Embattled Iranian Christians urged prayers Tuesday, February 14, as Iranian security forces reportedly launched a crackdown on devoted ‘official’ churches and house congregations operating outside government control.
Syrian and Iranian Christians are being targeted for further persecution, according to Christian news reports.
Christians in Syria need prayer during that country’s current civil turmoil; at least 2,700 people have been killed and thousands more arrested in an effort to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Security forces on Wednesday, September 28, still searched for three Iraqi Christians, a week after they were reportedly kidnapped by suspected militants in Iraq’s northern city of Kirkuk.
Although security forces found and disabled two cars packed with explosives in northern Iraq Tuesday, a third exploded outside a Christian church, wounding 23 people.
Iraq’s first new church under the US occupation opened its doors in the northern city of Kirkuk, the region’s Chaldean archbishop told AFP.
An Iranian pastor jailed for 54 days on charges of “converting Muslims” to Christianity, spent Easter in freedom this weekend after he was temporary released on bail along with several other believers, Iranian Christians and rights investigators said.
The detained Assyrian pastor of an evangelical church in Iran has been tortured and told he may be executed for converting Muslims to Christianity and related charges, his wife and Christians with close knowledge about his situation said.
Minority Christians in Iraq anxiously awaited the outcome of a parliamentary vote testing the country’s still fragile democracy Sunday, March 7, as suspected Islamic militants killed up to 30 people in the capital Baghdad and other areas of the troubled nation.
Worshipers of a Pentecostal church that was burned by suspected Islamic arsonists in a suburb of the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur have forgiven those who destroyed their building, a senior pastor said Sunday.
The former Soviet republic of Armenia and Turkey have signed a historic accord on normalizing relations after a century of hostility.
A film about the life of the biblical Apostle Paul, which “clearly reflects the Gospel,” has been watched in Syria by over a thousand Muslim clerics and politicians, including a government minister, organizers said.
The militant group Hamas has rejected a cease fire with Israel and Iran said the country has no “right to exist,” after Israeli forces killed a Hamas minister and struck a United Nations compound in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has rejected a European Union request for a 48-hour ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, saying Israel will uphold its commitment to provide basic foodstuffs and medicines to the residents of the Hamas-controlled region.
Amid tight security, the United States embassy in Iraq’s capital Baghdad was open for business Tuesday, January 6, after a dedication ceremony to open what is the largest embassy compound in the world.
More than half of the United States’ Lutheran bishops were on their way to Israel Monday, January 5, amid international concerns that an Israeli offensive against the militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip would lead to more suffering of civilians, including the territory’s Christian minority.
As Israel continued its ground assault into the Gaza Strip Monday, January 5, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were on high alert along the country’s northern border amid concerns the militant Hezbollah group would fire rockets from Lebanon in revenge for the offensive.
Alarm bells echo around the world as Israel continues a major ground offensive it says is aimed at ending rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip fired by the militant group Hamas into Israel. Envoys of the European Union, including Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenburg along with the EU’s external relations commissioner and Schwarzenburg’s French and Swedish counterparts were due to hold talks in the region Monday, January 5.
On Saturday, January 3, Israel launched a ground assault against Gaza on what was the eighth day of its aerial assaults against the seaside strip of desert. Israel’s stated objective for the ground confrontation is to end all rocket attacks. The immediate objective of the ground operations, according to Major Avital Leibovitch, a military spokeswoman, “is to destroy the Hamas terror infrastructure in the area of operations.”
Aid workers rushed Friday, October 17, to assist at least 10,000 Christians who so far fled Mosul amid fresh reports that Islamic extremists are trying to eradicate the Christian population in this northern Iraqi town.