General

Overcoming a century of pain

April 24, 2015 Turkey Armenian Genocide, Armenians

Turkish and Armenian Christians circle the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan, Armenia, on April 11. NOTE: faces have been blurred to protect identities.Ricardo Pessoa “We came to share your pain,” Turkish Christians declared in early April, standing before TV cameras at the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan. “We have . . . Read More

Syriac priest wrestles with Turkey’s ethnic tensions

April 22, 2015 Turkey Armenian Genocide, Armenians, Assyrians, Diyarbakir, Islamic State, Kurds, Mardin, Middle East, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Syria, Syriacs, Turkey

In the courtyard of the 1,700-year-old church over which he presides, Fr. Yusuf Akbulut beams with pride. He points out that the excellent stone and woodwork is a result of the craftsmanship of his ethnic group, the Syriac Christians of Turkey. “The Syriacs were always the goldsmiths, metal workers, stone . . . Read More

Confusion around Pakistani Christian boy’s burns death, amid communal tensions

April 17, 2015 Pakistan Gojra, Gujranwala, Joseph Colony, Lahore, Youhanabad

A funeral was held for Nauman Masih, 14, at St. Ignatius Catholic Church in Lahore on 15 April.World Watch Monitor A 14-year-old Christian boy, who was first reported to have been doused with petrol and set on fire because of his faith, died on Tuesday (14 April) in Lahore, . . . Read More

A year gone

April 13, 2015 Nigeria Boko Haram, Chibok girls, Goodluck Jonathan, Kidnapping, Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria, Rebecca Dali, Stephen Davis

A year later, the parents are still crying. It was April 14, 2014 when militants of the radical Islamic group Boko Haram kidnapped about 275 teenage school girls from Chibok, a predominantly Christian village in northeastern Nigeria. Some 232 of them are still missing, and for much of the year, . . . Read More

‘I need God to help me forget’

April 13, 2015 Kenya Al-Shabaab, Garissa, Nairobi, Pentecostals

The chairman of Garissa University College’s Christian Union, who survived the April 2 Al-Shabaab attack in which 148 students were killed, has pleaded for prayer for the physical and psychological healing of survivors. “Please pray for us… Many saw sights too horrible to describe,” said 21-year-old Frederick Gitonga. “Pray for . . . Read More

Hope – and anxiety – after Buhari’s win

April 9, 2015 Nigeria APC, Boko Haram, Elections, Goodluck Jonathan, Muhammadu Buhari, Pentecostals

Former Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, the All Progressives Congress candidate for president, at Chatham House in London in February 2015.Flickr / Chatham House / Creative Commons Nigeria’s Christians, especially those in the troubled northeast, had a good reason to be worried that Muhammadu Buhari would be elected president. The former . . . Read More

Turkish authorities ask tiny Christian community to help Yazidi refugees

April 9, 2015 Turkey Diyarbakir, Iraq, Islamic State, Jerry Mattix, Refugees, Suruç, Syria, Turkey, Yazidis

As a Turkish Christian, Ender Peker is used to facing hostility from religious Muslims, particularly because he lives in Turkey’s conservative southeast. So he was shocked last fall when an imam asked him to take over food distribution at a nearby refugee camp. “He said to me, ‘I want you . . . Read More

Kenya mourns students ‘killed while praying’

April 9, 2015 Kenya Al-Shabaab, East Africa, Garissa, Kenya, Nairobi, Sub-Saharan Africa, Uhuru Kenyatta, Westgate

A memorial service will be held in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, today (9 April) to commemorate the 148 students killed by Al-Shabaab last week. Kenyans are still in shock following the attack in the north-east of the country at Garissa University College on 2 April, where Christians were singled out . . . Read More

Al-Shabaab targets Christians in Kenyan college attack

April 2, 2015 Kenya Al-Shabaab, Garissa, Kenya, Somalia

[<a href=”//storify.com/wwmonitor/attack-on-kenyan-college-singles-out-christians” target=”_blank”>View the story “Attack on Kenyan college singles out Christians” on Storify</a>]

Turkey’s Orthodox and Protestants mend centuries of mistrust

April 1, 2015 Turkey Armenians, Assyrians, Diyarbakir, Gaziantep, Islamic State, Mardin, Protestants, Syria, Syriacs, Turkey

On a Saturday in late March, a group of 20 volunteers went to an abandoned church in Turkey’s southeastern city of Mardin. They cleaned out broken chairs, a cracked pulpit, and books that haven’t been opened in decades. In the corner sat a 100-year-old organ. The church, in the heartland . . . Read More

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