The pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need received alarming reports of a series of attacks targeting Christian communities in different regions of Syria, highlighting the fragility of security and the growing fear among the faithful. Suwayda: Dozens of Homes Burned and Families Displaced A serious incident has been reported in the village of Al-Sura, in the Suwayda region of southern Syria. According to several local sources linked to ACN, the Melkite Greek Catholic Church of St. Michael in ...

Radical Jewish settlers have been attacking the Christian town of Taybeh with increasing violence, while the Israeli military and police ignore requests for help.  The leaders of the main Christian Churches in the Holy Land are questioning the complicity of the Israeli authorities in the face of escalating attacks on the West Bank city of Taybeh by radical Jewish settlers.  Taybeh is the last fully Christian town in the Holy Land. Over the past weeks, groups of radical Jewish settlers ...

The security situation in Syria remains highly unstable, leaving Christian communities in constant fear of being targeted by terrorist attacks, according to one Christian in the country. His comments were in reaction to a new report from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, which recommends that the US government require Syria’s transitional government to improve religious freedom conditions before it lifts sanctions on the country. The overthrow of the Assad regime last December was met with cautious optimism ...

Thirty years ago, on July 11, 1995, at least 8,372 men were murdered by troops under Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, in the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica in Bosnia. Between 40,000 and 60,000 people had taken refuge in an area controlled by United Nations peacekeepers, who had committed to protecting the population. The victims, overwhelmingly Muslim, were men between the ages of 13 and 75. This was an operation of “ethnic cleansing,” aimed at building a Christian Orthodox Great Serbia, at ...

The Church in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley is thriving, despite the ongoing armed conflict and economic instability. Christian families and individuals are offering a powerful witness by looking after those displaced by the war. New religious congregations are also on the rise, helping to keep the Faith alive in Christianity’s heartland in the Middle East. The Beqaa Valley, known as Lebanon’s breadbasket, has been hit hard by regional tensions. While Hezbollah strongholds in Shia-majority areas have been heavily targeted, Christian villages ...

Like the 9/11 Memorial in lower Manhattan, a public memorial park dedicated to the victims of a deadly Pentecost Sunday attack on a church in Nigeria provided consolation to those who lost loved ones. Now, for reasons that are still unclear, the Governor of Ondo State in southwestern Nigeria, decided to demolish the public memorial. The demolition was carried out earlier this week. On Wednesday, June 25, the Catholic Diocese of Ondo issued a statement saying that it has sought ...