‘It’s not just about Palestinian heritage or Christian heritage, it’s something important to the world heritage here, protected by UNESCO,’ explained Kevin Charbel, the emergency field coordinator for Première Urgence Internationale.
The Church at the Crossroads conference, organizers said, is aimed at moving US Christians from feeling bad about the war in Gaza to taking action to end it.
The audience marked the first by history’s first American pope with the Israeli head of state. Leo spoke by telephone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in July after an Israeli shell slammed into the only Catholic church in Gaza.
The election of Botrus Mansour as Secretary General has given hope to many in the Arab world and certainly among Palestinian Christians.
‘As an Armenian living in the Old City, it is deeply troubling to witness the gradual erosion of our Christian presence here,’ said Levon Kalaydjian, an Armenian Christian activist in Jerusalem.
The American Baptist Home Mission Societies held a virtual session in their Justice Dialogues series titled “Being Church in the Face of Genocide,” focused on how to respond to the ongoing mass suffering in Gaza and the West Bank.
The Rev. Yehiel Curry, bishop of the ELCA’s Metropolitan Chicago Synod since 2019, will serve a six-year term as presiding bishop of the 2.7 million-member denomination.
Targeting a holy site ‘is a blatant affront to human dignity and a grave violation of the sanctity of life and the inviolability of religious sites, which are meant to serve as safe havens during times of war,’ the Church said in a statement.
This issue of A Public Witness takes you inside the UCC synod to explore the specific issues that were discussed and how they are relevant to all ecumenical Christians in these troubling times.
On a rare solidarity visit, Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III and Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa asserted that Israeli authorities ‘facilitate and enable’ the presence of settlers who have intensified attacks.