment to announce that [he is] converting to Roman Catholicism." The message was prefaced by the hashtag #IAmJacquesHamel, referring to the 84-year-old priest murdered Tuesday morning by Islamic terrorists while celebrating morning Mass at his parish in Normandy, France. Ahmari noted he is currently under instruction at the London Oratory, shorthand for the Brompton...

Police have shot two men who took a priest and several others hostage at knifepoint at a church in north-western France. The men cut the priest's throat before being "neutralised," police said. Le Figaro newspaper reported that the priest died after his throat was cut. The men’s motives are still unknown. Elite police units rushed to the church in the Normandy town of Saint-Etienne-du Rouvray after the men seized a number of people including a priest and two nuns. It remains unclear whether the hostage takers were killed in the police action. A police source told AFP that one of...

Elderly priest, 86, is 'beheaded' by two ISIS knifemen shouting 'Allahu Akbar' after they took nuns and worshippers hostage at French church: Police shoot both attackers dead then search for bombs Priest had throat cut while another hostage is fighting for life after knifemen burst into Normandy church at 9am Reports that one of the attackers shouted 'Allahu Akbar' as they launched attack at Gambetta Church near Rouen Vatican has condemned the 'barbaric' killing of the 86-year-old priest and an anti-terror investigation is underway ISIS claim responsibility for the atrocity while Francois Hollande says France is 'at war' with the...

Reports surfaced Tuesday that ISIS had attacked the Christian city of Tel Askuf in Iraq. An intense firefight ensued involving local Kurdish Peshmerga troops and training forces from the Sons of Liberty International (SOLI), a group founded and run by Matthew Van Dyke. Unfortunately, one Navy SEAL gave his life defending the Christian city. His name has yet to be released. Jason Butrill, head researcher for The Glenn Beck Program and a former member of counterintelligence with U.S. Special Forces, received communication from Van Dyke’s team as the fighting went down. “This area that has been attacked is the Christian...

An art group in Copenhagen decided to hold an exhibit dedicated to history’s martyrs. But alongside the likes of Joan of Arc and Socrates visitors will also find the Paris and Brussels attackers, something that got the group reported to the police. Ida Grarup Nielsen, who leads the artist collective The Other Eye of The Tiger, sees the theme of martyrs as encompassing persons on any side of history who were willing to die for their cause. The installation to take place May 26 – March 10 at Copenhagen’s Meatpacking District will be fashioned into a museum in the vein...

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Jamaican police said Monday they are trying to determine the motive in the weekend slayings of two American missionaries in the north coast area where they lived and worked. A team of officers is interviewing residents of St. Mary parish in northern Jamaica where the bodies of Randy Hentzel, 48, and Harold Nichols, 53, were found in bushes along a rural road where they were traveling on motorbikes.

The murders of four translators working to bring the Bible to obscure languages in the Middle East earlier this month won't stop the charity behind the effort from its work, officials said. The four unidentified translators, who worked secretly for Wycliffe Associates, a Florida non-profit dedicated to bringing the gospel to hundreds of obscure languages, were killed by suspected Islamist militants at an undisclosed location,Wycliffe officials said in a statement. “They shot and destroyed all the equipment in the office,” read the statement. “The invaders burned all the books and other translation materials in the office." The work is so...