New Priest-Martyr Rafael of El-Arish - Killed by Islamic State group in North Sinai

"The death of the Priest, which came on the third anniversary of June 30 protests that ousted former president Mohammed Morsi, was confirmed by the Coptic Church, who released a statement mourning the Priest as a martyr."

Coptic Christian Priest Killed in Egypt’s North Sinai By Gunmen

Egyptian Streets, June 30, 2016 (Many thanks to Fr Ignatius for sharing this via Facebook.):

Unidentified gunmen, believed to be members of the terrorist group Ansar Bait Al-Maqdis, shot and killed a Coptic Christian priest in Al-Arish, North Sinai on Thursday morning. 

According to a statement released by Egypt’s Ministry of Interior, the Priest of Mar Guirguis Church in Al-Arish, Rafael Moussa, was killed in the industrial part of El-Arish where he had gone to have his car checked by a mechanic. 

The death of the Priest, which came on the third anniversary of June 30 protests that ousted former president Mohammed Morsi, was confirmed by the Coptic Church, who released a statement mourning the Priest as a martyr.

Book Review: The Savvy Kafir's Intro to Islam - A Primer for Puzzled Progressives

Much needed book from the Left offers compelling presentation on Islam for Progressives.

Order from Amazon

I am well into this book now, and wanted to put up a quick review to recommend it. It's a welcome surprise to find this title, so clearly directed to a group which needs to heed its message.

Kindle Edition only $5.99 from Amazon.

The Counter Jihad camp has been unjustly tarred as a Right Wing Conservative Only movement, and a false one at that. Liberals have been very successful in portraying Muslims as victims of Christian and Conservative bigots, and Counter Jihadists as "haters" and Islamophobes, largely by logical fallacies which marginalize those who warn of the dangers from Islam (radical and otherwise).

The Savvy Kafir explodes these fallacies and lays out the case against Islam in a no-nonsense, factual, hard hitting presentation.

In spite of its obvious sense of urgency concerning the threat at hand, the book is hardly dour or tedious, but really crackles with wit and positive energy and is a brisk, entertaining read. The author not merely defends Western Civilization, but presents a compelling case for vigorously defending the liberal virtues of a multicultural society against the Islamic theological juggernaut.

This is the ideal book for Christians to share with their Liberal, Agnostic or Atheist friends, who might otherwise shut their eyes and ears.

Ramadan 2016 (so far)

A little more than a week to go in Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, and the effects of increased Muslim devotion are evident around the world.

Muslims keep Ramadan as a month of fasting in commemoration of when they believe the Koran began to be revealed to Muhammad. Many devout Muslims seek to enact the commands of the Koran and to emulate Muhammad's example during Ramadan, and that often means launching jihad attacks on non-Muslims as well as apostates from and heretics within Islam.

Islamic State spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani called on Muslims to use this Ramadan to “get prepared, be ready … to make it a month of calamity everywhere for nonbelievers.”

Here is a list of recent jihad attacks:

Christians in Aleppo Offer Meals to Poor Muslims During Ramadan

Fate of abducted Archbishops Paul and John uncertain.

According to this news story, there is still no official word on the fate of the abducted Archbishops, though it is known that the deacon traveling with them was killed during the April 2013 attack. (See the Antiochian Archdiocese news page for the two Archbishops here.)

Christians in Aleppo Offer Meals to Poor Muslims During Ramadan

by Elise Harris, Catholic News Agency, June 17, 2016

Aleppo, Syria, Jun 17, 2016 / 12:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Despite the war raging around them, Syriac Orthodox Christians in Aleppo have decided to provide food to poor Muslim families throughout the Islamic month of Ramadan. 

According to Agenzia Fides, the information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies, faithful of the Syriac Orthodox Archdiocese of Aleppo are offering breakfast and evening meals to “the poorest Muslim families” living in the predominantly Christian and Armenian Sulaimaniyah neighborhood of the city. 

The distribution center for the food, which is prepared by the Christian families themselves, is located at the archdiocese’s Cathedral of St. Ephrem the Syrian. 

Interviews with the author of 'The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise'

Did Jews, Christians and Muslims live together in a tolerant, multicultural society under Islamic rule in early medieval Spain? 

Here are 2 interviews with the Dr. Darío Fernández-Morera (Northwestern University) author of 'The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise.'  (Thanks to Bill D. for sharing this.)

For more on the book, see my earlier post here.

Audio interview with Dr. Darío Fernández-Morera (29 min):

BREXIT! - Independence Day for England, Hope for Eastern European (and American) Orthodox Christians

This could be the start of a great movement of liberation from the ruling global elitists, affording Christians some breathing space to secure our communities. From Fr. Andrew's article below:

"As for other European countries still enslaved to the US and German-run EU, they too may at last be allowed the chance to regain their sovereignty with the people being allowed freedom from the tyrannical EU elite." 

Independence Day
by Fr. Andrew Phillips, Orthodox England Blog, June 24, 2016

Fooled, Europa! Ruled by such fools and knaves,

Britons never any longer shall be slaves.

The unexpected has happened and, after over forty years of the US-imposed EU straitjacket, more people in the UK have voted for principles than for self-interest. The electorate has rejected Project Fear of the Westminster elite. Failing to step outside the foreign country that is London into reality, the political elite, which all too often stuffed its pockets with EU cash, has lost the people. 

Foreign figures, President Obama, NATO Fascists, Angela Merkel, EU officials, the Pope of Rome (and his bishops in the UK), as well as bastions of the Establishment, Blair and Cameron (should that be Clair and Bameron?), the BBC, most of the Press, the Church of England, MI5 and MI6, all took part in Project Fear, and lost, underestimating the thirst for freedom of the people, so long ignored, so long neglected, so long despised. 

Muslim Refugees in Europe increasingly converting to Christianity

"...the Catholic Church of Austria has received no fewer than 300 applications for Baptism of adults for the first quarter of 2016, of which about 70% are refugees."

Muslim Refugees in Europe increasingly converting to Christianity - Media

Translated by Dmitry Lapa, Pravoslavie, June 6, 2016

Muslim family converts to Christ in Berlin. 

The number of Muslim refugees in Europe who are converting to the Christian faith is increasing, as indicated by the large number of Baptisms recently held by European churches, reports RIA-Novosti with reference to the Guardian.

According to unofficial information, many Muslims who migrated from the Middle East states or central Asia because of conflicts, repressions or economical difficulties have started attending churches.

According to the newspaper, the motives behind such changes may be sincere faith in the new religion or gratitude to Christians for their help during their dangerous crossings. Moreover, many expect that conversion to a new faith may improve their chances for obtaining asylum.

Thanks to new converts from Islam the number of parishioners at the Holy Trinity Church in a suburb of Berlin has increased from 150 to around 700 over the span of two years, Pastor Gottfried Martens reported. According to the newspaper, earlier this year many refugees were baptized in churches of Berlin and Hamburg.

TERRORIST ACT AVERTED AT HOLY TRINITY-ST. SERGIUS LAVRA, RUSSIA

Judging from the nationalities of the owners of the cafés implicated, it is safe to assume there is some Muslim terrorist activity targeting one of the most important Orthodox Christian monasteries in Russia.

TERRORIST ACT AVERTED AT TRINITY-ST. SERGIUS LAVRA – SOURCE IN FSB
Pravoslavie, June 15, 2016:

As learned from a source in the Federal Security Service [FSB], a terrorist act was averted in the largest men’s monastery of the Russian Orthodox Church with several centuries of history—the Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra.

According to sources, on June 14 in several cafes in the Pushkin region of Podmoskovye were found homemade explosive devices and schemes and photos of the Lavra.

“Makeshift explosive devices were found in three cafes” says the source. “One of them is located in the western part of the city of Pushkino. It belongs to an Azerbaijani and some Dagestanis. According to our information, weapons were already found in this café a couple of years ago.”

Next to the homemade bomb was material confirming that terrorists had prepared a bomb for the Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra.

Investigative activity is currently underway, with no information on the detainees as of yet.


Translated by Jesse Dominick

mk.ru

Obama's Post-Orlando Tirade: Islam is Sacred and Beyond Reproach

By refusing to name the enemy, the President continues to advance a new Edict of Milan, granting preferred status for Muslims and Islam over all other groups and religions.

President Obama advocates for Islam at terror-linked mosque, Feb. 2016.

Three years ago, Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in for his second term as President of the United States. That same year — 2013 A.D. — marked the 1700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan in 313 A.D., the historic guarantee of religious liberty to Christians by the Roman Empire.

Prior to the Emperor Constantine’s key role in forming the Edict’s stance of tolerance towards Christians, they had been persecuted for centuries for not honoring the Roman gods. 

The Edict was of explicitly universal significance in the Empire, as it was agreed upon by both Constantine (who controlled the West) and Licinius (in the East) upon their meeting in Milan in February, 313A.D. Constantine was already more than favorably disposed towards the Christian Faith; the Edict therefore was a key step in his role as advocate and protector of the Church. Less than seventy years later, in 380 A.D., Christianity had become the official state religion of the Roman Empire under Theodosius I.

(Keep that in mind, you young folk, when by 2050 you start hearing talk of making Islam the state religion of the United States, following after Europe's lead in 2025.)

The Edict protected Christians’ rights to worship freely, organize, and to build churches, and it provided for the return of confiscated property to Christians. If the wording of these rights sounds familiar somehow, it may be because we see their explicit reversal under Islam, via the harsh and demeaning terms of the Conditions of Omar and the dhimma contract of ‘protection’, which forbids Christians from publicly displaying signs of their faith or worshipping openly, from building new churches or repairing existing ones, and requires payment of the crippling jizya tax, together with an assortment of other demeaning restrictions designed to sap the will and vibrancy of the Christian populace under Islamic rule.

Islam, beginning with Muhammad and the Koran, and further codified by the caliph Omar, offers three choices to conquered Christians: reject Christ and convert to Islam; if not that, accept second class status under Islamic rule and pay the jizya tax; if they refuse even that then it is death. Per the Koran and key hadiths about Muhammad:

Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth [i.e. Islam] among the people of the Book [Jews and Christians], until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. (Koran 9:29) 

Muhammad said, “I have been commanded to fight people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and perform the prayer, and pay zakat. If they say it, they have saved their blood and possessions from me, except for the rights of Islam over them. And their final reckoning is with Allah.” (Bukhari, 1:2:25, also Sahih Muslim, Book of Faith, 1:10:29-35)

Islam’s demeaning treatment of conquered Christians thus abrogates the Edict of Milan, and specifically reverses and denies the rights conferred by that landmark Roman ruling.

Obama's Anti-Christian Refugee Policy: Yes to Muslim Terrorists, No to Christian Genocide Victims

Obama continues his quest to go down in history as the man who repealed the Edict of Milan. The "anti-Constantine" expands his pro-Muslim, anti-Christian bias.

Obama’s Refugee Policy: Yes to Potential Terrorists, No to Genocide Victims

June 6, 2016 by Raymond Ibrahim

Originally published by the Gatestone Institute

The Obama administration has been escalating a policy that both abandons Mideast Christians and exposes Americans to the jihad. Late last year it was revealed that 97% of Syrian refugees accepted into the U.S. were Sunni Muslims—the same Islamic sect to which the Islamic State belongs—while fewer than half-a-percent were Christians.

This disparity has since gotten worse. From May 1 to May 23, 499 Syrian refugees—a number that exceeds the total number of refugees admitted during the last three years—were received into the U.S.  Zero Christians were among them; 99 percent were Sunni (the remaining one percent was simply listed as “Muslim”).

These numbers are troubling:

First, from a strictly humanitarian point of view—and humanitarianism is the chief reason being cited in accepting refugees—Christians should receive priority simply because currently they are among the most persecuted groups in the Middle East.  Along with the Yazidis, Christians are experiencing genocide at the hands of ISIS, as the State Department recently determined.  The Islamic State has repeatedly forced Christians to renounce Christ or die; has enslaved and raped them, and desecrated or destroyed more than 400 of their churches.

As Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) put it this March, “Without doubt, Syrians of all confessions are being victimized by this savage war and are facing unimaginable suffering.  But only Christians and other religious minorities are the deliberate targets of systematic persecution and genocide.”

Is Russia targeting Turkey over Hagia Sophia?

Timing will be crucial as Erdogan’s re-Islamizing Turkey continues to press for a second defeat of Christendom by the symbolic move of turning Hagia Sophia into a mosque. Will pressure from Russia to return the great Cathedral to the Orthodox Church prevent or merely delay what many view as inevitable? Or is there something larger at stake?

Every year on May 29, Turkey celebrates Islam’s defeat of Constantinople and the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire in 1453, and the conversion of the great church, Hagia Sophia, into a mosque soon after. Every year Muslims gather outside Hagia Sophia demanding it be turned back into a mosque, after eighty years of being a secular museum with both Christian Byzantine and Islamic features.

But this year is different, as Turkish authorities are allowing the reading of the Koran in Hagia Sophia:

Turkish national broadcaster TRT Diyanet will broadcast the sahur or Islamic predawn meal along with daily readings from the Koran during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan which began [last] Monday.

Dhimmitude in Europe: Christians Told To ‘Pray In Silence… Don’t Disturb The Migrants’

The Muslim migrant invasion of Europe is seeing Christians adopt the cowed posture of dhimmitude, as Catholics and Protestants convert their churches into migrant housing, then tell their congregants not to pray out loud for fear of disturbing their Muslim guests.

It gets worse. In Germany, a protestant pastor is holding a Muslim funeral service in his church for a 17 year old who died as a jihadist fighting for the Islamic State in Syria.

A Christian dhimmi pays the jizya to his Muslim overlord. Notice the weapons surrounding him, reminding him that this is "blood money," that he is paying a ransom for his life because he refuses to convert to Islam. This is what Christians in Western Europe are doing today by giving Muslims supremacy in their churches.

Hopefully, Orthodox churches will be far less likely to follow this path of open apostasy and spiritual suicide, as the Orthodox Christian theology of church sanctification is infinitely more rigorous and unyielding than even that of Roman Catholics.

To the Orthodox Church, a church building is something far more than a mere building, and not just because of its use as a place of worship.

There is a distinct set of rites through which a church is sanctified - made holy, set apart for the sacred worship of the True God - which includes elaborate prayers at the four corners of the building, anointings with oil, sprinkling with holy water, censing of the church and faithful, the blessing of holy icons inside and often outside the church, and ultimately the placing of relics of saints into the altar.

This harks back to the church of the catacombs in Rome, where Christians celebrated the Eucharist using the tombs of the martyrs as their altars. As the altar is the place where the Mystical Sacrifice is celebrated - the mystery of Christ's incarnation, crucifixion, death and resurrection - the altar and everything surrounding it are sanctified, set apart, holy. And when the faithful gather together in worship, they further consecrate and sanctify the sacred space through their prayers.

The consecration of an Orthodox Christian altar by bishop and clergy.

To this day, there is a powerful sense even of what is appropriate to speak about in an Orthodox church, and what is out of bounds. One does not defile the very sanctified air of the place by allowing presentations or lectures on certain topics, or talks by non-Orthodox speakers. Obviously then, the transformation of an Orthodox temple into temporary refugee housing is unthinkable, along the lines of the atheist Bolsheviks of the 1920s and 30s converting churches into stables and latrines in their mad hatred of Jesus Christ and His Holy Church.

The Orthodox Church under Islamic subjugation during the Ottoman occupation suffered greatly, and has a long memory of its persecution under Muslim tyranny. Christians were reduced to third-class citizens, martyrdom was a frequent phenomenon, and even many of Constantinople's patriarchs were tortured and put to death. Most of Orthodoxy's churches were destroyed or converted into mosques, while, under the oppressive terms of Islam's infamous dhimma contract, the remainder were forbidden to renovate their dilapidated structures, to even display a cross, or to ring their bells. It was during these dark times that the banging of a mallet on a wooden plank, the Semantron, became the alternate call to worship. When you visit a monastery and hear this ancient sound, keep in mind that it is the echo of Muslim persecution of Orthodox Christians.

The Martyrdom of Patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople by the Ottoman Muslims.

This is why Eastern Christians are so aghast at Western Europe's civilizational and spiritual suicide. The story below gives anecdotal evidence as to the complete loss of any sense of Christian holiness, sacred space and worship. That these diminished Christians voluntarily defile their churches and silence their prayers out of a belief that they are following the Gospel reveals the breadth of spiritual delusion and blindness which grips the West.

This is truly an 'abomination of desolation', yet another sign of the Great Apostasy which continues to unfold all around us, and of the coming Great Tribulation. As the Lord Jesus told us:

“Therefore when you see the 'abomination of desolation', spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (whoever reads, let him understand)... “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains... for then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be." (Matthew 24:15-16, 21) 

"He who endures to the end will be saved." (Matthew 24:13)

Christians Told To ‘Pray In Silence… Don’t Disturb The Migrants’
by Virginia Hale, Breitbart London, June 6, 2016:

Parishioners visiting a church in Italy were told they must “pray in silence” so as not to disturb African migrants being housed there.

Some of the faithful hoping to practice their Christianity at the church of St. Anthony in Ventimiglia were surprised when they were told by Caritas volunteers they couldn’t recite the rosary and would instead have to pray in silence out of respect to migrants who are living there.

Last words of Christian girl, 12, burnt to death by Islamic State: ‘Forgive them’

We have another New Martyr under the Sword of Islam, an innocent and even nameless handmaiden of Jesus Christ, who, following the Lord's example, forgave her enemies as she was dying...

"A Christian girl cried 'forgive them' as she died in her mother's arms after ISIS fighters torched their home", because the mother did not instantly pay the jizya tax (the Islamic poll tax which Muslims demand from Christians as protection money, per the commands of the Koran and the words of Muhammad).

See also: 'Let us Forgive All, by the Resurrection'

Last words of Christian girl, 12, burnt to death by ISIS: ‘Forgive them’

by Harry Farley, Christianity Today via Pravmir, May 27, 2016

The young girl, thought to be 12 years old, died from her burns after the militants attacked her family’s home in Mosul, Iraq. Her story was among a number heard at a conference on the persecution of Christians in New York last month.

A human rights advocate described how the young girl had been in the shower when the jihadis came knocking.

“You have two choices, you are to leave or you are to pay the Jaziya,” they told the girl’s mother, according to a human rights advocate at the conference.

Her mother responded: “I will pay, just give me a few seconds, my daughter is in the shower.”

At this point the militants stormed the house shouting “you don’t have a few seconds.” They set the building on fire and left. Both mother and daughter managed to escape the burning building but the child had severe fourth degree burns and was rushed straight to hospital.

She died in her mother’s arms at the hospital. The last words she said were “forgive them”.

Christians Beheaded and Slaughtered on Easter: Muslim Persecution of Christians, March 2016

Read the report below for links to "numerous examples of lethal attacks on Christians celebrating Christmas or Easter by other Islamic groups and individuals around the world who also “had been waiting for this occasion.”  Even “the terror cell that struck in Brussels [in March, killing 34] was planning to massacre worshippers at Easter church services across Europe, including Britain, intelligence chiefs believe, said a report."

These attacks are committed by followers of a different god, the false god of Muhammad and Islam.

by Raymond Ibrahim, May 30, 2016

Originally published by the Gatestone Institute

Iraqi churches desecrated by Muslims

On Easter Sunday, March 27, a suicide bombing took place near the children rides of a public park in Pakistan, where Christians were known to be congregated and celebrating the resurrection of their Lord.  At least 74 people—mostly women and children—were killed and nearly 400 injured.  “There was human flesh on the walls of our house,” recalled a witness.    “We claim responsibility for the attack on Christians as they were celebrating Easter,” said a Taliban affiliated group.  In a media statement, it said it had “deliberately targeted the Christian community,” adding that “we had been waiting for this occasion.”

Click here, here, here, here, and here, for numerous examples of similarly lethal attacks on Christians celebrating Christmas or Easter by other Islamic groups and individuals around the world who also “had been waiting for this occasion.”  Even “the terror cell that struck in Brussels [in March, killing 34] was planning to massacre worshippers at Easter church services across Europe, including Britain, intelligence chiefs believe, said a report.

In Scotland, a Muslim man stabbed another Muslim man to death for wishing Christians a Happy Easter.  Asad Shah had posted messages on Facebook that said “Good Friday and very happy Easter, especially to my beloved Christian nation” and “Let’s follow the real footstep of beloved holy Jesus Christ and get the real success in both worlds.”  Police said a 32-year-old Muslim man was arrested in connection with Shah’s death and confirmed that the attack was “religiously prejudiced.”  Islamic law forbids Muslims from participating in or congratulating non-Muslims for their religious holidays as doing so implicitly validates other religions.

A Muslim nanny in Russia beheaded a 4-year-old girl, Anastasia, whom she had been taking care of for the last three years.  Gulchehra Boboqulova, the Chechen origin nanny, went to a Moscow metro station and, for 20 minutes, waved the child’s severed while screaming “Allahu Akbar” [“Allah is greater”].  After her arrest, she said the murder “was what Allah ordered.”  In the months before the slaughter, Bobokulova  was said to have become “more religious,” including by wearing the hijab and telling her son to pray five times a day and live in accord with Sharia.  Still, authorities recently concluded that she will not face a murder trial as she is clearly “insane.”