The Shepherd, April 2006
NEWS SECTION, 2
SUMMER CAMP
TWO SESSIONS of a Summer Camp for children, aged between 7 and 14, are to be held from 8th-29th July and 1st-20th August, in the French Alps, near Grenoble close to the village of Laffrey. The programme will include Russian language training, Orthodox catechism, studies in Russian civilisation, choir singing, and handicraft activities. There will also be days trekking in the mountains and excursions for participants. Services will be celebrated in Church on the feast days. The complete costs, including the journey, will be: for July Û630, and for August Û580. Those enrolling before 31st May will enjoy a Û50 discount. Further details are available from Camp des Vitiaz, Aux Allards par laffrey, 38220 Vizille, France; telephone 04 76 73 12 26. In Britain, Mrs Elena Knupffer will be able to help with more details. Her address: 13, Rosebery Street, SWINDON, Wiltshire, SN1 2EU; telephone: 01793 324 206; or email: elena@radcot.com
CHRISTIAN POPULATION IN IRAQ FALLING
THE NEWS AGENCY, RIA Novosti, reports that the Christian population of Iraq has fallen from over a million before the US led invasion to 750,000. Since the much vaunted “democratic” elections in December, the situation for the Christians has deteriorated even more. Muslim sectarianism is increasing, and Jews and Christians are often targeted and even killed. The police show no enthusiasm to help or protect them, and so many have left the country. The article points out a parallel with NATO’s destruction of Kosovo. Kosovo was a centre of Christian civilisation for centuries, the cradle of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and now, after NATO’s “liberation” of the country, the few Christians that remain there live there in fear and poverty. It is often forgotten that Iraq, Mesopotamia, was a centre of Christian culture, centuries before Islam appeared. Even under Islam, even under Saddam Hussein, those Christian communities (although mostly no longer Orthodox) managed to survive and to thrive. Now, such a outpouring of religious hatred has been unleashed that communities that have survived through the two millennia of the Christian era are in danger of being wiped out altogether.
PERSECUTION OF COPTIC CHRISTIANS
THE MONOPHYSITE CHRISTIANS of Egypt are undergoing another period of persecution in what purports to be a secularist state. In February this year, finding that a community of Christians were using a guest-house as a secret place of worship in Odaysatt, a Muslim mob attached the place, setting fire to adjacent buildings, while the police stood idly by. The Christians themselves had to defend their building from this attack unaided. The building had been used as a church for 35 years, but had been registered as a guest house because of the restrictions on church building in the country. A Christian man who lived nearby, but was not involved in the attack or the defence of the church, was set upon by two men and killed when his skull was broken. Animals belonging to Christians in the area have had their legs broken and have been set alight. In an attack on another church in the village of Damshwai Hashim, about 150 miles south of Cairo, police did try to stop the violence and a Moslem student was shot by them. These incidents are reported to be part of the growing numbers of incidents of violence against the Christian population by Moslem fanatics.
ICON FOR SALE
A CORRESPONDENT writes that he has an Icon of the Mother of God of the Sign, hand-painted, which he is selling on behalf of a friend’s godparents. The Icon, which shows the Mother of God and Christ-Child surrounded by a border with the Old Testament prophets, measures 44 cms by 34cms, and is offered at £200. The money raised is to be sent to support a school of iconography in the Ukraine.
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