No end in sight as Uganda receives one million South Sudanese refugees

Damascus, Syria, Jan 15, 2018 / 06:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A bomb fell in the bedroom of the Maronite Archbishop of Damascus last week. He was spared death, he says, only because of a providential trip to the lavatory.

Archbishop Samir Nassar related that a shell fell on his bed the afternoon of Jan. 8, when he had been taking a nap. He got up to go to the bathroom shortly before the bomb hit his room, and he said that “a few seconds at the sink saved my life!”

“Providence watches over his little servant, but now I am exiled like 12 million Syrian refugees who have nothing left,” he told Catholic pastoral charity Aid to the Church in Need.

Archbishop Nassar’s cathedral was heavily damaged. He said that “The doors of the cathedral and 43 windows and doors have to be replaced, holes need to be filled, fuel tanks and water tanks need repairing, as does the electricity network.”

Aid to the Church in Need reports that 10 shells fell that day in various areas of Damascus. A bomb fell in the courtyard of the Melkite patriarchate, and the Sisters of Jesus and Mary convent was also damaged.

Seven people were hospitalized from the convent, and Sister Annie Demerjian told Aid to the Church in Need, “It was the providence of God that we were not in the room.”

Archbishop Nassar said that “violence is the only master – innocents are being sacrificed every day.”

Since the Syrian civil war began in March 2011, more than 400,000 people have been killed. At least 4.8 million have become refugees, and another 8 million have been internally displaced.

What began as demonstrations against the nation’s Ba’athist president, Bashar al-Assad, has become a complex fight among the Syrian regime; moderate rebels; Kurds; and Islamists such as Tahrir al-Sham and the Islamic State.

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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 25, 2020 / 03:05 pm (CNA).- The United States should send a special envoy to Nigeria to help coordinate the protection of the Christian population and prevent further destabilization in the area, said former Rep. Frank Wolf on Thursday, June 25.

Wolf was speaking during a press briefing on the ongoing violence facing Christians in the country, which was hosted by the organization In Defense of Christians. The former congressman served 17 terms representing Virgina’s 10th congressional district and has worked extensively on issues of human rights, genocide, and religious freedom.

“An implosion of Nigeria will destabilize the surrounding countries,” said Wolf. He described the Nigerian people as “crying out for help,” and said that the “current policy and actions of the American embassy in Nigeria have failed” to protect vulnerable groups.

Islamic extremists, Wolf said, have killed more people in Nigeria than ISIS did in the Middle East, yet there is far less attention on the plight of Nigerian Christians. 

A special envoy in the Lake Chad region, which is located in northeastern Nigeria, would serve as a way to “coordinate the response to the crisis,” and work with allies to better protect the people of the region. 

Bishop Matthew H. Kukah of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto was also a panelist at the briefing. He said that the situation in Nigeria stems from a culture that has devalued Christianity and no longer cares about faith. 

As the geopolitical and economic landscapes have shifted, the bishop said, space has been made for the growth of militant extremist groups. 

“This is the vacuum that [extremists] are exploiting–mainly, a west that is in retreat, as far as Christianity and Christian values are concerned, a west in which diplomats and businesspeople are far from being interested in matters of faith, especially when it comes to Christianity,” said Kukah. 

The Nigerian government has given “quite a lot of oxygen to Islamic extremists by the nature of […] the political appointments that have been made,” said Kukah, in what he called a “blatant show of nepotism and favoritism. “

In Nigeria, for the first time in the country’s history, Kukah explained, the president and all security chiefs are Muslim, and suggested this could contribute to the lack of direct action against the growing religious violence. “We get a feeling that if you lift the veil, you can understand,” he said.  

Kukah rejected the idea that the extremist groups are imported to Nigeria from outside of the country and therefore are beyond the control of the government. 

“If they are coming from outside, how do we as Christians explain when the Minister for Internal Affairs is a Muslim? When the Director General of Customs is a Muslim? When the Director General of Immigration is a Muslim,” he asked. 

“Somebody must be aware of what is going on,” said Kukah. 

In Nigeria, Kukah said, the Christian population is further impeded by what he called an “almost total media absence.” There is no Christian radio station or media house, he said, meaning that it is hard for Christians to share their stories. 

In February, Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom Sam Brownback told CNA that Nigeria was one of the countries of highest concern when it came to violations of religious freedom. 

Brownback said he is concerned the situation in Nigeria will spread to nearby countries if nothing is done to crack down on religious persecution. 

“There’s a lot of people getting killed in Nigeria, and we’re afraid it is going to spread a great deal in that region,” he told CNA. “It is one that’s really popped up on my radar screens — in the last couple of years, but particularly this past year.” 

Brownback expressed frustration that the Nigerian government was not doing enough to protect religious groups. 

“I think we’ve got to prod the [Nigerian President Muhammadu] Buhari government more. They can do more,” he said. “They’re not bringing these people to justice that are killing religious adherents. They don’t seem to have the sense of urgency to act.”

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Alexandria, Egypt, Aug 20, 2018 / 02:48 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Last month’s murder of Bishop Epiphanius, the abbot of St. Macarius Monastery in the Egyptian desert, has highlighted tension in the Coptic Orthodox Church over monasticism, ecumenism, and reform.

Bishop Epiphanius’ body was found July 29, with injuries to his head and back that suggest that he had been hit by a sharp object.

Isaiah al-Makary, whose name in the world is Wael Saad, was charged with the bishop’s murder Aug. 11, and confessed to the murder the following day. Saad said another monk, Faltaous al-Makary (Raymond Rasmi Mansour), assisted in the crime. Faltaous attempted suicide in recent weeks, and was being treated at a Cairo hospital.

Saad was expelled from the monastery Aug. 5, for “inappropriate actions which violate monastic behavior and way of life.” The Coptic Orthodox Church said that his dismissal had been decided on before the bishop’s death.

Bishop Epiphanius’ murder has led to the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate issuing several decrees on monasticism.

Tawadros II, Coptic Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria, announced Aug. 1 that the Church’s monasteries would stop accepting new brothers for one year. Those who established monasteries unapproved by the patriarchate will be stripped of their priesthood and monastic state. No new monasteries may be founded except as a revival of old monasteries, and this is to be done under the care of a recognized monastery.

The Church has also instructed its monks to close their social media accounts, and has suspended the ordination of monks for three years. Permissions for monks to attend outside functions is also being restricted.

And on Aug. 16, the Church announced that unrecognized monasteries have one month to submit to the supervision of the patriarchate. This will allow Tawadros “to supervise spiritual, financial, and managerial aspects,” the Egypt Independent reported.

The Coptic Orthodox Church is an Oriental Orthodox Church, meaning it rejected the 451 Council of Chalcedon, and its followers had historically been considered monophysites – those who believe Christ has only one nature – by Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox, though they are not considered so any longer.

Samuel Tadros, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told the New York Times that Bishop Epiphanius was “a senior figure in a reformist Coptic movement” that has been favored under Tawadros.

“His appointment, in May, to position in which he would work as a liaison with the Catholic Church was seen as a sign that conservatives were being sidelined, Mr. Tadros said.”

Pope Francis visited Egypt last year, and signed a joint declaration with Tawadros announcing that their Churches will recognize the validity of each other’s baptisms.

Previously, the Coptic Orthodox Church had repeated baptism if a Catholic had sought to join it.

Conservative members of the Coptic Orthodox Church have reportedly resisted such reforms under Tawadros. According to a commentary by Engy Magdy in the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn’s The Tablet, these conservatives are associated with Shenouda III, the immediate predecessor of Tawadros as Coptic Orthodox Patriarch.

The dispute goes back to tensions between Shenouda and Fr. Matta El Meskeen.

Fr. Matta was tasked by Cyril VI in 1969 with reviving monastic life at St. Macarius Monastery. The monk was focused on the spiritual life, openness to the thought of other Churches, and ressourcement.

While Shenouda was a disciple of Fr. Matta early on, after he was elected Pope of Alexandria in 1971 the two came into conflict. Shenouda restricted Fr. Matta to his monastery, and discouraged the reading of his books, according to an essay by Mina Thabet in Middle East Eye.

It was during this time, in 1984, that Epiphanius joined St. Macarius and became a monk. Epiphanius was a disciple of Fr. Matta, and was involved in ecumenism.

Fr. Matta died in 2006.

St. Macarius Monastery was long independent of the Coptic Orthodox hierarchy, but Shenouda restored it under the Church’s authority in 2009, and appointed some 70 conservative monks, among them Saad and Faltaous.

In the year after Shenouda’s 2012 death, Epiphanius was elected abbot of St. Macarius, and consecrated a bishop.

The murder of Bishop Epiphanius in his cell at St. Macarius may well only heighten tensions within the Coptic Orthodox Church, especially as Tawadros continues to extend his oversight of the monasteries in the desert of Egypt.

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