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Painting of dark-skinned Jesus wins magazine contest

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(RNS) A painting of a dark-skinned Jesus has been chosen as the winner of the National Catholic Reporter’s contest to update the image of Christ for the year 2000.

The magazine calls the winning image a”more gentle Jesus … modeled on a woman”rather than the muscular male image of the Renaissance.

The work of the winner, Janet McKenzie of Island Pond, Vt., was considered the top choice from 1,678 entries from 1,004 artists in 19 countries.”`Jesus of the People’ simply came through me,”she said in a statement.”I feel as though I am only a vehicle for its existence.” The independent newsweekly based in Kansas City, Mo., launched the competition to counter the hype about millennium parties and computer bugs and turn the focus to Jesus, on whose birth the date is based.”Jesus of the People,”which garnered the $2,000 first prize, was chosen by Sister Wendy Beckett, an art expert who has hosted a BBC television series.”This is a haunting image of a peasant Jesus _ dark, thick-lipped, looking out on us with ineffable dignity, with sadness but with confidence,”she wrote of the winner.

Michael Farrell, editor of the newsweekly, commented on the meaning behind the painting.”When the church was overwhelmingly a Western institution, we in the West made Jesus in our likeness,”he said.”But now at last Christianity has spread to the ends of the Earth as the founder once prayed it would.”Much of the church’s energy, and new vocations, have moved from Europe and the U.S.A. to the Third World, so perhaps this work of art is a preview of how Christianity will flourish, and what kind of divinity it will look up to, as the next millennium unfolds.” Entries for the contest ranged in artistic media from oil to cloth to computer creations to burnt toast. They depicted Jesus as a carpenter, a clown, and a death-row inmate and placed him on television, dancing in the streets of Jerusalem with an Arab, and sawing down his own cross.

Sister Wendy acknowledged choosing one image was a challenge.”Let me emphasize that each of these works truly speaks of Jesus to our age,”she said.

Israel will regulate flow of pilgrims at Church of Holy Sepulcher

(RNS) Israel won’t forcibly open an emergency exit in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Minister of Tourism Amnon Lipkin Shahak said Tuesday (Dec. 14).

Shahak said Israeli police would instead seek to regulate the flow of Christian pilgrims in the structure in order to avoid any fire hazards.

Shahak spoke at the opening of a tourism trade fair in Jerusalem to discuss official preparations for millennial tourism in the city.

The absence of any emergency exit in the sprawling medieval structure has long been a bone of contention between Israeli police and the Greek Orthodox, Latin (Catholic) and Armenian church officials who control the site.

Only about 750,000 pilgrims can safely tour the church in a year, officials have said, while at least 2.5 million Christians are expected to visit during 2000.

Wadi Abu Nassar, a spokesman for the Latin Church, welcomed the government decision, saying the churches would seek to extend the visitation hours at the site in order to ease the pressure from pilgrims.

The Greek, Latin and Armenian churches are exceedingly reluctant to make any changes in the ancient”status quo”of the site’s physical structure, which has been in effect since the Middle Ages.

In a related statement, Nassar said he hoped Pope John Paul II would still visit the Holy Land next year despite the recent controversy over the construction of a mosque alongside the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth.”I hope that the visit will happen because it will be to the benefit of people here,”said Nassar.”But we can’t be sure until there is a formal announcement.”

Russian religious groups face registration deadline

(RNS) Thousands of religious communities across Russia will be in legal limbo after Dec. 31 with the passing of a deadline for re-registration under a controversial religion law, according to an expert on the law.”In legal terms, they become no one,”said Moscow lawyer Yekaterina Smyslova, adding that she is working with 12 Protestant congregations in Russia on the problem.

The State Duma, or lower house of parliament, had been expected to extend the deadline before closing earlier this month to prepare for elections set for Sunday (Dec. 19). That leaves an estimated 14,000 religious communities, most of them Russian Orthodox, on shaky legal ground. What this means in practical terms is unclear and may vary considerably among Russia’s 89 regions and from faith to faith. Religious groups remain unregistered for a variety of reasons, including the inefficient state bureaucracy and groups’ failure to apply. One Irish Catholic priest with an unregistered parish in Syzran in the Volga region said he was confident the Vatican’s”international clout”would offer some protection.”I’m not too worried,”said Father Philip Andrews.”There could be a lot of headaches for me, but they are not going to confiscate my property.” About 80 percent of Russia’s nearly 200 Catholic parishes are re-registered. By some estimates, about 10,000 parishes of the country’s dominant Russian Orthodox Church have not been registered. Because of the Orthodox church’s considerable political influence, local bureaucrats are unlikely to use the opportunity of the passed deadline to go after Orthodox parishes. At the federal Ministry of Justice in Moscow, the chief of the department for registering religious associations said those congregations that do not make the Dec. 31 deadline need not worry.”We sent out a letter of instruction to all our offices in the regions,telling them there is no need to touch anything, because the new Duma will for sure extend the deadline for another year,”said the official, Alexander Kudryavtsev. He added that the Duma simply ran out of time and so did not consider proposed legislation extending the deadline for another year. With the Russian Orthodox Church supporting the extension, the new Duma is expected to approve it. Still, the federal Ministry of Justice’s letter, lawyer Smyslova cautioned,does not have the force of law.”Maybe the police won’t drive them out. Maybe the Ministry of Justice won’t go after them. But, all the same, they won’t be able to rent property or invite foreign religious workers,”she said. Smyslova said she is helping Lutheran and evangelical churches, among others, scramble to transfer their assets to other legal entities in advance of Dec. 31. After that date, she said, assets will be vulnerable to seizure because they will be legally ownerless. She said a common perception that minority Christian faiths with foreign ties are affluent and alien to Russia may make them especially attractive targets to some provincial officials.”Sometimes there are millions of dollars in investments in local churches here from abroad,”Smyslova said, adding that her clients are hurriedly”trying to find local people to transfer it to.” Lutheran bishops urge reconciliation, not dread, as 2000 looms (RNS) In a pastoral letter, the bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have encouraged fellow Christians not to dread the coming of the third millennium but to work toward reconciliation and justice in the year 2000 and beyond.”…The coming of the third millennium should not fill us with fear or dread at thoughts of the end,”the bishops wrote.”Christians, having come under the reign of Christ, live each day as if it were the last, with faces uplifted for the coming Christ.” But the bishops included a reminder of Jesus’ words in the Gospel of Mark about his Second Coming _”About that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” The church leaders went on to reflect on significant events of the second millennium, including the split between Western and Eastern churches, the Protestant Reformation, and the use of Christianity to justify wars, slavery and the Holocaust.”In spite of all the shortcomings and wrongdoing of the Church, by God’s grace, the reign of Christ was extended and millions upon millions were reconciled to God and came to know his gracious love,”they wrote. The bishops expressed their hopes for continuing”the great unfinished tasks before us in evangelism, service, advocacy and ecumenism”in the upcoming millennium. They also spoke of the need for various kinds of reconciliation to heal divisions that developed during the second millennium.”Let us seek reconciliation of the races in order to heal the perennial wound in our body politic and the world,”they wrote.”Let us also commit ourselves to the reconciliation of nations, especially those with whom we have been at odds. Let us seek the equalization of opportunity for the poorer nations to provide a better life for their people.” The bishops also asked fellow Lutherans to remember the example of Martin Luther, the leader of the Protestant Reformation, who taught a theology that prized God’s creation.”Our mission in the next millennium must foster justice for the creation, respect for the Earth, and bring a halt to unbridled and destructive development,”they wrote. The letter was written in October 1998, but was re-released recently by church officials. Greek police close evangelical radio station (RNS) An evangelical Christian radio station in Athens, Greece, has been closed and a retired pastor who helped run it was jailed overnight, a religious freedom organization has reported. Human Rights Without Frontiers, based in Brussels, Belgium, said Tuesday (Dec. 14) that Channel Station 2000 was raided by police earlier in the month. HRWF also said that Lakis Regas, the 73-year-old retired pastor who worked as a technician, was held overnight.”We have been operating and proclaiming the Good News of Christ for 11 years without any problem,”station director Thanos Karbonis was quoted as telling Compass, an evangelical news service.”Channel Station 2000 is very fruitful. It has brought many people to Christ.” HRWF reported that the station has been charged with”disturbing the frequencies”of nearby naval facilities. A court date was set for Jan. 31. In 1994, Greece shut down the nation’s only evangelical television station. Evangelical sources blame the closures on the politically powerful Greek Orthodox Church. There are about 17,000 Protestants in Greece, mainly evangelicals and Pentecostals. Papal aides in Amman to plan the pope’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land (RNS) Two papal aides are in the Jordanian capital of Amman to plan Pope John Paul II’s Holy Year pilgrimage to the Holy Land in March, a church official reported. Monsignor Charles Balbo of the office of the papal nuncio (envoy) to Jordan told the Italian news agency ANSA that the Rev. Roberto Tucci and Alberto Gasbarri arrived Monday (Dec. 13)”to deal with technical details”of the papal trip. Tucci, a Jesuit who is president of Vatican Radio, is the chief organizer of the pope’s trips and also accompanies him on his travels. The Vatican has said the pope plans to visit the Holy Land in the last 10 days of March. Balbo said the Vatican is expected to announce the exact dates about a month in advance. According to Jordanian government officials, John Paul would start his pilgrimage by flying to Amman to visit Mount Nebo, which is 20 miles from the Jordanian capital. It was from the top of Mount Nebo that the Bible says Moses saw the promised land before his death at the age of 120. John Paul announced in June that he hoped to make a Holy Year pilgrimage to biblical sites in Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Israel, Syria and Greece, but controversy has complicated planning. Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls reported Friday (Dec. 10) that Iraqi authorities have informed the Vatican they cannot”adequately organize”a papal visit to the reputed birthplace of the Prophet Abraham at Ur of the Chaldees because of the”abnormal conditions”caused by the U.N. embargo and no-fly zone imposed after the 1991 Gulf War.”For the pope, the trip to Ur of the Chaldees was a dream, his dream, and he is certainly greatly disappointed by its cancellation,”Navarro-Valls said Tuesday (Dec. 14). Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, who acts as the Vatican’s foreign minister, has said Iraq had postponed the visit indefinitely because authorities”felt they could not guarantee a minimum of equipment, security and logistics.” In Israel, the church is at odds with the government over plans for construction of a mosque next to the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth. The pope had hoped to visit Nazareth on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation celebrating the angel Gabriel’s announcement to the Virgin Mary that she would conceive a son. The Greek Orthodox Church has said the pope would not be welcome in Athens, where he wanted to commemorate St. Paul’s sermon on the Areopagus, which marks man’s encounter with the Gospel. Quote of the day: Catholicos Karekin II (RNS)”Everything that concerns the people should concern the church. We have created a nation which holds to Christ and which will always be under the Lord’s blessing and praise his glory.” _ Newly enthroned Catholicos Karekin II, head of the Armenian Apostolic, in an interview with Ecumenical News International, on his vision of the role of the church as Armenia deals with the crisis brought about by the assassination of eight government officials. DEA END RNS