Vincent Martini
Rating: 6.7|Votes: 7
IGNATIUS IV was an advocate for both peace and understanding, and he was also a Patriarch with a missionary’s heart—especially to the “Gentile” world of the diaspora. This is rather fitting, as the Church of Antioch began its life as a home base for such missionary activity, with the apostle Paul being the most paramount example. Thanks to his leadership and motivation, there is now an Archdiocese of the Antiochian Orthodox Church in North America (and in many other nations around the world), as well as a distance-education program for people interested in serving the Church and learning more about their faith.
Greek Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius IV Hazim passed away Wednesday morning at a Beirut hospital after suffering a stroke a day earlier. He was 92.
Rating: 6.2|Votes: 5
he Greek Orthodox monks of St Catherine’s monastery in Sinai have been accumulating manuscripts and books since the sixth century, making their library the world’s greatest repository of early medieval writing after the Vatican. The collection is even richer than it first appears, because many of the 3,300 ancient manuscripts contain hidden text and illustrations older than their visible contents – and a large scientific effort is under way to reveal and record them.
Rating: 3.2|Votes: 6
The 200th anniversary of the first translation of the Bible into Malayalam will be celebrated by the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday. Church historians say Philipose Ramban, a scholar from Kayamkulam, translated the Bible from Syriac into Malayalam in 1811 to help the faithful get a better understanding of the scripture.
The church, a monastery and other ruins emerging from the sand with the expansion of the Najaf airport has excited scholars who think it may be Hira, a legendary Arab Christian center. “This is the oldest sign of Christianity in Iraq,” said al-Fatli, pointing to the ancient tablets with designs of grapes that litter the sand next to intricately carved monastery walls. The site’s stone crosses and larger artifacts have been moved to the National Museum in Baghdad.
