| Open Doors: Every Two Hours a Nigerian Christian Is Killed for ‘Following Jesus’ Photo: hcef.org The Christian aid group Open Doors revealed Wednesday a Christian is violently killed for their faith in Nigeria every two hours on average, 365 days a year. “That’s nearly 13 people a day, 372 a month and almost 5,000 a year,” writes Lindy Lowry, the managing editor for Open Doors USA, in an email. “And the reality is that each of these numbers is a man, woman, father, mother, son or daughter.” “Research for the 2022 World Watch List reveals that in Nigeria, more Christians were murdered for their faith than in any other country,” Lowry writes, adding that “Nigeria accounted for nearly 80% of Christian deaths worldwide.” These data confirm that currently Nigeria is “the world’s most violent place for Christians,” the message states. “Believers live each hour under threat of attack, kidnapping or death from Islamic extremist groups — simply because they walk with Jesus.” Code for blog Since you are here… …we do have a small request. More and more people visit Orthodoxy and the World website. However, resources for editorial are scarce. In comparison to some mass media, we do not make paid subscription. It is our deepest belief that preaching Christ for money is wrong. Having said that, Pravmir provides daily articles from an autonomous news service, weekly wall newspaper for churches, lectorium, photos, videos, hosting and servers. Editors and translators work together towards one goal: to make our four websites possible - Pravmir.ru, Neinvalid.ru, Matrony.ru and Pravmir.com. Therefore our request for help is understandable. For example, 5 euros a month is it a lot or little? A cup of coffee? It is not that much for a family budget, but it is a significant amount for Pravmir. If everyone reading Pravmir could donate 5 euros a month, they would contribute greatly to our ability to spread the word of Christ, Orthodoxy, life " s purpose, family and society. Also by this author Today " s Articles Most viewed articles Functionality is temporarily unavailable. Most popular authors Functionality is temporarily unavailable. © 2008-2024 Pravmir.com |
| Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images While the cause of an enormous fire that engulfed the historic Parisian Notre Dame Cathedral has yet to be determined, the destruction of hundreds of other French churches has been concerning Christians across the globe over the past couple of years. In the month of February alone, some 10 incidents of vandalism and desecration of Catholic churches were reported across the European country. According to Anglican Mainstream , on average, two French churches are desecrated every single day. Here are just a few specific examples to highlight: According to the Catholic News Agency , on February 5, an altar cloth was set alight and crosses and statues were torn down and disfigured at Saint-Alain Cathedral in Lavaur. The beautiful, 800-year-old building had recently undergone major renovations. Following the brutal act, the city’s mayor, Bernard Carayon, poignantly declared, “God will forgive. Not me,” according to La Croix. Then, just a day later, vandals at a Catholic church in Nimes stormed into the sanctuary, threw the consecrated hosts (which Catholics believe to be the actual body and blood of Jesus) on the ground and drew a cross on the wall in excrement. The sickening incident devastated the local faith community. “This act of profanation hurts us all in our deepest convictions,” Bishop Robert Wattebled said at the time. The Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe recorded yet another incident of vandalism on February 9 at the Church of Notre-Dame de Dijon in Côte-d’Or. Following news of the attacks, French daily morning newspaper Le Figaro noted that the trend was “continuing at a worrying level.” “Every day, at least two churches are profaned,” Valérie Boyer, an opposition MP for the Republican party, told the outlet, according to Premier UK . The attacks don’t stop at France, however. Recently, Germany has seen an uptick in arson attacks on its places of worship. In the month of March, four separate incidents of church vandalization were recorded. |
| Pronouncing of the word “Christmas” is punishable by death on the territories occupied by ISIS Mosul, December 27, 2014 The outrages of radical Islamists on Iraqi and Syrian territory have not only deprived Christians who live under the yoke of the takfirists of the joy of Christmas, but also alarmed neighboring regions that for the moment are free of the terrorists, reports Linga with reference to news agencies. According to the eyewitnesses’ evidence, on the territories occupied by “the Islamic State” the very utterance of the word “Christmas” is equated with the public preaching of Christianity and is punishable by death. According to Suleiman Yusuf, an international human rights activist, at the present time even an indirect suggestion of the festive mood that is reigning in homes of Christian families of the Nineveh Valley is dangerous. Thus, unusual activity on Christmas days may attract attention of inspectors-takfirists who take the law into their own hands and cruelly deal with “disturbers of the public peace.” “Needless to say hundreds and hundreds of Iraqi churches have not been decorated and adorned for the Christmas feast: today rain is pouring down either on ruins of the centuries-old churches or else on deserted and desecrated altars,” he said. Father Maysar Bahnam, Rector of the Catholic Church of St. George the Victory-Bearer in Baghdad, in his interview dispelled the myth of the safety of Christians in the Iraqi capital which is not under control of militants: “Around 400 people are present at my services; but we cannot arrange a procession of the cross or organize something for the feast outside the church—this is absolutely dangerous now.” The days of Nativity, joyless for 250,000 Christians of the Nineveh Valley, became a hectic period for believers of Lebanon. According to Lebanese Bishop Michel Qassarji, on an average, a Lebanese community has sheltered around 1,800 refugees since the beginning of the Iraqi conflict; 25 new families come to churches every week to ask for help. “All this is very difficult. But as the Church, we are doing our best to meet the needs of these unfortunate people, particularly in food and education,” the hierarch assured the journalists. 29 декабря 2014 г. Смотри также Комментарии Мы в соцсетях Подпишитесь на нашу рассылку |
| Family life : Bringing up children Last Updated: Feb 8th, 2011 - 05:50:02 Let’s Have More Teen Pregnancy By Frederica Mathewes-Green Dec 15, 2010, 10:00 Discuss this article Printer friendly page Source True Love Waits. Wait Training. Worth Waiting For. The slogans of teen abstinence programs reveal a basic fact of human nature: teens, sex, and waiting aren’t a natural combination. Over the last fifty years the wait has gotten longer. In 1950, the average first-time bride was just over 20; in 1998 she was five years older, and her husband was pushing 27. If that June groom had launched into puberty at 12, he’d been waiting more than half his life. If he been waiting, that is. Sex is the sugar coating on the drive to reproduce, and that drive is nearly overwhelming. It’s supposed to be; it’s the survival engine of the human race. Fighting it means fighting a basic bodily instinct, akin to fighting thirst. Yet despite the conflict between liberals and conservatives on nearly every topic available, this is one point on which they firmly agree: young people absolutely must not have children. Though they disagree on means-conservatives advocate abstinence, liberals favor contraception—they shake hands on that common goal. The younger generation must not produce a younger generation. But teen pregnancy, in itself, is not such a bad thing. By the age of 18, a young woman’s body is well prepared for childbearing. Young men are equally qualified to do their part. Both may have better success at the enterprise than they would in later years, as some health risks—Cesarean section and Down syndrome, for example— increase with passing years. (The dangers we associate with teen pregnancy, on the other hand, are behavioral, not biological: drug use, STD’s, prior abortion, extreme youth, and lack of prenatal care.) A woman’s fertility has already begun to decline at 25-one reason the population-control crowd promotes delayed childbearing. Early childbearing also rewards a woman’s health with added protection against breast cancer. |
| Chinese Christians Swelling In Number As Orthodox Christianity Gets Left Behind November 14, 2014 China, an officially atheist country that is converting into Christianity at breakneck speed, is bound to become the world " s largest Christian country with about 250 million faithful by 2030, save for one group-the Orthodox Christians. Yang Fenggang of Purdue University said that since the 1980s, the Chinese Christian community has been growing by an average of 10 percent per year. A Pew Research pegged their number at 67 million or roughly about five percent of the total population in mainland China in 2011. Unless something short of a miracle happens, however, the Orthodox Christian community-the supposedly prevailing Christian group because of its geographical and historical traces in China-will not see a rise in number. Present estimates suggest they are less than 0.1% of the population and will remain within their current number in the foreseeable future. Since the Communist Party of China (CPC) came to power, religions with western flavors have been tolerated but legally banned from the land. This is not the case with the Orthodox Christian church. According to an article published on The Economist, Orthodox Christianity has legal claims in China because it has historical roots in the land tracing as far back as the 17 century. In northern China, two communities have been practicing the Orthodox faith for the last three centuries: the Albazinians who are of Russian descent and the Evenks who live near the Siberian border. The religion has since travelled to Harbin and Shanghai and has all but completely died during the communist takeover. At present, they are only numbering to about 15,000 Orthodox Christians who are largely untethered by priests and church leaders. Meanwhile, the Christian communities are swelling in mostly underground or " house " churches. Majority of Chinese Christians are forced to go underground because there are very few state-sanctioned places of worship in the country. |
| Christians in Egypt are waiting for a vote on a law that would ease the restrictions on construction of new churches, and that vote could happen as early as next month. Photo: Reuters/Asmaa Waguih. A cross of an Egyptian Coptic Orthodox church is seen under a " " Fanous " " or decorated lantern in the town of Nagaa Hamady, in Qena, 700km (435 miles) south of Cairo, January 9, 2010. Egypt’s current law makes it very difficult for Christians to build their own places of worship since such buildings require approval from local Muslims. In addition, the proposed church should be located at least 340 feet away from the nearest mosque, and they could not be built near government establishments, schools, village canals, railways, and even between residential areas, Christianity Today details. Because of the restrictions, only a few churches have been built in Egypt. Coptic Solidarity says an average of two churches every year has been approved for construction in the last 60 years, and there are less than 2,600 churches all in all. While there is one mosque for every 620 Egyptian Muslims, there is about one church for every 5,500 Christians in the country. The scarcity of churches in Egypt has led many Christians to conduct their services in house basements, the World Watch Monitor says. However, these gatherings are illegal, thus they are easy targets for Islamist extremists. Egypt’s 2014 constitution includes a requirement that the Parliament pass a law that would ease the restriction on church constructions. The deadline for this falls within the first term, but the Parliament moved that to the end of September since it was unable to complete the task. There have been rumors about a draft that would require Christians to seek the approval of a governor instead of the president in order to build a church. Since there is still no official confirmation of the deadline for the vote for the legislation, Egyptian Christians continue to wait. Meanwhile, Egyptian Christians also have to contend with other faith-related problems aside from the church construction issue. When interfaith disputes and violence erupt, extra-judicial councils more often than not side with Muslims, The Associated Press reports. |
| Church will Increase Spiritual Influence on Authorities, Society – Patriarch Kirill Moscow, September 5, Interfax – Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has denied the allegations on the increasing mingling of the church and the state in Russia. “People who say that the Church in Russia is very closely connected with the state are wrong. It’s not true,” the Patriarch said in an interview with the Japanese media before his visit to Japan. Patriarch said the Church is working with the authorities on the restoration of cultural monuments, education of the youth, culture, and social sphere, but has no goal to influence state politics. “However, we are preaching to people, including our authorities. We bring certain values to our people, primarily moral values. And we insist that politics should be based on morals. Politics without morals do not benefit those who pursue those policies and those who are influenced by these policies,” he said. For this reason, the influence exerted by the church on political life is “moral, not political.” “Our ill-wishers are telling tales about the Church, and these tales spread worldwide became stereotypes spread fast,” he said. Patriarch Kirill said the Church wants to influence everyone, “including state figures and ordinary people so that the morals the church preach are adopted by our people’s consciousness.” The Patriarch said the Russian Church “has been very successful in its mission” for the past 20 years because at the beginning of its activities “the majority of people were atheists and the percentage of believers was not high.” Patriarch Kirill said up to 80% of people in Russia have been baptized, 65% said they have an affiliation with the church, and over 40% go to church at least once or twice a year. The number of believers who go to church every week has increased and the average believer has become younger, the Patriarch said. “We are talking about the increase of spiritual influence on the life of our society and people. It’s our task. We have a duty to do it and we will do it,” Patriarch Kirill said. |
| About Pages Проекты «Правмира» Raising Orthodox Children to Orthodox Adulthood The Daily Website on How to be an Orthodox Christian Today Twitter Telegram Parler RSS Donate Are You a True Christian? Navigation Russian Church says over half of pilgrims venerating St Nicholas’s relics non-Muscovites Source: TASS Russian News Agency " Of the total number of people, women made up about 60% and men, 40%, " the Reverend Alexander Volkov, the head of Moscow Patriarchate " s press service said Natalya Mihailova 13 July 2017 MOSCOW, July 13./TASS/. More than 60% pilgrims who came to Moscow " s Cathedral of the Savior to venerate the relics of St Nicholas in the period of May 22 to July 12 are non-Muscovites, the Reverend Alexander Volkov, the head of Moscow Patriarchate " s press service told reporters on Wednesday. Photo: Sputnik/Grigory Sysoev “Of the total number of people, women made up about 60% and men, 40%,” he said. “Fifteen percent of the pilgrims were adolescents, and people with physical restrictions constituted about 12% The overall number of pilgrims who came from other regions exceeded a million people and this is about 60% of all pilgrims.” Residents of the Central, Volga, and Southern Federal Districts made up the majority of pilgrims. Also about 260,000 pilgrims came from other countries. “Most frequently, the pilgrims came from Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Latvia, and the U.S.,” the Rev Volkov said. The maximum length of the queue to the Cathedral of the Savior reached 7 kilometers and the average time of queuing up to it totaled seven hours. About 5,000 singers took part in the services as choir members. Police did not register any serious incidents during the stay of St Nicholas’s relics in Moscow, said Konstantin Blazhenov, a deputy chief of Moscow City’s department for nationalities policy and inter-religious relations. “During all these days we didn’t register any incidents,” he said. “Some 1,850 citizens turned for assistance but this is less than a percentage point, especially if you look at how many elderly people came there. |
| I consider it superfluous to answer the question: Wouldn’t it have been better to go without any religion at all? Plutarch, a historian of ancient times, has already answered this question. He wrote in his book: “I have observed many peoples and kingdoms, but I have not found a single tribe that has not in some form or another expressed its veneration of God, did not serve Him, or pray to Him in a language understandable to them.” Only the modern average person, having departed through the looking glass of a computer screen, can suppose that religion impoverishes the human soul. To the contrary, it is precisely religion as worship of God that restores human dignity, gives him the moral strength to perform his rational service to others, and prevents him from bowing down to sin and vice; after all the latter is the inescapable lot of every cynic. Reading the life of St. Vladimir, we see that he systematically turned down Talmudic Judaism and Mohamedanism, as well as Roman Catholicism, which had finally fallen away from Orthodoxy in the ninth century. From the text itself is seen that for Prince Vladimir, who perhaps did not yet have a grasp on theological subtleties, the esthetical factor was very significant. The Slavic race, endowed by God with a sense of beauty and an understanding of harmony, was won over by the divine services in the great Hagia Sophia in the person of his emissaries to Constantinople, for they “did not know where they were—in heaven, or on earth.” Their colorful tale of the magnificent temple, of the beautiful singing, the splendor of the services themselves, had already predisposed the perspicacious prince in favor of Byzantine Orthodoxy. Neither the Judaic leaders’ dreary lamentations, nor the Moslems’ prayers, nor the psychological pressure of the western preachers could draw the prince to their side. But the icon of the Last Judgment brought by the Greeks to Kiev with the explanation of mankind’s ultimate fate, the Sermon on the Mount and Christ’s Gospel of the six works of Christian mercy—feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, comforting the sick, and visiting the imprisoned—found resonance in the heart of the Kievan chieftain, as his contemporaries called their ruler. |
| convinced (or think that they are convinced) atheists. The discussion concerns a quite different area. Of much greater importance is that strange “obscurity” of faith in the Resurrection, which I just mentioned, among those very believers, those very Christians who connect in a peculiar way the celebration of Pascha with the actual, perhaps often subconscious, rejection of the Resurrection of Christ. There has occurred in historical Christianity a sort of return to the pre-Christian concept of death, which consists of, first of all, a recognition of death as a “law of nature,” i.e. a phenomenon inherent in nature itself, with which, for this reason and no matter how frightening death might be, one must “come to terms,” which one must accept. Indeed, all non-Christian, all natural religions, all philosophies are in essence occupied with our “coming to terms” with death and attempt to demonstrate for us the source of immortal life, of the immortal soul in some sort of alien world beyond the grave. Plato, for example, and countless followers after him teach that death is a liberation from the body which the soul desires; and in this circumstance faith in the resurrection of the body not only becomes unnecessary, but also incomprehensible, even false and untrue. In order to perceive the entire sense of Christian belief in the Resurrection, we must begin not from that belief itself, but from the Christian concept of the body and death, for here lies the root of the misunderstanding even within Christianity. Religious consciousness assumes that the Resurrection of Christ is first of all a miracle, which of course it is. But for the average religious consciousness this miracle is even greater: the miracle of all miracles remains “unique” so to speak, pertaining to Christ. And since we acknowledge that Christ is God, this miracle ceases to be a miracle in a certain sense. God is almighty, God is God, God can do anything! Whatever the death of Christ signifies, His divine power and might did not allow Him to remain in the grave. |
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