Cardinal Koovakad defends Catholic dialogue with other religions as global tensions rise

Colombo, Sri Lanka, Mar 10, 2020 / 11:10 am (CNA).- Cardinal Malcom Ranjith of Colombo has said he will lead public protests if the Sri Lankan government fails to produce a credible report on the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings. The cardinal said Saturday that questions about government inaction ahead of the attacks remain unanswered.

“I will not hesitate to hit the streets to safeguard the rights of our people,” Ranjith said March 7, according to the news site Outlook India. The cardinal had previously expressed support for an ongoing presidential enquiry into the attacks, which killed 259 people and injured more than 500.

Two Catholic churches, one evangelical Christian church, four hotels, and a housing complex were hit by a total of nine suicide bombers on Easter Sunday, 2019. The suicide bombers, who were all Sri Lankan citizens, belonged to an Islamist group known as the National Thowheeth Jama’ath.

In the aftermath of the attacks, Sri Lankan authorities were heavily criticized for failing to prevent the attacks. It has been reported that Indian intelligence services repeatedly warned Sri Lanka about the possibility of an attack occurring on Easter Sunday, including on the morning of the attacks. 

“Nobody took serious note,” said Ranjith in June. “This disaster could have been prevented because if I knew that there was an attack planned I would have closed the churches and told the people to go home.”

Last month, the cardinal issued a call for full public disclosure of what was known in advance of the attacks, and what action was taken.

“The people of this country have a right to know the truth about the Easter bomb attacks,” said Ranjith on Feb. 18. “We hope that our political leaders will work to fulfill that obligation.” 

Speaking to reporters on Saturday, the cardinal repeated his concerns and his impatience with the lack of progress with ongoing government investigations.

“I can sense that some of the things which need to come out are being hidden – who was responsible? Who aided them and kept contact with them?”

“There must be questioning from the highest to the very lowest level,” the cardinal said.

Speaking at a separate event on Sunday, Ranjith said that “investigations into the Easter Sunday attacks have revealed that current government-related ‘big people’ have also been involved, and no action has been taken against them.”

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who assumed office in November 2019, has worked with Ranjith on the investigation into the attacks, and asked him to appoint a representative to a special presidential commission examining the bombings.

Ranjith did not nominate a representative, and instead appeared before the commission himself on December 6 and 7 last year. 

Ranjith said at the time that he wished to represent the concerns of both the victims and the country’s Catholic community.

Referencing the forthcoming parliamentary elections in Sri Lanka, scheduled for April 25, Ranjith said on Sunday that he was not seeking a change of government, but justice for the victims of the attacks. “We will take to the streets with our people whether we have this election or not,” he said.

In addition to his calls for more transparency from government authorities, Ranjith has also announced services to mark the anniversary of the attack, with prayer services and holy hours at all churches in the archdiocese from April 17-21 to pray for the bombing victims and their families.

“It is the responsibility of the Archdiocese of Colombo to never forget all those who lost their lives in this tragic attack on that day,” the cardinal said last month. 

Two of the prayer services will be held at St. Anthony’s Shrine in Kotahena and St. Sebastian’s Church in Negombo, the locations of the attacks. Those services will be held on April 20.

[…]

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. 

[…]

Hong Kong media tycoon and Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai. / Credit: Napa Institute

CNA Staff, Aug 5, 2024 / 17:01 pm (CNA).
Media mogul and pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai will remain in solitary confinement after a Hong Kong court on July 25 … […]