Pope Francis visits with first Burmese Jesuit priest

Beijing, China, Nov 4, 2019 / 08:00 pm (CNA).- Chinese authorities have offered a compensation to a Catholic community for the destruction of their church. The offer comes after parishioners barricaded themselves in the Church building overnight in pro… […]

Adelaide, Australia, Jul 6, 2018 / 10:56 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In the continued fallout of his conviction for failing to report allegations of child sexual abuse, Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson has faced calls both inside and outside of the Church to resign.

Wilson, who earlier this month received a 12-month detention sentence, most of which is likely to be spent under house arrest, said he intends to appeal.

In a July 4 statement posted on the Archdiocese of Adelaide’s website, Wilson said he is aware of the calls for his resignation, and has “taken them very seriously.”

“However, at this time, I am entitled to exercise my legal rights and to follow the due process of law. Since that process is not yet complete, I do not intend to resign at this time,” he said, adding that should his appeal prove unsuccessful, “I will immediately offer my resignation to the Holy See.”

Until that time, “the legal process must now be allowed to proceed in the normal way,” he said, adding that he plans to make no further public statements for the time being.

Wilson, 67, stepped aside from his role as Archbishop of Adelaide after being convicted in May of failing to report multiple allegations of child sexual abuse disclosed to him in the 1970s; however, he did not resign.

On June 3, Pope Francis named Bishop Greg O’Kelly SJ of Australia’s Diocese of Port Pirie as apostolic administrator of Adelaide, entrusting him with day-to-day leadership responsibilities. At 76, O’Kelly is unlikely to take over for Wilson should the latter tender his resignation.

In a July 5 statement, published the day after Wilson issued his, Archbishop Mark Coleridge, president of the Australian Bishops Conference, noted that “a number of survivors, prominent Australians and other members of the community have publicly called on Archbishop Wilson to resign.”

These include Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and opposition leader Bill Shorten, who have argued that the archbishop is not in a position to lead.

“Although we have no authority to compel him to do so, a number of Australian bishops have also offered their advice privately,” said Archbishop Coleridge, adding, “Only the Pope can compel a bishop to resign.”

Coldridge said the conference has been “closely following” Wilson’s case and they respect his decision to appeal, which is “the right of any citizen,” but said that “we also recognize the ongoing pain this has caused survivors, especially those who were abused by Jim Fletcher.”

Wilson was found guilty of failure to report accusations of crimes carried out by abusive priest Fr. James Fletcher, who was convicted of nine counts of sexual abuse and was jailed in 2006. He died of a stroke within the year.

Two of Fletcher’s victims – Peter Creigh and another altar boy who is unnamed for legal reasons – said they had told Wilson of their abusive experience with Fr. James Fletcher, and that Wilson, who had only been ordained a priest for a year when Creigh came to him in 1976, dismissed their complaints.

Wilson has maintained his innocence throughout the process, saying he had no recollection of the accusations, and insisting that if he had been notified of the scandal, he would have offered pastoral care to the victims and their families, and reported the event to his superiors.

According to CNN, the archbishop’s legal team argued that in the 1970s, child sex abuse was not understood to be a serious crime that should be reported to authorities.

His legal team had attempted four times to have the case thrown out, including after the archbishop was diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease late last year, but it was denied.

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A reconstruction of an ancient church recently discovered in Armenia. The newly discovered church measures about 100 feet across and is shaped like an octagon with “cruciform annexes oriented east-west and north-south,” according to Achim Lictenberger, who noted the discovery of a similar structure from a slightly later period found in Abchazia (Sebastopol). / Credit: AGAP

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 24, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).

A team of German and Armenian researchers made a groundbreaking discovery last week of an ancient church in Armenia dating back to the fourth century, making it the oldest documented church in Armenia, which is considered the first Christian nation in the world.

In an email correspondence with CNA, co-directors of the project Achim Lichtenberger and Torben Schreiber of the University of Münster and Hayk Gyulamiryan of the Armenian Academy of Sciences explained the significance of the discovery made by the team at the site of the ancient city of Artaxata. The project’s fourth co-director, Mkrtich H. Zardaryan, could not be reached for comment by the time of publication. 

Historic roots of Christianity in Armenia

“Being the first country which adopted Christianity at the state level, and where the apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew preached Christianity in the early first century, this discovery is a very important fact for Armenians,” Gyulamiryan told CNA, further stating that “the findings are among the most important in Armenia in recent decades.”

Lichtenberger also emphasized the site’s particular importance, as the church was discovered near the monastery of Khor Virap, where Gregory the Illuminator had been kept in prison before he converted the Armenian king Tiradates III to Christianity in the fourth century. 

As Gyulamiryan stated, although the roots of Christianity may be traced back to the time of the apostles in Armenia, it was not until 301 that Christianity was proclaimed the official religion of Armenia. 

According to tradition, Armenia’s conversion is attributed to St. Gregory the Illuminator, a Christian evangelist and convert from Zoroastrianism who miraculously cured the nation’s pagan king of a peculiar “illness” after no other pagan priest was able to do so. 

The widely-adopted story of how Armenia became Christian draws from a mythical history promulgated by the fifth-century author Agathangelos, the Armenian researcher explained. 

As the legend goes, the pagan king of Armenia had become fascinated by the beauty of St. Hripsime, a nun who had fled with her abbess and community from persecution in Rome. The king offered to marry and make her queen, but Hripsime refused and was able to ward off the king’s advances through miraculous strength.

After the king ultimately had Hripsime and her community killed, historians claim he was “turned into a wild boar who tore at his own flesh” and could not be cured by any priests of pagan or Zoroastrian temples who attempted the feat.

Eventually, the king’s sister persuaded him to appeal to St. Gregory, whom the king had imprisoned for the past 15 years. Once St. Gregory was released, he cured the king of his “disease” and converted him and the entire royal family to the Christian faith.

Artaxata, where these events are believed to have taken place, is “a major place related to early Christianity in Armenia,” Lichtenberger told CNA.

St. Gregory is revered both in the Orthodox Armenian Apostolic Church and in the Catholic Church traditions. In 2005, Pope John Paul II erected a 19-foot statue of St. Gregory in the north courtyard of St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.

The discovery

The newly-discovered church measures about 100 feet across and is shaped like an octagon with “cruciform annexes oriented east-west and north-south,” according to Lichtenberger, who noted the discovery of a similar structure from a slightly later period found in Abchazia (Sebastopol).

Although the Araxata site was previously discovered, Lichtenberger told CNA that the church had been buried underground and gone undiscovered until the team carried out its magnetic prospections and excavations this past spring.

The researchers confirmed in September the age of the church to be from about 350 A.D. using radiocarbon dating techniques on a series of samples taken from a wooden platform belonging to the original construction of the building.

Ahead of the autumn excavations this year, Gyulamiryan told CNA he remembered thinking that the team “should confidently dig up the next chapter of the history of Armenia.”

According to Lichtenberger, the radiocarbon date from the wooden samples corresponded with pottery shards that were also discovered inside the church and with “the overall construction technique of the building using substantial amounts of mortar.” 

“In the center of the church we encountered significant amounts of marble decoration that suggest that this part was prominently adorned,” he said. Interestingly, the German researcher noted that the state of the building upon discovery indicated that it had perhaps met a hostile end.

“The building was heavily destroyed (maybe intentionally),” he wrote, “the marble construction smashed, parts of the floor tiles removed, the roof set on fire, and all was buried in a huge collapse of roof tiles and burnt roof beams.”

However, according to Lichtenberger, there are no primary literary sources that correspond to the church, as “literary sources only relate to a seventh-century A.D. church in Artaxata.”

By contrast, while the Armenian literary tradition attests that the oldest church in the country is the Etchmiadzin Cathedral, Lichtenberger noted, “archeological evidence from this place does not date back to the mid-fourth century A.D.”

“This does not mean that Etchmiadzin is younger than the Artaxata church, it only means that the Artaxata church provides earlier archaeological evidence,” he added. “Therefore we assume that the Artaxata church is the oldest archaeologically attested church in Armenia.”

Future of the project 

Schreiber shared with CNA in another email chain that analysis of data collected from the site will play a significant role in future archeological measures.

“The interaction of the excavation results, the geophysical survey, and the scientific investigations (natural sciences) will keep us busy in the coming year,” Schreiber said. “However, we are certain that these measures will provide us with a very comprehensive picture of this extraordinary and important find.”

The research team from the University of Münster and the Armenian Academy of Sciences have been at the Artaxata site since 2018 and have also made other noteworthy discoveries, including an unfinished Roman aqueduct, a Hellenistic sanctuary, and the remains of an Urartian settlement, according to Lichhtenberger.

The team of researchers also includes 10 students from the German university along with various internal and external specialists who consulted with the team on different groups of materials at the site, including animal and human bones, plants, or “archaeobotanical” matter, marble, plaster, pottery, and roof tiles — “of which we found a lot,” Lichtenberger said. 

“We will continue the work of the Armenian-German Artaxata Project in the future,” he told CNA. 

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