Free Republic

Christianity began in the East, not the West, yet today Christians in the East are enduring an all-out-assault by Islamic terrorists, while Christians in the West live their lives largely oblivious to it all. This has to change. This is no imaginary persecution; in Syria alone there have been reports of kidnappings, Christian communities intentionally displaced by militants and, worst of all, shootings and beheadings of Christians who refused to convert to Islam. In Egypt radicals have recently destroyed dozens of churches, and the once vibrant Christian population in Iraq has been decimated. Christians in the West should stand up...

A church in Montenegro has sparked controversy by displaying a fresco depicting Yugoslav communist leader Josip Broz Tito in the fires of hell with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The newly built Church of Resurrection in the capital Podgorica has already drawn criticism for its lavish design. Critics now say the church should not be interfering in politics. Works by philosophers Marx and Engels were required reading when Montenegro was part of communist Yugoslavia. One church leader, named only as Dragan, told the Agence France-Presse news agency that Marx, Engels and Tito "personify communist evil in the Balkans" and the...

The stories told by five top Syrian Christian leaders about the horrors their churches are experiencing at the hands of Islamist extremists are biblical in their brutality. Bishop Elias Toumeh, representative of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, tells of the funeral he led ten days ago for the headless body of one of his parishioners in Marmarita. Rev. Adeeb Awad, vice moderator of the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon, explains how the rebels blew up his church and then pointed the finger at the regime. Bishop Armash Nalbandian, primate of the Armenian Church...

Pope Francis attends a meeting with the patriarchs and major archbishops of the Eastern Catholic churches in Syria, Iraq and and other parts of the Middle East, at the Vatican Nov. 21. (CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano via Reuters) Pope to Eastern Catholics: Never resign ourselves to a Middle East without Christians - YouTube Video Pope Francis announced this month he will visit the Middle East in May this year. While it has been foreshadowed since the first weeks of his papacy, this event will place the Church’s first South American Pope in the historic homeland of Christian faith, the “Holy Land”,...

MOSCOW — At the height of the Cold War, it was common for American conservatives to label the officially atheist Soviet Union a “godless nation.” More than two decades on, history has come full circle, as the Kremlin and its allies in the Russian Orthodox Church hurl the same allegation at the West. “Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their roots, including Christian values,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a recent keynote speech. “Policies are being pursued that place on the same level a multi-child family and a same-sex partnership, a faith in God and a belief in...

Moscow, January 28, Interfax - Head of the Synodal Department for Church and Society Relations Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin has lashed out against the pro-European Union movement in Ukraine and called for interference to keep the country within "Eastern Christian civilization." "A small group of people who are being led by views that are false both from the theological and from the public point of view are going to lengths that not even a large nation would do - they are trying to scrap a historical choice and will of an entire nation," Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin said at a meeting at...

MOSCOW, January 28 (RIA Novosti) – The head of the Russian Orthodox Church said Monday that priests should be assigned staff positions within the ranks of the Interior Ministry’s troops following the success of a similar move in the military. “With God’s grace, the institute of military priesthood is being revived. According to the Defense Ministry it has a positive influence on the morale of the military,” Patriarch Kirill said. The Russian church leader highlighted the importance of religious work among the Interior Ministry’s personnel who “face death carrying out anti-terrorism operations.”

Pope Francis embraces Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople at the Vatican in March 2013. (CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano via Reuters) Every January for over a century now, Christians have set aside a special week to pray for unity. This week, my friend the Orthodox priest and historian Oliver Herbel posted an excellent reflection in which he upbraided his fellow Orthodox for, as he powerfully put it, “spitting in the eye of Rome” every time she makes advances towards East-West unity. Father Oliver then went on to note some changes that he and his fellow Orthodox should make to respond better...

Damascus, Syria (CNN) -- An 80-foot-tall statue of Jesus Christ stands atop of a hill overlooking the Syrian Christian town of Saidnaya, about a 40-minute drive from Damascus. The statue is part of the ancient Cherubim Monastery in the Qalamoun Mountains, a quiet, spiritual place that's very important to Syria's Christians. But these days, there is a gruesome sight at the feet of the statue of Christ the savior. About 30 mutilated and charred bodies lie in piles near a footpath that leads to the monastery. The dead are rebel fighters who tried to storm the monastery but were killed...

A Prayer given at a Pro-life Rally on January 22, 2014 O Lord Jesus Christ, Who wast conceived by the will of the Father and by the power of the Holy Spirit, and wast made flesh in the womb of the Holy Virgin for our salvation and for the life of the world; Who while yet in the womb of Thy Mother wast acknowledged and worshipped as God in the flesh by John the Forerunner who leapt for joy in his mother’s womb: Thou art the same Lord who spoke through the prophet David saying, “Thou didst form my inward...

Before our wedding, my husband and I decided to read through the CatechismÂ’s treatment of the sacrament of marriage. Though the entire chapter was deeply moving, we were particularly taken by a quote which now hangs framed on our living room wall: [Young husbands should say to their wives] I have taken you in my arms, and I love you, and I prefer you to my life itself. For the present life is nothing, and my most ardent dream is to spend it with you in such a way that we may be assured of not being separated in the...

Moscow, January 23, Interfax - The first Russian school in Bethlehem is due to open on September 1, 2014. The issue was discussed at a meeting between Palestinian National Administration leader Mahmoud Abbas and the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society Chairman Sergey Stepashin at the Society's office building in central Moscow on Thursday. "Mahmoud Abbas has asked for more schools," Stepashin told reporters after the meeting. Before 1917 there were around 100 Russian schools in Bethlehem, he recalled. Russian schools could also open in Ramallah and Gaza Strip in the future, Stepashin said. "A miser pays twice. We must not lose...

Yesterday morning, monks from the Kiev-Caves Lavra Fr. Gabriel, Fr. Melchisedek, and Fr. Ephraim stood on Grushevsky Street in Kiev with a cross and icons, between the demonstrators and the Ukrainian special police force “Berkut”, and stopped the conflict. They entered the arena as peace-makers, and not in support of one side or the other. Although they were invited to join the “people”, the fathers only prayed and sang the Paschal troparion: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life,” wrote the Ramensky deanery of Moscow on its facebook...

While Calvisnism looks good on paper --- in real time and in the here and now it comes up short: A person can be heard accepting Christ as savior, can be seen bearing good fruit, living for the Lord for years, etc, and then later on they start acting in such a way that causes some to think that they were either "falsely saved" (and thus seemingly somehow duped those around them for some time) or at best they are "out of fellowship" with Christ, but nonetheless still saved. A.) Two people can be bearing bad fruit, committing sin, etc,...

In Hungary, Croatia, and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, a pro-family, pro-life revolution and a rediscovery of Christian roots is occurring. While few in the American media have noticed, this trend should challenge those who simply lament Europe’s moral malaise. Unnoticed in the shadow of a secularized west, religion’s public role has been growing in the east since the collapse of communism. Since taking power in 2010, Prime Minister Viktor Orban—a charismatic veteran of Hungary’s anti-Communist underground—has victoriously stood at the forefront of what Americans call the culture wars. In 2011, Orban’s government ratified a new constitution that defines marriage as...

This a collection of articles reflecting the developing news from Russia. The short of it is that a popular theologian, professor and thinker Deacon Kurayev decided to publicly condemn homosexuality and possibly pedophilia in his beloved Orthodox Church, to which he has every intention to remain faithful. The accusations take the form of a series of publications in Kuraev's blog; the accounts from the victims are published and the peculiar pattern of careers blocked or promoted based apparently on the intimacy of the candidate to a gay sponsor. The abuse itself is rarely criminal (other than grounds for a harassment...

Homs (Agenzia Fides) - Islamist groups have killed and beheaded a young Christian man, seriously wounding another. The incident, which occurred on 8 January, was reported to Fides only now by a priest in the diocese of Homs. The two, Firas Nader (29), and Fadi Matanius Mattah (34), were traveling by car from Homs to the Christian village of Marmarita. A group of five armed jihadists intercepted the vehicle and opened fire on the car. Upon reaching the car, militiamen, noting that Fadi was wearing a cross around his neck, beheaded him. They then took money and documents, leaving Firas...

Father Jonathan Morris seems to be a regular on News pertaining to religious/spiritual matters. Given that, the other side of the coin should appropriately be someone of similar office and title (equivalent to) Father Morris, and one which would be of GREAT APPEAL (Caps for emphasis only) in Eastern Europe. In summation, having someone that was Eastern Orthodox would be a counterbalance, would give another viewpoint and increase the viewing audience.

Satan, in the Garden of Eden, speaking to Eve (through the serpent) said in Genesis 3:1-5 that if Eve would stretch forth her hand and eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that she would not die, but would become as gods knowing good and evil. Satan essentially proffered the idea to Eve that: 1.) God wanted to keep something from her (as well as Adam) and 2.) that God had lied to her when He told her that she would die. Essentially, Satan said to Eve that God wanted to keep His thumb...

The recent statement by the Moscow Patriarchate “on the problem of primacy” is born of desperate, and desperately sad, insecurity. Pope Francis meets with Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of ecumenical relations for the Russian Orthodox Church, during a private meeting at the Vatican Nov. 12. (CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano vi a Reuters) Nearly three years ago now, I published a book on Orthodoxy and papal primacy and, at risk of being immodest, have since felt more and more that I had said everything that needed to be said on the topic. But the whole question, which has been at the...