{"id":31649,"date":"2018-11-13T08:46:28","date_gmt":"2018-11-13T08:46:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/?p=31649"},"modified":"2018-11-14T09:35:46","modified_gmt":"2018-11-14T09:35:46","slug":"the-seed-of-christian-unity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2018\/11\/13\/the-seed-of-christian-unity\/","title":{"rendered":"THE SEED OF CHRISTIAN UNITY"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>THE SEED OF CHRISTIAN UNITY<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">United in their appeal for peace in Syria and Iraq, Pope Francis and the Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, have demonstrated that faith in Christ is a bond that is stronger than any denominational difference.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The Assyrian Church of the East, based in Northern Iraq, has approximately 170,000 members, mostly in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and the United States. While they have been separated from the Chaldean Catholics of the region for centuries, both have suffered greatly from the genocide committed by the Islamic State.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Last Friday, Pope Francis met with Mar Gewargis III, Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, and together, the two leaders joined their voices in solidarity with persecuted Christians in seeking a political solution to bring peace to the Middle East, thus stopping the exodus of Christians from the region.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u00a0In a joint statement released Nov. 9, the two leaders called the blood of recent martyrs in the Middle East the \u201cthe seed of Christian unity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cOn our pilgrimage towards visible unity, we experience a common suffering, arising from the dramatic situation of our Christian brothers and sisters in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Syria,\u201d reads the common statement of the pope and the patriarch signed on Friday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cWe are profoundly united in our prayer of intercession and in our charitable outreach to these suffering members of Christ\u2019s body,\u201d it continues.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The two leaders condemned the persecution of Christians in the region, and reaffirmed that \u201cit is not possible to imagine the Middle East without Christians.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cChristians do not want to be considered a \u201cprotected minority\u201d or a tolerated group, but full citizens whose rights are guaranteed and defended, together with those of all other citizens,\u201d they stated.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Following their meeting, Pope Francis and the Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East prayed together, asking for the intercession of Apostles Peter and Paul for the Christians in the Middle East.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Pope Francis said, \u201cWe share the great suffering resulting from the tragic situation endured by so many of our brothers and sisters in the Middle East, who are victims of violence and frequently forced to leave the lands in which they have always lived.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cThey tread the Via <\/span>Crucis<span style=\"color: #000000;\"> in the footsteps of Christ,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Responding, Mar Gewargis III thanked the pope for the Vatican\u2019s work in raising awareness in the international community about the continued plight and suffering of Assyrian Christians and other Christian communities in Iraq, Syria and in other parts of the Middle East.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cThe many decades of war, violence, religious hostilities and sectarianism has had immeasurable and, sadly, irreversible effects on the ancient Christian communities of the East,\u201d the patriarch told the pope.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u00a0\u201cWhat we have witnessed in both Iraq and Syria within the last 15 years is a living testimony to this grievous situation of the forced departure and displacement (both internally and externally) of millions of Christians from the region of the Middle East,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Mar Gewargis III spoke highly of their \u201ccommon dedication and commitment to religious freedom around the world,\u201d calling it \u201cone of the most essential of human rights, which perpetually sustains the dignity of the human person.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The meeting marked the second time that patriarch had met with Pope Francis in <\/span>Rome<span style=\"color: #000000;\"> and a continuation in ecumenical dialogues that have been ongoing since 1984.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><em>ACN Malta<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>THE SEED OF CHRISTIAN UNITY United in their appeal for peace in Syria and Iraq, Pope Francis and the Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, have demonstrated that faith in Christ is a bond that is stronger than any denominational difference. The Assyrian Church of the East, based in Northern Iraq, has approximately&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31651,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-newsletters"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>THE SEED OF CHRISTIAN UNITY - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2018\/11\/13\/the-seed-of-christian-unity\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"THE SEED OF CHRISTIAN UNITY - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"THE SEED OF CHRISTIAN UNITY United in their appeal for peace in Syria and Iraq, Pope Francis and the Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, have demonstrated that faith in Christ is a bond that is stronger than any denominational difference. 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