Terrorist Attack on Minneapolis Catholic Church/School

There has been a planned attack on a Catholic Church in Minnesota, almost certainly motivated by anti-Catholic hatred. At least seventeen people, mostly children, were shot and wounded. Two children were killed. While these holy martyrs are in no need of our prayers, their devastated families and the wounded are. 

Kyrie Eleison.

Greek Orthodox Church Bombed in Syria

A suicide bombing by Islamic State (IS) targeting a church in Damascus has killed 22 people and wounded 63, Syrian state media have said.

The attack on Sunday night was the first major IS operation and the first suicide bombing in Syria since former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December and replaced by an Islamist-led government.

A man affiliated with IS entered the Greek Orthodox Saint Elias church in the old Christian quarter of Damascus during prayers, opened fire and then detonated an explosive vest while inside the church, Syria’s interior ministry said. Eyewitnesses inside the church reported a second gunman who did not blow himself up, but also shot at the 150 or so worshippers present.

“People were praying safely under the eyes of God,” said Fadi Ghattas, who said he saw at least 20 people killed. “There were 350 people praying at the church.”

Videos of the church’s interior show splintered pews overturned by the force of the blast and the bloodied corpses of congregants splayed out across the church. Nearby residents reported hearing a large blast and then the sound of sirens as security forces attempted to establish a cordon around the area and civil defence personnel headed towards the church.

Issam Nasr, who was praying at the church, said he saw people “blown to bits”.

“We have never held a knife in our lives. All we ever carried were our prayers,” he said.

Read the rest here.

Further this

Holy New Martyrs of Syria, pray for us. 

Pope Francis Formally Recognizes 21 Coptic Martyrs- Adds them to the Roman Church Calendar

A highly unusual act. FWIW there is not a shadow of a doubt in my mind that these are true martyrs. I have long believed that 95% of what was thought to divide the non-Chalcedonian Orthodox from us was basically a failure of communication. Alas, there does remain the small matter of four (+?) ecumenical councils. That said, in many parishes here in N. America it has become accepted practice to allow properly disposed OOs to commune, though of course concelebration between clergy is not yet here. 

Pope Francis Calls 21 Coptic Martyrs "Saints for All Christians"

Vatican City, Feb 15, 2021 / 11:01 am MT (CNA).- Pope Francis has praised the courageous witness of the 21 Coptic Orthodox Christians killed by ISIS in 2015, calling them “saints of all Christians.”

In a video message for the “Day of Contemporary Martyrs” Feb. 15, the pope said, “I hold in my heart that baptism of blood, those twenty-one men baptized as Christians with water and the Spirit.”

“I thank God our Father because he gave us these courageous brothers. I thank the Holy Spirit because he gave them the strength and consistency to confess Jesus Christ to the point of shedding blood. I thank the bishops, the priests of the Coptic sister Church which raised them and taught them to grow in the faith. And I thank the mothers of these people, of these 21 men, who ‘nursed’ them in the faith,” he said.

Read the rest here.

Five Killed at Russian Orthodox Church

Five women were shot dead in an apparent Islamist attack on an Orthodox church in Russia’s North Caucasus region of Dagestan on Sunday.

Details.

Memory eternal.

Coptic Orthodox Bishop Killed outside Cairo, Egypt

CAIRO (Morning Star News) – A Coptic Orthodox bishop from Upper Egypt was slain outside Cairo, Egypt yesterday.

The assailant struck Bishop Samaan Shehata in the head, neck and torso with a machete in the El Salam area near El Marg District on the outskirts of Cairo, according to local reports. Shehata was born in 1972.

While a security spokesman said the suspect, Ahmed Saeed Ibrahim, was mentally ill, neighbors reportedly denied this, saying he was a Muslim who had been “radicalized” a year ago. Since then, they said, Ibrahim had begun praying in the street, shouting loudly and calling Christians infidels.

The suspect walked calmly out of the warehouse after killing Shehata, according to security camera footage. Captured by people on the street and now in custody, Ibrahim had reportedly approached Shehata wielding the large knife while the bishop was waiting for another clergyman in his car.

Visiting from his Church of St. Julius Akfazi in Ezbet Girgis village, in Beni Suef Governorate, Shehata was waiting for another priest, the Rev. Beimen Moftah, when Ibrahim accosted him and attacked him, eyewitnesses told local press. Reports conflicted on whether Moftah, of the Church of the Arch Angel Malak in Ezbet Francis, Mattay village, was injured, but he did reportedly confront the assailant.

Stabbed in the neck and torso near the Virgin and Bishop Shenouda El Daeiry church, the wounded Shehata fled on foot into the warehouse, according to security camera footage obtained by El Youm el Sabe News agency, which shows the assailant following with the machete.

Police said eyewitnesses reported that the assailant had seen Shehata in his car, forcibly stopped him, ordered him out and then started to stab him in the neck and torso. Shehata fled, and the attacker followed him into the warehouse and finished his attack there with several blows to the head, they said.

Shehata’s driver, identified as Gerges Kamel, reportedly said the bishop had gotten out of the car to retrieve his cell phone at the warehouse when the assailant stopped him and stabbed him in the side, neck and skull. Kamel said the assailant used the bishop’s blood to form a cross on his forehead, according to a local newspaper.

An ambulance didn’t arrive until 90 minutes after the assault, according to Kamel, who added that the bishop was alive for half an hour after being struck and could have been saved if the ambulance had arrived timely. He denied that the suspect was mentally ill.

Read the rest here.

Memory eternal!

French Priest Murdered by ISIS in Church

Details.

Memory eternal!

Report: Catholic Priest Crucified by ISIL on Good Friday

Details are sketchy and the reports appear to be mainly coming from the Austrian press/media who got the news from Cardinal Schönborn. While no formal confirmation has yet come from the Holy See, it has been rumored for a while that ISIL was planning on doing this.

Source

Update: The Indian Government is throwing cold water on the report. Let us pray they are right. Source

Unconfirmed Reports: Two kidnapped bishops are dead.

I have long suspected it. If they were not, we would have gotten some kind of demand or evidence of their being alive.

Details.
HT: Blog reader JL

Commemoration of the Martyrs of the Communist Persecution

Liturgy in the church dedicated to the New Martyrs of Russia at the Butovo Firing Range and mass grave where tens of thousands of Orthodox Christians were shot or buried alive.

Reports: ISIS has begun killing Christian prisoners

I am unsure of the reliability of the reports, but given their track record there is no reason to believe that anything other than martyrdom awaits these tragic victims. Through the prayers of the Great and Holy New Martyrs, may God give them the strength to endure their Calvary.

HT: Blog reader John L.

Coptic Orthodox Pope Canonizes the 21 New Martyrs of Egypt & Libya

The Coptic Orthodox Church has announced that the murder of the 21 Egyptian Christians killed by the so-called Islamic State in Libya will be commemorated in its Church calendar.

Pope Tawadros II announced that the names of the martyrs will be inserted into the Coptic Synaxarium, the Oriental Church’s equivalent to the Roman Martyrology. This procedure is also equivalent to canonization in the Latin Church.
 
According to terrasanta.net, the martyrdom of the 21 Christians will be commemorated on the 8th Amshir of the Coptic calendar, or February 15th of the Gregorian calendar. The commemoration falls on the feast day of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple.

Read the rest here.

Well that was quick. But honestly, sometimes there is just no need for prolonged hearings and investigations. Great New Martyrs of Egypt and Libya pray for us!

The New Martyrs: Time for a little ecumenism?

Long time readers will know that I am bit less warm and fuzzy than some when the subject is ecumenism. But Fr. Hunwicke has  pointed out an area where I think we Orthodox could take a visible stand with the separated churches of Rome and the non-Chalcedonian Orthodox. Without adding any names to our respective lists of saints and martyrs, would it not be a great gesture if the Patriarchs of Old and New Rome stood with the Coptic Pope when the 21 New Martyrs of the Islamic Persecution are canonized, as surely they will be?

ISIS Kills 21 Christian Copts

Twenty-one Egyptian Christians kidnapped by Isis [sic] in Libya around New Year's are feared dead, after Twitter accounts linked to the Libyan branch of the so-called "Islamic State" announced they had been slaughtered. There is no official confirmation yet but Egyptian media believe the news to be reliable and two pictures released by the same Twitter sources show what they describe as "the Islamic State carrying out the execution of Coptic prisoners in the province of Tripoli". In the first picture five men wearing the notorious orange jumpsuit are kneeling while hooded hangmen armed with knives stand behind them.

Read the rest here.

Holy New Martyrs of the Islamic Persecution pray for us.

IOPS to present White Book on slain Mideast Christians at UN

Moscow, December 15, Interfax - The Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society (IOPS) has announced the creation of a White Book on crimes against Christians in the Middle East, which will be presented at the United Nations Human Rights Council in February 2015.

"We are working to compile the so-called White Book, containing a sorrowful list of names of the slain and tortured Christians, instances of churches and shrines being destroyed, and eyewitness accounts. We would like to present this book at the UN HRC at its next session in late February - early March," IOPS Vice President Yelena Agapova told a general meeting of IOPS members.

The book will be available in Russian, Arabic and English.

Read the rest here.

Pakistani Christian Couple Is Tortured and Burned to Death by Angry Mob

LAHORE, Pakistan — An enraged mob tortured a Pakistani Christian couple and incinerated their bodies in a brick kiln in eastern Pakistan on Tuesday after they were accused of burning a Quran, police officials said.

Read the rest here.

Pregnant woman sentenced to death over her Christian faith

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- A Muslim-by-birth Sudanese woman who married a Christian man was sentenced to death Thursday after she refused to recant her Christian faith, her lawyer said.

Meriam Ibrahim, whose father was Muslim but her mother was an Orthodox Christian from Ethiopia, was convicted of "apostasy" on Sunday and given four days to repent and escape death, lawyer Al-Shareef Ali al-Shareef Mohammed said.

The 26 year old, who is eight months pregnant, was sentenced after that grace period expired, Mohammed said.

Read the rest here.

Armenian Church to Glorify Martyrs of 1915 Genocide

“In a move that has surprised Turkey, the Armenian Church is going to proceed with the canonization of the victims of the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Turkish State in 1915, using Kurdish labourers for the massacres. The scientifically perpetrated genocide by, is described by the Turkish historian Taner Akcam as "A shameful act" (the title of his book ) . But the Ankara government has never recognized it and rejects the definition of "genocide”,” missionary news agency AsiaNews reports.

“Sources quoted by Turkish newspapers say the canonization will take place in 2015, the centenary of the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians killed in Asia Minor.”

Read the rest here.

World Yawns at New Wave of Christian Martyrdom

Hiding the Christian name on his ID with his thumb, Joshua Hakim approached the gunmen and showed them the plastic card. “They told me to go. Then an Indian man came forward, and they said, ‘What is the name of Muhammad’s mother?’ When he couldn’t answer they just shot him.”

That’s the way it went inside the Westgate Premier Shopping Mall in Nairobi last Saturday. If you said when asked that you were Muslim, you were let go. If you answered no, you stayed. And maybe died.

Read the rest here.

Sources: Abducted Bishops Are Likely Dead

Disturbing reports from Samn!.