Category Archives: news

By Afp Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II (L) stands behind Hasakeh’s newly appointed Bishop Maurice Amseeh during his inauguration at the Saint George Cathedral in Hasakeh on August 19, 2017 Syriac Orthodox Christians in Syria’s northeastern city of Hasakeh celebrated the…

August 19, 2017 Special to Ankawa.com The Kurdistan Democratic Party has been pressing administrators in the villages and towns in Nineveh plateau to sign petitions demanding the inclusion of their areas in the Kurdish independence referendum, sources told ankawa.com…

AFP | HASSAKE, Syria: Orthodox Christians in Syria’s northeastern city of Hasakah celebrated the inauguration of the community’s new bishop on Saturday, four years after the last one left the country. Six years of conflict have ravaged Syria and displaced more than half of its population,…

By A.C. Robinson Abdulahad Afram Sawa meeting Pope Benedict. Photo: Courtesy of Abdulahad Afram Sawa Abdulahad Afram Sawa, 69, General Secretary of the Chaldean Democratic Party in Kurdistan and twice a former Iraqi MP sat down with Rudaw on Tuesday to discuss the…

Habib Jajou, the archbishop of Basra, tells MEE more must be done to promote tolerance in a country where many are ‘brainwashed’ by IS An Iraqi stands guard over a church in northern Iraq (AFP) Abigail Frymann Rouch’s picture…

ruth-gledhill Ruth Gledhill Editor But now the ‘n’ symbol has a new purpose, the Bible Society reports. Iraqi women in Jordan are earning their living by embroidering bookmarks with the letter, pronounced ‘noon’. Unable to find any other work because they are Iraqi not Jordanian, they are then able…

• People still dependent on emergency help By Murcadha O Flaherty PARTS of Aleppo are coming back to life with people returning in large numbers to the bomb-blasted city and streets once again humming with traffic and people.…

By Denis Grasska, Catholic News Service Syriac Catholic Archbishop Yousif Abba of Baghdad, Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan and Bishop Yousif Habash of Our Lady of Deliverance Syriac Catholic Epachy are seen July 24 at Our Mother of Perpetual Help Syriac Catholic…

By: Robert Ewan About 350 Chaldean Youth attended the third European Chaldean Youth Conference which took place from 7 to 12 August 2017 at Untermashtal monastery, 80 kilometers from Stuttgart, Germany. The slogan of the conference was “come and see” based on John 1:39. It was attended by the Chaldean Patriarch Louise I Sako and…

Christian militia Mark Chamoun The threat of ISIS and current crises in the region led to the emergence of several Christian militia groups in Syria and Iraq, but what are these groups exactly? The plight of Christians in the Middle East has been one made up of ongoing violence,…

Lorraine Caballero More than 600 Christian families are making their way back to the Nineveh Plains in northern Iraq to rebuild their lives from scratch, the Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Mosul told Christian charity Aid to the Church in Need. (REUTERS / Alaa Al-Marjani)A priest puts cross on the street of Qaraqosh, near Mosul,…

Rikar Hussein Mahmoud Bali US-backed Syrian Civil Council Pardons Dozens of Islamic State Members A U.S.-backed Syrian group known as Civil Council of Raqqa granted amnesty to 96 alleged members of the Islamic State (IS) on Wednesday in what it said was an attempt…

By Murcadha O Flaherty (original interview by Danielle Piccini) AN urgent call to speed up plans to rebuild homes in one of the Iraqi Christian towns worst affected by Daesh (ISIS) violence has been made by the leader of the local Church community amid signs that the district is at last coming back to life.…

Kurdish Yazidis, relatives of a Peshmerga fighter killed in a suicide attack in Sinjar province, mourn with another relative, also member of the Peshmerga, before the burial ceremony at Mazar Sharaf Eldin, a sacred and cemetery area for the Yazidi minority, north of Sinjar, March 2, 2015. A number of Peshmerga were killed and others…

Iraqi Christians attend Mass at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in the predominantly Christian Iraqi town of Qaraqosh, Ninevah province, Iraq, July 24, 2017. (photo by SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images) BAGHDAD — Iraqi Christians will have to unite under one banner and work past their…

Jardine Malado (Reuters/Marko Djurica)A damaged statue of Jesus Christ is seen inside a church in the town of Qaraqosh, south of Mosul, Iraq, April 11, 2017. Mideast Catholic and Orthodox patriarch are calling on Pope Francis to “scold” world…

Fady Noun Afflicted by wars, emigration and insecurity, Christian communities have now become “a small flock” amid the indifference of the international community. Patriarchs appeal to Pope Francis and the international community. Catholics and Orthodox share the same problems. The end of Christians in the East would be “a shameful stigma for the whole…

Photo via Martha Hudson by Edwin Mora13 Aug 20173 Hope has returned to one of the oldest Christian communities in the world as they struggle to bring life again to their historical homeland in northern Iraq, where they…

SULAIMANI — Senior Kurdish officials from the High Referendum Council are set to visit Baghdad in the next two days where they will present a set of the central government’s “constitutional violations,” which they say left the Kurdistan Region with no choice but to announce independence, a council member said.…

Catholic and Orthodox patriarchs said only the ‘Rock of Peter’ could help LEBANON:Mideast Catholic and Orthodox patriarchs decried the desperate situation they face as shepherds of churches “whose existence is in real danger.” They categorized the continued displacement of Christians from the Middle East as “a…