UN

UN officials visit the Metropolis of Moldova

May 17, 2013 Featured News

14/5/13 His Eminence Metropolitan Vladimir had a meeting this afternoon with Ms. Nicola Harrington Buhay, UN Resident Coordinator and Permanent Representatives of the UNDP in Moldova. The UN official gave high appreciation to the social activity of the Orthodox Church of Moldova, and invited the Metropolis to collaborate within “Towards Unity in Action” UN Partnership Framework [...]

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Prelate says Syrian Christians face terrible choice: ‘die or leave’

April 15, 2013 News

15/4/13 Archbishop Samir Nassar, the Maronite Catholic archbishop of Damascus, has told the Fides news agency that Syria’s Christians “must choose between two bitter chalices: to die or leave.” Syrians, who “have seen the UN organize since 2005 the systematic departure of Iraqi refugees towards the West,” now note “the world’s indifference and silence in [...]

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In Syria, some 300,000 Christian refugees also fleeing from UN camps

April 6, 2013 Featured News

04/04/2013 In Syria, Christians are neutral and do not want to be used for photo ops. The United Nations, however, automatically registers them as members of the opposition. The head of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) appeals on behalf of 1,200 families currently helped only by the Church and generous families. Beirut (AsiaNews) [...]

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Serbia marks 14th anniversary of NATO bombing

March 24, 2013 Featured News
A heating plant in New Belgrade is seen after being hit by NATO missiles (Tanjug, file)

24/3/13 BELGRADE — Today marks the 14th anniversary since the start of the NATO bombing campaign against Serbia, i.e. the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SRJ). The bombing lasted 79 days and resulted in at least 2,500 deaths and more than 12,500 injuries. The attacks on Serbia started on March 24, 1999, and the last [...]

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Libya: Security of Christian Communities ‘Precarious’ in Libya – Archbishop

March 17, 2013 News

15/3/13 Tripoli — Various Christian communities in Libya, as well as some Muslim groups, have been feeling increasingly under pressure from hardline Islamist groups since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011. “The level of security remains precarious for all foreigners, especially for Christians, because of the presence of some fundamentalist Islamic groups,” Giovanni [...]

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Religious divides deepen in Syria

February 24, 2013 Featured News

Andreas Gorzewski  – 24/2/13 The fronts in the Syrian conflict are increasingly hardening along religious lines. But the prospects for the Christian, Druze and Alawite minorities are all very different. The various religious communities in Syria lived together peacefully for decades. But the ongoing conflict in the country is tearing ever deeper divides between the [...]

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Holy Land: Christian leaders support Palestine’s membership of UN

November 20, 2012 Featured News

20/1/2012 A hundred Christian community leaders in the Holy Land haved signed the following letter to European countries, calling for support for Palestine’s membership in the United Nations. Palestine, the Holy Land is our homeland. Our roots here stretch for centuries. We, Palestinian Christians are the descendents of the first Christians. We are also an [...]

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Is there hope at last for Apostolos Andreas?

November 15, 2012 Featured News

Poly Pantelides – 12/11/2012 SUCCESSIVE plans to renovate Apostolos Andreas Monastery in occupied Karpasia date back years but have all stumbled over who is to administer and fund the project. In the meantime, one of the most important Greek Orthodox religious sites in Cyprus is quite simply crumbling, becoming more dangerous with every passing year. [...]

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CYPRUS: Saint Andreas monastery held hostage to time

November 5, 2012 Featured News

5/11/2012 The road leading to the monastery of Saint Andreas has been abandoned to the elements since the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus. In the middle of the road, sheep from herds block your passage, making it impossible for a car to get by – images one rarely meets elsewhere. They graze in the nearby [...]

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UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon visits Decani Monastery and Cathedral church of St. George in Prizren

July 28, 2012 Featured News

28/7/2012 Serbian Orthodox Church Serbian Province of Kosovo and Metohia Decani – UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon with his spouse and associates visited on Tuesday, July 24, 2012 within his one-day visit to Kosovo and Metohia the Decani Monastery. The distinguished guest was welcomed by heugomen of the monastery archimandrite Sava with hieromonk Petar and [...]

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President of the 66th session of the UN General Assembly visits St. Sergius’s Monastery of the Trinity and Moscow Theological Academy

May 5, 2012 News

On May 1, 2012, St. Sergius’s Monastery of the Holy Trinity and the Moscow Theological Academy had the honour to welcome H.E. Mr. Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, president of the 66th session of the UN General Assembly, who was in Moscow for a visit at the invitation of the Russian Academy of Science’s Institute for Oriental [...]

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UN expert wants access to Cyprus’ religious sites

April 5, 2012 News

5/4/2012 NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — A U.N. expert says more needs to be done to allow worshippers free and unfettered access to religious sites on the ethnically divided island of Cyprus. Heiner Bielefeldt, U.N. special rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief, said Thursday the situation has improved some after crossings linking the island’s Turkish-speaking [...]

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Syria Unrest claims a Christian priest in Hama & more Casualties

January 26, 2012 Featured News

Omar al-Shaar|Dp-news 26/1/2012 HAMA- International and local press also reported Wednesday too that Christian priest from the Greek Orthodox Church, the Rev. Basilious Nasser, was shot and killed on the second day of heavy fighting in the city of Hama. The Syrian state news agency blamed an “armed terrorist group” for the killing, while opposition [...]

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Guide: Christians in the Middle East

October 13, 2011 Featured News

11/10/2011 BBC The Middle East is the birthplace of Christianity and home to some of the world’s most ancient Christian denominations. But Christian communities across the region are declining in numbers because of a combination of low birth rates, emigration and, in some places, persecution and violence. LEBANON Total pop: 4.3m Christians: 1.35m-1.5m 31-35% of [...]

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Moldovan Premier Warns Church Against Political Meddling

September 26, 2011 News
Moldovan Prime Mininster Vlad Filat

25/9/2011 CHISINAU — Moldova’s Prime Minister Vlad Filat has warned the country’s powerful Orthodox Church to stop meddling in state affairs, RFE/RL’s Moldovan Service reports. “Every citizen has a right to protest, but since the state does not interfere in the activities of the church, the church should also stop interfering in the business of [...]

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Priests of Chisinau Church District meet to discuss important issues of Church Life

September 17, 2011 News

15/9/2011 Moldovan Orthodox Church The church of St. Archangels Michael and Gabriel of Durleşti town hosted today the meeting of clergymen from Chişinau Church District. The meeting was chaired by Mitred Archpriest Zosima Toia, Dean of the Circumscription. About 50 clergymen from Chisinau municipality, along with Mrs. Elena Bâtcă, lawyer of the Metropolitan Administration, participated [...]

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OCA represented at ceremony marking the opening of the 66th UN General Assembly

September 17, 2011 News

NEW YORK, NY [OCA] 12/9/2011 His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah, was among the religious leaders invited to attend ceremonies marking the opening of the 66th session of the United Nations’ General Assembly at the Church of the Holy Family here Monday, September 12, 2011. The ceremony was hosted by the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy [...]

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Moldovan Orthodox Church Rejects UN Official’s Comments

September 14, 2011 News

14/9/2011 CHISINAU — Moldova’s Orthodox Church has criticized a UN official for suggesting it has too much influence in the country, RFE/RL’s Moldovan Service reports. The Orthodox Church said comments by Heiner Bielefeldt, UN rapporteur for religious freedom, were “shameless and disrespectful.” Bielefeldt visited Moldova earlier this month to gather information for a report he [...]

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Cyprus Archbishop cautions over fate of Middle Eastern Christians

September 2, 2011 News

2/9/2011 Cyprus Archbishop Chrysostomos ΙΙ attended a gathering of the Primates of the four Patriarchates and the Αutocephalous Church of Cyprus, at the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul, speaking about the dangers which Christians face in Middle Eastern countries, due to potential prevalence of extremist elements. The Archbishop referred to raids in places [...]

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Notes From Tripoli

September 1, 2011 Featured News

By Franklin Lamb 30/8/2011 Countercurrents.org Tripoli Journal in Which Franklin Lamb Shields a Nigerian from Rebel Racists and Dreams of Chadian Ladies Tripoli: My roommate left our hotel and hopefully Libya last night for his village near Arlit, Niger thanks to the assistance of one of Tripoli’s Christian Churches. I shall miss him a lot. [...]

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Painting led Serbs to last Balkans war Crimes Suspect

July 23, 2011 Featured News

James Bone The Times 22/7/2011 AFTER seven years on the run, a cash-strapped Goran Hadzic was brought undone by a painting. The last war crimes suspect wanted by the UN tribunal in The Hague for atrocities in the Balkans bloodbath of the 1990s was arrested in Serbia on Wednesday. The leader of the breakaway Croatian [...]

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As UN declares famine in Somalia, IOCC responds with aid to refugee Camps

July 23, 2011 Featured News

21/7/2011 Responding to the United Nations announcement declaring a famine in two regions of Somalia, International Orthodox Christian Charities [IOCC], in cooperation with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church Development and Inter-Church Aid Commission, is delivering financial assistance to provide critically needed healthcare support for millions of people in the Horn of Africa suffering through one of [...]

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Serbian Patriarch Condemns NATO

June 15, 2011 Featured News

15/6/2011 The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Irenaeus condemned the holding of a NATO conference in Belgrade. According to him, the wounds inflicted by the alliance on the Serbian people have not yet healed. In March 1999, NATO countries, led by the United States began a bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, mainly in Serbia [...]

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Seven years since Albanian pogrom against Serbs in Kosovo-Metohija

March 18, 2011 Featured News

18/3/2011 Thursday marks seven years since the major ethnic Albanian pogrom against Serbs in Kosovo-Metohija on March 17, 2004, when Kosovo Serbs, their property and holy sites of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) were attacked and over 4,000 people were forced to leave their homes. Thursday marks seven years since the major ethnic Albanian pogrom [...]

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DECR chairman meets with UN Under-Secretary-General

February 10, 2011 Featured News

7/2/2011 On February 7, 2011, Metropolitan Hilarion, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external church relations, met with Mr. Kiyotaka Akasaka, UN Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, at the UN headquarters in New York. Present at the meeting were also Archpriest Igor Vyzhanov, representative of the World Russian People’s Council at the UN, [...]

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