Egyptian Army Crushes Christians With Armoured Vehicles

Edit:  the drivers of these vehicles look pretty determined to run people over.  There are thirty nine dead so far.

Remember when the secular media was excited about the so-called Arab Spring? 

It shouldn't take an expert in Middle Eastern Affairs to know what happens in the wake of an Arab Revolt. The passions run high and so even the Army and the government can't resist joining in.

Here's an excerpt of an eyewitness narrative of the events so far.

The march from the Cairo district of Shubra was huge, like the numbers on 28 January. In the front row was a group of men in long white bibs, “martyr upon demand” written on their chests. A tiny old lady walked among them, waving a large wooden cross: “God protect you my children, God protect you.”

The march started down Shubra Street around 4 pm, past its muddle of old apartment buildings, beat up and sad but still graceful compared with the constructions from the Mubarak era next to them - brutish and unfinished-looking.

A man explained why there were bigger numbers than the march last week in response to the attack on the St. George’s Church in Aswan: the army had hit a priest while violently dispersing Coptic protesters in front of the Maspiro state TV building on Wednesday. A video posted online showed a young man being brutally assaulted by army soldiers and riot police.

Turkey: Reopening of Orthodox Seminary at Constantinople Soon

Edit: The Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reports, on the other hand, that it won't because the Patriarchate refuses to compromise on "various formulas in the Constitution".  

 Metropolitan Lambrinidnidis has been named the new Abbot of the Trinity Monastery on Princes' Island.

Constantinople (kath.net/KAP) In Constantinople the expectations are increasing that the Orthodox Seminary and the Theological University on the Princes' Island of Chalki will be opened soon.  This is the sense in with which the naming of the Metropolitan of Bursa, Elpidophoros Lambrinidis, as new Abbot of Trinity Monastery, is being interpreted.  +Lambridnidis will take over the direction of the Seminary and the University.

Patriarch Bartholomaios I  held an Agape after a feastday Liturgy at Holy Mary's in Souda where he had a short meeting with Minister President Recep T. Erdogan on August 31st.  It was there that the government chief announced the return of the real-estate taken away in 1936 related to Christian "pious Establishments".

At the Agape the Patriarch said, that he is to have expressed his "contentment, his happiness and his gratitude", but also, that the non-Muslim minorities "are in expectation of important steps".  Erdogan is said to have answered:  "This is only the beginning".

If Turkey is a just state, it must proceed in the realm of justice and "not illegality",  insisted the Ecumenical Patriarch and made an indirect comment, that isn't just to "please" the non-Muslim minorities, but rather it is an amends for a serious injustice.

Erdogan's new disposition in respect to Chalki was already in August of the year before expressed by the past government chief Bülent Arinc in Constantinople at a dinner with the Ecumenical Patriarch and the members of the Christian "pious Establishments".  Arinc stressed many times that no one in Turkey should ever feel themselves to be a second class citizen. "For me personally and so long as I am the chosen representative of the government, that  there will be education available at the the reopened Seminary," said Arinc at that time.  Actually the Constitutional Courts have narrowly closed the legal conditions for the possible opening.  He hopes still that the reopening of the Seminary and the University might be realized in the conditions of the existing laws "without substantial exceptions" ,  says the serving government chief.

The Seminary on the Island of Heybeliada/Chalki is in the Marmara Sea near Constantinople, and has been closed since 1971.  Because the Ecumenical Patriarchate can't educated its own clergy any more, the personnel situation which has lasted for over 1,700 years is becoming more and more precarious.

Link to kath.net...

Crucifix banned at hospital where Muslims allowed to wear

[Daily Caller] A Christian nurse was ‘forced to choose between her job and her faith’ after being ordered to remove her crucifix at a hospital where Muslim staff wore headscarves unchallenged, a tribunal heard yesterday.

Shirley Chaplin, 54, said she had been wearing the religious symbol around her neck without complaint for 31 years before she was ordered to hide it away.

But the grandmother claims that after refusing to comply and then pointing out that two women doctors were allowed to wear headscarves, she was moved to a desk job.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/03/30/crucifix-banned-at-hospital-where-muslims-allowed-to-wear-headscarves/#ixzz1VxcK7XQY

Muslims Attack Church and Threaten to Kill Priest

Minya, 24 June (AKI) - Hundreds of Muslim extremists surrounded a church in central Egypt and threatened to kill the local priest, the Assyrian International News Agency reported. The extremists began targeting the church in a village 7 kilometres south of the city of Minya in March after renovation work began, threatening to demolish the church.

AINA Friday cited eyewitnesses as saying that the Muslim mob, dressed in white robes and long beards, chanted: "We will kill the priest, we will kill him and no one will prevent us."

One of their leaders was cited as saying they would "…cut him to pieces," AINA reported.

The priest Father George Thabet, who was holding morning mass and was locked in the church with several parishioners. Security forces arrived five hours later and escorted the priest away in a police car to the Coptic Diocese in Minya.

Link to IGN, here.

Copts Are Fighting Back

[AlMasryAlYoum] Sectarian clashes between a number of Muslims and Coptic Christians resurfaced in the Fateh district of Shubra al-Kheima on Monday, after two Muslims were shot and killed by a Copt on Sunday. Security forces surrounded the area, imposed a security cordon around churches in the area and arrested seven Muslims and Copts carrying weapons. In a confrontation, one police officer was shot in the foot.


A security official told Al-Masry Al-Youm that a number of Muslims went to the Shubra al-Khaima Church on Monday after learning that the killer was hiding there. Clashes erupted and gunfire was exchanged.
The official went on to say that the police imposed a security cordon around the area and arrested four Copts and three Muslims who had a machine gun, five pistols and 235 bullets in their possession.

Link to original...

Al Qaeda Urges Attacks Against "Zionist" Targets Like the Pope

Azzam al-Amriki

[kath.net, Vienna]The security measures for Pentecost were enormous.

There have been no comments from the Italian security authorities and also not from the Vatican about Islamic threats, where the Pope and Italy's Minister Silvio Berlusconi were identified as "easy targets to hit".

In a video message about the political security, the internet site "Stratfor" said on Saturday, that attacks against politicians, business leaders and media representatives who are controlled "by the Zionists".  So, one can strengthen the will of those people who fight for Islam, said the US-American Al Kaeda speaker Azzam al-Amriki. The attacks on such targets would not be difficult, as the most recent examples of the Pope and Berlusconi show.

Al Qaeda said in a video that western leaders are easy targets citing as examples Berlusconi and Pope Benedict XVI. In a 100-minute long video circulated on June 2 by the Al Qaeda media arm “As Sahab”, western leaders are described as easy targets, as they are less difficult to hit. The video message cites, as examples, Pope Benedict XVI, who was knocked down by a Swiss woman during the 2009 Christmas mass and Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi who suffered face injuries when attacked by Massimo Tartaglia in Milan on December 13 2009

From the blog, Tea and Politics.

Iraq: Catholic Family Man Murdered

Editor: Catholics were in Iraq long before the Muslims. Don't forget that, at least.

Kirkuk (www.kath.net/ idea) In Northern Iraq a 29 year old Christian was murdered.  The body of the family father with three children Ashur Issa Yaqub was found on May 16th by Police in Kirkuk.  As the aid organization Open Doors (Kelkheim bei Frankfurt am Main) reported, his body revealed signs of torture and bite wounds. Hands and arms were tied and the head had been completely removed.

According to reports of a local pastor, members of the terror network Al Kheda pressured his employer to dismiss the construction worker \because he was Christian.  Yaqub, who belongs to the Chaldean Catholic Community, was abducted.  Al Kaida fighters demanded a ransom of about 70.000 Euro for his release.  According to estimate by Open Doors, which cares for Christians persecuted and oppressed world wide, the situation in Iraq has significantly worsened.

Christians have lived almost 2.000 years in Iraq.  In the mean time their numbers have been decimated because many of the attacks of Islamic "extremists" happen to them.  1990 figures show that around 29 million inhabitants and 1,4 million Christians were present, now there are about 200.000.

Original, kath.net...

Islamization a Major Issue in Bulgarian Politics Today: Unrest

H/t: Fisheaters