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CAIRO, EGYPT (ANS) -- In mid-October Egyptian media published news of an altercation between Muslim and Christian students over a classroom seat at a school in Mallawi, Minya province. Egyptian journalist Mary Abdelmassih, writing for AINA -- Assyrian International News Agency -- www.aina.org , says the altercation lead to the murder of a Christian student. AINA says the media portrayed the incident as non-sectarian. However, Copts Without Borders, a Coptic news website, refuted this version and was first to report that the Christian student was murdered because he was wearing a crucifix. "We wanted to believe the official version," said...

*Leaking roof in Ethiopian chapel 'will lead to relic being revealed' *Ark contains Ten Commandments God 'gave' to Moses on Mount Sinai *One holy monk is the only person allowed to see the holy box... * ...but he'll need a hand carrying metre long wooden structure to new homeA very British problem of a leaky church roof could be about to give the world the chance to glimpse the legendary Ark of the Covenant. That's because the claimed home of the iconic relic - a small chapel in Ethiopia - has sprung a leak and so the Ark could now...

Archaeology and the New Testament by  Kyle Butt, M.A. Any time a book alleges to report historical events accurately, that book potentially opens itself up to an immense amount of criticism. If such a book claims to be free from all errors in its historical documentation, the criticism frequently becomes even more intense. But such should be the case, for it is the responsibility of present and future generations to know and understand the past, and to insist that history, including certain monumental moments, is recorded and related as accurately as possible. The New Testament does not necessarily claim to...

...There exists a clear consensus among the Fathers regarding the indissolubility of marriage. Since it derives from the will of the Lord, the Church has no authority over it. For this reason, from the outset Christian marriage was distinct from marriage in Roman society, even though in the first centuries there did not yet exist any canonical system. The Church in the time of the Fathers clearly excluded divorce and remarriage, precisely out of faithful obedience to the New Testament.... In the Imperial Church after Constantine, with the ever stronger interplay between Church and State, a greater flexibility and readiness...

In a message of greeting to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Pope Benedict XVI said that Catholics and Orthodox must work together to bear witness to the Gospel in increasingly secularized societies. Pope Benedict sent a personal message to Patriarch Bartholomew I for the feast of St. Andrew, the patron of the Constantinople see, and for the 20th anniversary of Bartholomew’s election as Patriarch. Cardinal Kurt Koch, the president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, led a Vatican delegation to Istanbul to join in celebrating the feast. After meeting with Patriarch Bartholomew, the Vatican delegation joined in a liturgical...

FRiends, The edema and infections are getting worse and I'm scared that I will lose one or both of my feet or even my legs. My feet are about two-and-a-half times their normal size. It will be very hard to take care of my wife (stroke last year) and myself if I lose my mobility. I appreciate any and all prayers, thoughts, best wishes or whatever. This is like a second home for me and I have many good friends here that I've never met in person. Thank you!

On Private Confession and Absolution Confession has not been abolished in our churches. For it is not customary to administer the body of Christ except to those who have been previously examined and absolved. The people are also most diligently taught concerning faith in the word of absolution, about which there was a great silence before now….Nevertheless, confession is retained among us both because of the great benefits of absolution and because of other advantages for consciences. (Augsburg Confession XXV [Kolb/Wengert 73:1-2; 75:13]) As a consequence of the vows I took to uphold the Scriptures and the proper interpretation of...

Hator 18, 1728 Monday, Nov 28th, 2011 Home Introduction Videos & Live Webcast Lives of Saints Theology Patrology Coptic Calendar Hymns Liturgy Sermons H. H. Pope Shenouda Arabic/English Bible Coptic Fonts Today's Readings Mobile Verse of the Day Locate a Church Share | Contact Information Church Web Site: http://saintmark.com E-mail: General Information Postal Address: 427 West Side Ave Jersey City, NJ 07304 U.S.A. Directions SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST Known as : Sacrament of Holy Communion Sacrament of Thanksgiving The Lord’s Supper The Mysterious Supper Sacrament of Community The Meaning of the Eucharist The Sacrament of Communion is a Holy Sacrament...

Nohad Halawi, who worked at Heathrow Airport, is suing her former employers for unfair dismissal, claiming that she and other Christian staff at the airport were victims of systematic harassment because of their religion. She claims that she was told that she would go to Hell for her religion, that Jews were responsible for the September 11th terror attacks, and that a friend was reduced to tears having been bullied for wearing a cross. Mrs Halawi, who came to Britain from Lebanon in 1977, worked in the duty-free section as a perfume saleswoman of the airport for 13 years but...

During the Liturgical Season of Advent, we walk through the great events of Christian history so as to inculcate them into our daily lives and offer their promise to the whole world. During Advent we are invited through our liturgical readings and practices, to clear away all that entangles us and open a space in our hearts, our homes, our relationships and our lives, for Love Incarnate to be born again. For many of our readers in the United States of America, Thanksgiving was a day for family gatherings and for giving thanks. Sometimes, it also becomes a day of...

This year of Our Lord 2011 has been a very challenging to our family. Among the many challenges we’ve faced was one very trying one, one which brought my dignity and my self-identity as a father into question.To make the story short, the series of events left me thinking that I have failed as a father to one of my sons, that I was unsuccessful in handing down the faith, the way to live a Christian life, to hold on to a holy marriage, to respect the sacraments and the life of grace. Surely it was my fault that he...

BETHLEHEM, West Bank—Preparations for a long-needed renovation of the 1,500-year-old Church of the Nativity are moving ahead in Bethlehem, the town of Jesus' birth, in the face of political and religious conflicts that have kept one of Christendom's holiest sites in a state of decay for centuries. The first and most urgent part of the renovation, initiated by the Palestinian government in the West Bank, is meant to replace the building's roof. Ancient wooden beams pose a danger to visitors, officials say, and leaks have already ruined many of the church's priceless mosaics and paintings. If the repairs go ahead...

'Call No Man Father': Why do Catholics call Priests ‘Father‘? By Matt1618 I want to look at a passage that is often used to say that Catholics are unbiblical because we refer to the priests as Father. Matthew 23:9 is the passage where Jesus says 'Call no man Father'. How can we call priests Father, when Jesus explicitly says we shouldn't use such language except of God the Father? I want to start off by looking at the passage in the larger context with the Revised Standard Version, Matthew 23:1-10: 1 Then said Jesus to the crowds and to his...

A year after the attack which left 58 Christians dead in Baghdad, the faithful in Iraq’s capital city continue to be scared of fresh violence. “Living in Iraq means living in fear. There’s no feeling safe and during the last two or three weeks the situation has got worse, because of tensions among political parties,” said Fr. Amir Jaje, Superior of the Dominican Order in Baghdad and Vicar to the Arab World. He made his statement to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) during a visit to the charity’s international headquarters in Konigstein, Germany. Fr. Amir said that all...

Tens of thousands wait for hours in freezing temperatures to kiss belt that Christians believe was worn by Jesus' motherMOSCOW — Braving freezing cold temperatures and ice-covered sidewalks, tens of thousands of Russians stood in line Wednesday to see and kiss a newly arrived relic of the Virgin Mary in Russia's largest Orthodox cathedral. The Virgin Mary's Cincture, a belt that Christians believe was worn by Jesus' mother, was brought to Russia last month from Mount Athos, a monastic community in Greece. Kissing the relic, which is encased in an ornamental box, is believed to help barren women conceive and...

by Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky Western Protestantism, broken into a hundred sects and denominations, naturally had to come to the question: Where is the true church in the midst of all these divisions? And it has found no other way than to come to a teaching of an "invisible church" that mysteriously exists in the midst of all the differences and mistakes and sins of men—a church that is holy, whose membership is known only to God, and that consists only of those who are worthy of being in it. However, it is not for nothing that our Divine Savior has...

The first reaction of visitors to my lovely parish church is generally one of bewilderment, as they anoint themselves with air after reaching out for a holy water font inside the door and coming up empty. No statues, either. No stations of the cross. No confessionals or Rosary group either, for that matter. The first question visitors usually ask is, “Is this a Catholic Church?” Why, yes, it is. But not in the way most Catholics would expect. A young man in my parish once summed up the prevailing assumption when he told me that he hadn’t been able to...

The Holy Scriptures are one of the two great foundations of the faith and here is what our church holds and teaches concerning it. The word of God is not contained in the Bible alone, it is to be found in tradition as well. The Sacred Scriptures are the written word of God who is the author of the Old and New Testaments containing nothing but perfect truth in faith and morals. But God’s word is not contained only in them, there is an unwritten word of God also, which we call apostolic tradition. We receive the one and other...

© John S. Romanides [ This article originally appeared in the St. Vladimir's Seminary Quarterly, Vol. IV, Nos. 1 and 2, 1955-6. ] TABLE OF CONTENTS Fallen Creation The Justice of God and Law The Destiny of Man and Anthropology The Destiny of Man Anthropology of St. Paul Synthetic Observations Concluding Remarks YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE WORKS OF John S. Romanides in various FORMATS. In regard to the doctrine of original sin as contained in the Old Testament and illumnated by the unique revelation of Christ in the New Testament, there continues to reign in the denominations of the West--especially...

Book Gives Details of 1932 'Killing by Hunger' in UkraineROME, NOV. 17, 2011 (Zenit.org).- The sober skies and short days of November remind Romans that this is the month to pray for the dead. It seems fitting that this month opened with a presentation of new documents regarding one of the most tragic -- and virtually unacknowledged -- events of the modern age, the Ukrainian Famine. "The Holy See and the Holodomor: Documents from the Vatican Secret Archives on the Great Famine of 1932-1933 in Soviet Ukraine" by Father Athanasius McVay and Professor Lubomyr Luciuk was released Oct. 26 with...