ECUMENICAL NEWS
Ecumenicalnews
- Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh fear Christian religious heritage is endangeredArmenians remembered the 1915 genocide on April 24, but many are concerned about their heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh, which has been held by Azerbaijan since November 2020.
- Indian government 'freezes bank accounts' of church in Kerala over fisherfolks' port project protestsThe archdiocese of the Latin Catholic Church in Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram says the Indian Union government has frozen its bank accounts after fishermen protested a project by the Adani port group in Vizhinjam.
- World churches group prays for abducted archbishops of Aleppo held for 11 yearsThe World Council of Churches. in its morning prayers on April 22, focused on Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, solemnly marking the 11th anniversary of the abduction of archbishops of Aleppo
- Rabbi urges Jewish students to leave Colombia campus, warns that school, NYPD cannot guarantee safetyThe Orthodox rabbi at Columbia University and Barnard College in New York, has sent a message recommending Jewish students leave campus and go home, as anti-Israel agitators have continued an "encampment" on campus, but not all Jewish groups agree with him.
- India's elections kick off with calls to stop violence against Christians and those from other minority religionsIndia goes to the polls on April 19 for its massive endeavor involving nearly a billion voters to elect a new government amid growing concerns about the rising persecution of Christians.
- Pope Francis warns against a 'much bigger war' after Iranian attack on IsraelPope Francis has made "a heartfelt appeal" to "stop every action that could stoke the spiral of violence and risk dragging the Middle East into a much bigger war conflict" on the morning after Iran's attack on Israel.
- World churches body critical of World Russian People's Council decree describing Ukraine conflict as 'Holy War'World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Jerry Pillay says the WCC cannot reconcile the Decree of the XXV World Russian People's Council, whose head is the Orthodox Patriarch, and which described the conflict in Ukraine as a "Holy War."
- Churches play a key role as Colombia emerges from conflict, say peace envoysPeace in Colombia has been a long time coming, Juan Carlos Cuéllar, representative of the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), said at a World Council of Churches panel discussion titled "The things that make for peace in Colombia" on April 9.
- Religious leaders in Israel's 3rd largest city meet for multi-faith coexistenceLeaders of the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Druze faiths in Haifa, recently called for coexistence in the northern Israeli city amid the tensions sparked by the war in Gaza.
- Church leaders offer prayers and succor after deadly Taiwan earthquakeFollowing the 7.4-magnitude earthquake that hit eastern Taiwan in Hualien on April 3 April, both the World Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic community have called for prayers for those impacted by the deadly temblor.