c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Following is a collection of international religion stories compiled by RNS staff, wire and denominational reports.)

Brazil seeks to freeze assets of controversial evangelist

(RNS)-The government of Brazil has asked a state court in Sao Paulo to freeze the assets of the Rev. Edir Macedo, a controversial evangelist, saying on Wednesday (Jan. 3) that Macedo owes $5 million in back taxes.

News reports from Brazil said federal police in Rio de Janeiro have also launched a probe into accusations by critics that Macedo and other leaders of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God have swindled followers and had dealings with Colombian drug traffickers.

The court is expected to rule on the government’s request to freeze Macedo’s assets later this month.

The Universal Church, founded in 1977, claims 300 congregations in 33 countries, including the United States. It owns Brazil’s third largest TV network, a bank, 35 radio stations, four newspapers and other businesses.

According to the Associated Press, the government investigation of Macedo came in the wake of a broadcast on Globo TV, an ally of Brazil’s Roman Catholic Church, of a videotape of Macedo making faces and grinning while counting donations and telling other church leaders to threaten stingy donors with damnation. Other parts of the tape, the AP said, show Macedo and colleagues dancing on a beach and several of his pastors joking about taking off their clothes at a party in a Jerusalem hotel lobby during a Holy Land tour.

The tape was made by a pastor in the church who has had a falling out with Macedo.

Macedo has denied any wrongdoing.”Our conscience has nothing, absolutely nothing that condemns us,”Macedo said in a statement Dec. 26, four days after the videotape was broadcast, the Associated Press reported.

The church has been in a running feud with the Roman Catholic Church for some time.

On Oct. 12, a national holiday dedicated to Our Lady of Aparecida, Brazil’s patron saint, Bishop Sergio von Helder, a leader of the Universal Church, went on the church-owned television network and smashed a plaster statue of the saint.”We are showing people that this image does not work, that it is nothing sacred. …”he said.

The incident created a firestorm of controversy and von Helder was criticized by both the Catholic Church and by leaders of mainstream Protestant denominations in Brazil.

Armenian Orthodox Church in Turkey facing clergy shortage

(RNS)-The Armenian Orthodox Church in Turkey, the largest Christian denomination in the country, is facing a critical shortage of clergy and has ordained only five new priests in the last five years.

According to Ecumenical News International, the Geneva, Switzerland-based news agency of the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, there are 82,000 Armenian Orthodox Church members in Turkey, 60,000 of them in Istanbul.

But the Istanbul diocese has only 28 priests, 10 of them over age 60.

Under Turkish law, the Armenian church’s clergy are required to be Turkish citizens and the government has banned Orthodox churches in the country-including the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of the Eastern Orthodox Church-from setting up seminaries.

The ENI report said that for the past 10 years future priests have been informally trained by bishops of the church in Turkey. Pastors and academics from other denominations also help with the training.

The Dalai Lama is the subject of two new films

(RNS)-Two Hollywood companies are planning movies based on Tibet and the Dalai Lama, the exiled Buddhist leader, according to news reports.

U.S. filmmaker Martin Scorcese’s feature,”Kundun,”is based on the turbulent early life of the Dalai Lama. His casting crew is scouring New Delhi and other parts of India for exiled Tibetans to appear in the film.

The script for Scorcese’s movie, to be distributed by Warner Brothers, was written by Melissa Mathison, wife of actor Harrison Ford.

Columbia Pictures is planning a movie called”Seven Years in Tibet.”The film, to be directed by Frenchman Jean Jacques Arnaud, is expected to star actor Brad Pitt as an Austrian mountaineer who spends seven years in Tibet in the 1940s and ’50s.

The Dalai Lama, winner of a 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, has reportedly given his blessings to both projects.

John Ackerly, director of the International Campaign for Tibet, said his organization is supportive of the films.”We hope that … both these movies will be good publicity for Tibet because Tibet very much needs more exposure,”he said.”Kundun”will detail the Dalai Lama’s life until 1959, he said. The Dalai Lama, the former spiritual and political leader of Tibet, was forced into exile in 1959 and lives in India. He continues to campaign for Tibetan independence.

The Columbia Pictures movie will focus more on Tibet than on the Dalai Lama.

Saudi Arabia to build mosque in Argentina

(RNS)-Saudi Arabian King Fahd and a group of Saudi businessmen have donated $10 million for the construction in Buenos Aires of what is being billed as Latin America’s largest mosque and Islamic center.”Construction will start sometime this year, God willing,”Saudi embassy spokesman Ghandour Daher told Reuters.

The complex will include a mosque, school, exhibition hall, convention center and sports arena, and cover an eight-acre lot donated by the Argentine government.

Construction is expected to take about two years, Daher said.

The mosque, large enough to accommodate 1,000 people, will serve a community of between 800,000 and 1 million Muslims in Argentina. The community is made up mostly of Argentines of Syrian and Lebanese background.

Britain’s chief rabbi acts to ease way for religious divorces

(RNS)-Orthodox Jewish couples in Great Britain are being told by Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks that they should make a pre-nuptial agreement requiring them to attend a religious court if their marriage breaks down.

The measure is an effort to make it easier for a woman to receive a religious divorce, known as a get. Without a get, a woman cannot remarry in a synagogue. Any second marriage outside the synagogue is considered an adulterous relationship and the children of the second marriage are barred from marrying in a synagogue.

A get is, in effect, a declaration of release from the first marriage and has to be freely granted by the husband and freely accepted by the wife.

According to Jewish officials, the Beth Din, as the religious court is known, has a good track record in resolving difficulties that stand in the way of effecting a get. Husbands are sometimes reluctant to grant a get and women to accept one for fear the action will have an impact on their civil divorce proceedings.

MJP END