Newsfeed
Court hearing for Pastor Michael
Publication Date: 11/2/2021
Source: Middle East Concern
Prayer was requested for Pastor Michael Feulner of Yalova Lighthouse Church for a court hearing today contesting a security designation that would effectively ban him from the country.
On 11 February Michael and his lawyer attended the hearing at the administrative court in Istanbul. They were given 10 minutes to present their case. The three-judge panel asked no questions and the lawyer representing the immigration department had no comment.
President al Sisi confirms Board of Directors for Catholic foundations
Publication Date: 2/3/2021
Source: Agenzia Fides
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al Sisi confirmed by decree the establishment of the council for the administration of the foundations of the Catholic Church in Egypt. The presidential decree of February 27th published in the Official Journal as provision 80/2021. A similar presidential decree also set up the Board of Directors for the foundations of the Evangelical Christian community in Egypt. The two bodies were oficially launched with Law 190 of 2020.
Christian Heritage Still Under Threat
Publication Date: 11/2/2021
Source: FSSPX News
The Surp Toros (St. Toros) Armenian Church in the Kutahya region of western Turkey has been razed to the ground. Armenians have once again experienced the Turkish state's contempt for the country’s Christian heritage.
The ancient Armenian Church of St. Toros of Kutahya was built in the Middle Ages during the reign of Sultan Murad. Destroyed in 1603, then rebuilt immediately afterwards, the building was considered an important place of Armenian memory.
Egypt’s North Sinai: Residents stuck between Islamist rebels and brutal anti-terrorism operations
Author: Abir Sorour
Publication Date: 19/2/2021
Source: Africa Now
Ten years ago in North Sinai, following the ouster of the then president Hosni Mubarak, *Ashraf, then a 15-year-old child, was accompanying his mother to stage a protest in front of one of the city’s burnt police stations in the Sheikh Zuwied district.
The protesters demanded the release of Ashraf’s father, who had been arrested in connection to the 2005 bombings that targeted South Sinai.
“While the whole country was celebrating freedom and democracy after Mubarak left, we were just starting to demand the most basic of our rights,” Ashraf, now a 26-year-old construction worker based in Suez, tells The Africa Report.
Monitoring group: School textbooks in Turkey call Jews and Christians ‘infidels’
Author: Cnaan Liphshiz
Publication Date: The Times of Israel
Source: 4/3/2021
School textbooks in Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have been revised to refer to Jews and Christians as “infidels,” according to a new study.
Whereas previous textbooks referred to members of those religions as “People of the Book,” textbooks such as “Fundamental Religious Knowledge,” a publication released after 2017 that is part of the mandatory curriculum in Turkish elementary schools, have switched to calling them by the pejorative, according to the study published Thursday by the IMPACT-se watchdog group.
Pope remembers Coptic Christians martyred by ISIS
Author: Inés San Martín
Publication Date: 15/2/2021
Source: Crux Now
Pope Francis on Monday released a video praying for 21 Coptic Christians who were beheaded by Islamic fundamentalist on a beach in Libya in 2015.
“I hold in my heart that baptism of blood, those twenty-one men baptized as Christians with water and the Spirit, and that day also baptized with blood,” Francis said, in a video posted on Twitter, a rarity for the leader of the Catholic Church, who has over 40 million followers in several languages.
“They are our Saints, Saints of all Christians, Saints of all Christian denominations and traditions. They are those who have blanched their lives in the blood of the Lamb, they are those… of the people of God, the faithful people of God,” the pope said.
Grand Mufti of Egypt says OK for Muslims to build churches
Publication Date: 12/2/2021
Source: Al-Monitor
The Grand Mufti of Egypt issued a fatwa permitting Muslims to work in church construction, which sparked controversy on social media with activists recalling previous fatwas on Salafist websites prohibiting such works.
It seems the Egyptian authorities have been promoting the participation of both Muslims and Copts in the building of houses of worship as a standard to achieve peaceful coexistence in the country since the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood regime on July 3, 2013. In this context, politicians and media outlets hailed the Coptic Orthodox Archdiocese of Qena’s Feb. 7 decision to donate funds for the completion of Al-Numani Mosque’s construction works.
Pope Francis begins historic Iraq visit despite virus and security risks
Publication Date: 5/3/2021
Source: BBC
Pope Francis has arrived in Iraq for the first ever papal visit there, and his first international trip since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Covid and security fears have made this his riskiest visit yet, but the 84-year-old insisted he was "duty bound".
If Muslims Can Build Churches in Egypt, Has Persecution Ended?
Author: Jayson Casper
Publication Date: 22/2/2021
Source: Christianity Today
Egyptian Christians have long struggled to build their churches. But now, they can have Muslim help.
Last month, Egypt’s Grand Mufti Shawki Allam issued a fatwa (religious ruling) allowing Muslim paid labor to contribute toward the construction of a church. Conservative scholars had argued this violated the Quranic injunction to not help “in sin and rancor.”
Survey Finds Increasing Religious Diversity in Iran Despite Persecution
Publication Date: 18/2/2021
Source: Persecution
According to a recent poll conducted by a European research organization, the Iranian regime’s policy of discrimination and, in some cases, persecution of non-Shia Muslim groups may be having the effect of driving Iranians to other religions.
