New Priest-Martyr Nikolai Kotelnikov of Derbent, Dagestan

New Martyr Father Nikolai Kotelnikov of Derbent. A Muslim extremist slit his throat in church. He and his church guard were both murdered. Holy Martyr Fr Nikolai, pray to God for us!

PRIEST KILLED IN TERRORIST ATTACKS ON CHURCHES IN SOUTHERN RUSSIA

Derbent, Republic of Dagestan, Russia, June 24, 2024, OrthoChristian.com

A priest who has been serving the Church since Soviet times received a martyric end in a terrorist attack against churches in Russia’s southern Dagestan Republic yesterday. 

Militants attacked two churches, a synagogue, and a traffic police post in the Dagestani cities of Derbent and Makhachkala, reports RIA-Novosti. 

Early on Sunday, a group of armed men opened fire on a church and synagogue in Derbent, while others attacked another church in Makhachkala. According to preliminary data, one priest, Archpriest Nikolai Kotelnikov, 66, a church guard, and six police officers were killed. Another 12 officers were injured. 

According to the Dagestan branch of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, six militants were killed. 

Fr. Nikolai served as a priest for 40 years, beginning in Soviet times. They slit Fr. Nikolai’s throat at Holy Protection Church in Derbent, then set it on fire. 

Fr. Nikolai is survived by his wife, three children, and grandchildren. 

The terrorists also killed the guard at the Holy Dormition Cathedral in Makhachkala. The guard, named Mikhail, sacrificed his own life, attempting to stop the terrorists. Though he died, he gave the worshipers enough time to barricade themselves safely inside. 

A terrorist attack also took place in Dagestan on Forgiveness Sunday in 2018, in which five women were killed.

Cardinal Dolan equates Easter with Ramadan in new Pan-Ecumenist statement

“Ramadan is a month in which Muslims are to redouble their efforts to please Allah... The idea that this is a time to seek friendship and cooperation with Muslims is laughably naive and demonstrates abject ignorance of Islam.”

— Robert Spencer, cited in article below

Cardinal Dolan equates Easter with Ramadan, Passover, says all are about ‘triumph of light and life’

LifeSite - Thu Mar 14, 2024 - 2:51 pm EDT

NEW YORK (LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Timothy Dolan has equated Easter with the Islamic season of Ramadan and the Jewish Passover, saying that all three are about the “triumph of light and life.”

In a video message posted on X, formerly Twitter, Dolan said, “Does it dawn on you that Lent and Ramadan and Passover always occur close to each other?”

While the Catholic Church [and the Orthodox Church, ed.] commemorates the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ during the Easter Triduum, Judaism and Islam both reject the truth that Jesus is the Son of God and the Redeemer of mankind...

Moreover, the comparison of Islamic Ramadan to Easter is absurd since Islam is diametrically opposed to Christianity.

On March 11, Dolan published a video commemorating the beginning of Ramadan in which he wrongly claimed that Muslims are “a good example” to Catholics “on our Lenten journey.”

As the Islamic scholar Robert Spencer explained, Ramadan is a season in which Islamic attacks against non-Muslims, including Catholics, increase every year.

“[T]he idea of Ramadan providing a possibility of outreach to Muslims is a tragicomic display of the failures and inherent limitations of the ‘dialogue’ imperative,” Spencer said in comments given to the Catholic Herald.

“Ramadan is a month in which Muslims are to redouble their efforts to please Allah,” the author of more than 20 books continued. “The highest form of service to Allah, according to Muhammad, is jihad, which principally involves warfare against unbelievers.”

“Every Ramadan, therefore, we see an increase in jihad attacks. The idea that this is a time to seek friendship and cooperation with Muslims is laughably naive and demonstrates abject ignorance of Islam,” Spencer stated.

[...]

Pope Francis has also made similar remarks and been accused of promoting religious indifferentism during his pontificate, especially through his encyclical on “human fraternity,” Fratelli tutti, and the controversial Abu Dhabi declaration that Francis signed together with Ahmad el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Egypt’s al-Azhar Mosque. The declaration, officially called “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together,” states that “pluralism and the diversity of religions… are willed by God in His wisdom.”

Much more in the full article on LifeSiteNews...

Raymond Ibrahim: 'Why Pope Francis’s Claim that the Virgin Mary ‘Unites’ Christians and Muslims Is Wrong'

 More false teaching from the Heresiarch of Rome.

Weeping Icon of the Theotokos, the 'Mother of God',
Our Lady of Cicero

Why Pope Francis’s Claim that the Virgin Mary ‘Unites’ Christians and Muslims Is Wrong

by Raymond Ibrahim, June 12, 2024

Originally published at LifeSiteNews on May 31, 2024

Catholics may be surprised to learn that the Vatican is exaggerating the similarities between the Virgin Mary and the figure of Mary, Mother of Jesus, as she appears in the Koran and Muslim hadiths (traditions about Muhammad, the founder of Islam).

On May 18 this year, Pope Francis paid a visit to detainees at Verona’s Montorio Prison, and upon bestowing an icon of the Madonna and Child upon the apparently multi-faith jail, he stated to applause that “the figure of Mary is a figure common to both Christianity and Islam. She is a common figure; she unites us all.”

If this seems innocuous, it also falls in line with the Vatican’s many attempts to convince Catholics that Islam is somehow a “sister faith,” when, in fact, Islam appropriates the names and sacred auras of biblical figures, but then recasts them with completely different, anti-biblical attributes.

In early 2021, for example, the Marian academy in Rome launched a 10-week webinar series titled “Mary, a model for faith and life for Christianity and Islam” in collaboration with the Grand Mosque of Rome and the Islamic Cultural Center of Italy.

Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel - Why did a Muslim attack and try to kill him?

You have probably seen the news reports of the shocking knife attack against Assyrian Christian Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in Sydney, Australia on Monday, April 15.  Thanks be to God, His Eminence survived with non-life-threatening injuries, and is doing well.

Bishop Mar Mari — a powerful preacher and now a confessor for Christ — has openly forgiven his attacker, and another report states, “It is the Bishop’s and Father’s wishes that you also pray for the perpetrator."

Here are a few additional links to get up to speed:

• Australia: Muslim stabs priest during mass, “He kept saying ‘Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar'”
• The miracle that saved Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel's life and kept his alleged attacker from killing him: 'Act of God'
• Australia: Muslim teen who attacked priest while screaming ‘Allahu akbar’ was recent convert to Islam

But why would a Muslim attack and try to kill Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel? Perhaps because he powerfully preaches against the false religion of Islam and the false prophet Muhammad, and invites Muslims to convert to Jesus Christ. The fearless David Wood goes point by point for us in this analysis:

Here is a talk by Bishop Mar Mari in which he explains his interpretation of a passage of Revelation, and how Islam is prophetically revealed to be a false religion:

So, it is easy to see why Muslims would be angered by Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, but why would they want to kill him?

Perhaps because it is commanded in the Koran:

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. (9:29)

I will cast terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved, so strike them over the necks, and smite over all their fingers and toes. (8:12)

Perhaps also because that's what Muhammad would do, as related in this foundational Islamic hadith:

Allah’s Messenger said: “I have been ordered [by Allah] to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah...” (Sahih Bukhari, 1:2:25, also Sahih Muslim, 1:10:29-35)

Such is zeal according to the false religion of Islam.