c. 1999 Religion News Service
Patriarch Pavle heads for Kosovo in effort to stem Serb exodus
(RNS) The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church says he will move to Kosovo”for an extended period”in an attempt to get minority Serbs to stay in the province despite fears returning ethnic Albanians will seek revenge.
Patriarch Pavle, who has called for the ouster of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, Wednesday (June 16) urged Serbs and Orthodox Montenegrins not to flee Kosovo, the historic home of Orthodox Serb culture.
Tens of thousands of Serbs are reported to be leaving Kosovo with retreating Yugoslav military forces because of fears that ethnic Albanians will seek revenge for the atrocities they say Serbians carried out against them.
Pavle said he would go to Pec, a western Kosovo city that has been the Serbian Orthodox Church’s spiritual center since 1346. Pavle appealed to Orthodox Christians not to abandon Kosovo, the location of thousands of churches, monasteries and other Orthodox sites.
Despite Pavle’s call, the Serbian Orthodox bishop of Prizren in Kosovo fled that city Wednesday with a number of priests. Bishop Artemije left Prizren under German escort because, he said, his safety could not be guaranteed.
Prizren is home to some of the Serbian church’s most cherished sites in Kosovo. The Rev. Zoran Grujic, one of those who left with Artemije, said”we are leaving with a hope of returning,”the Associated Press reported.
Pope ends nostalgic, flu-stricken Poland vist, returns to Rome
(RNS) _ Pope John Paul II ended an emotional visit to his homeland Thursday (June 17) by praying at his family tomb and entrusting Poland and all the Poles to the spiritual care of the Black Madonna of Jasna Gora.
The pope told the 250,000 pilgrims who waited at the shrine that he prayed to the icon to care for”myself, the church, all my fellow countrymen, without excluding anyone. I entrust to her every Polish heart, every home and every family.” Polish police authorities estimated a total of almost 9 million people turned out to see John Paul during his 13-day visit, the longest he has made to any country in the two decades of his papacy.
The crowds that greeted him on his previous trip two years ago totaled about 6 million, but many Poles fear this may be their last chance to see the aging Polish pope.
The 79-year-old Roman Catholic pontiff was in buoyant spirits and except for some hoarseness appeared completely recovered from the fever that forced him to cancel all his engagements Tuesday.
But on Thursday, he pushed back his departure by several hours to allow for the sidetrips.
Making up for lost time, John Paul also managed a brief stop in the city of Gliwice in Upper Slesia, which he had been scheduled to visit Tuesday.
The pope flew to Gliwice by helicopter on his way back to Krakow from the Shrine of the Black Madonna, and for the second time in three days, 500,000 Poles – more than twice the city’s population – turned out to greet him.”I would not put up with a pope like this,”John Paul jokingly told the crowd.”He says that he is coming and he doesn’t come. Then he isn’t supposed to come and instead he arrives.” The crowd responded with cries of,”It doesn’t matter,”and a smiling John Paul said,”Then I can return to Rome with a clear conscience.” The stop at Gliwice was important to the pope because with it he has completed his promise to visit each of Poland’s 43 dioceses during his papacy.
John Paul started his last day in Poland by celebrating Mass, attended by about 1,000 worshippers, in the St. Stanislaus Chapel of the 14th century Wavel Cathedral, and making a private visit to the crypt to pray at his family
tomb.
The pope first celebrated Mass at the tomb on Nov. 2, 1946, the day after he was ordained a priest. His mother Emilia, who died giving birth to a stillborn child in 1929, his older brother Edmund, a physician who died in 1932 fighting an outbreak of scarlet fever, and his father Karol, an army officer who died of a heart attack in 1941, are buried there.
The pope has a special veneration for the Black Madonna of Jasna Gora, but if Wednesday’s fog had not lifted he would not have been able to fly to the shrine at Czestochowa before leaving Poland.”I could not miss the Shrine of Jasna Gora on my pilgrimage,”he said at the shrine where a dramatic fanfare of trumpets sounded as authorities lifted the silver screen that normally covers the icon.
John Paul said he prayed to the madonna”to introduce and to consolidate the just peace in our hearts and in our surroundings.”
13 Protestants arrested in Mexico after upsetting Catholic villagers
(RNS) Thirteen evangelical Protestants were arrested in southern Mexico after angering Roman Catholic Indian villagers by trying to build a church.
The incident occurred in the state of Chiapas, where conflict between majority Catholics and minority Protestants, generally converts from Catholicism, has intensified in recent years.
The 13 were arrested Tuesday (June 15) in the village of Mitziton, where they sought to construct a church. Those detained were turned over to officials in the neighboring village of Flores Magon, whey they live, the Associated Press reported.
Many residents of Chiapas are members of various Mayan Indian groups who practice a mix of Catholicism and traditional beliefs, which they regard as crucial to the maintenance of their culture.
Synagogues dedicate services to imprisoned Iranian Jews
(RNS) Synagogues across North America will call attention this Sabbath to the 13 Iranian Jews who have been charged by Iran with spying for Israel and the United States.
Orthodox, Conservative and Reform groups have said they will offer special prayers for those arrested beginning Friday evening (June 18), the start of the Jewish Sabbath. The Sabbath ends at sundown Saturday evening.”In our tradition, the mitzvah (religious obligation) of redeeming captives is among the highest expressions of compassion and is a religious duty of the greatest importance,”said Rabbi Kenneth Hain, president of the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America.
Iran has not released details of the charges against the 13, who range in age from 16 to 48. Most are religious or community leaders of Iranian Jewish communities. The spy charges carry the death penalty.
Both the United States and Israel have denied that any of the 13 have spied for them. Iranian Jews living in the United States have said the arrests appear to be part of a power play between Islamic fundamentalists and moderates in Iran.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, at least 17 Iranian Jews have been executed in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, when tens of thousands of Jews fled Iran. An estimated 25,000 Jews remain in Iran.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who recently led a successful effort to free three American soldiers captured by Yugoslavia during the Kosovo conflict, has said he would attempt to get Teheran to release the 13 on humanitarian grounds. So far, he has been unsuccessful.
Official: Church of the Holy Sepulcher needs more doors to avoid tragedy
(RNS) An Israeli official says that unless additional doors are opened to Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher”people could die”if a fire breaks out inside Christianity’s holiest shrine when it’s packed with millennium pilgrims next year.
Uri Mor of Israel’s Religious Affairs Ministry noted that only one of the 11th-century church’s 10 doors are used because of disagreements between the various Christian groups that lay claim to portions of the church. The Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian churches control most of the church.
Israel is expecting large numbers of pilgrims during the millennium year _ including Pope John Paul II _ and government officials have sought to no avail to get Christian approval of structural changes in the church in advance of the expected surge.
Mor said that about 15,000 people can fit inside the church, home to what most Christians believe is the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial tomb. But he noted that the single functioning door is only about six-feet wide.”It’s a very dangerous situation,”he told Reuters news service Thursday (June 17).”If a fire erupts in the church, many people could die.”
Quote of the Day: Cardinal Francis George, Catholic archbishop of Chicago
(RNS)”The conversation between Christianity and Islam is not yet far advanced, but its outcome will determine what the globe will look like a century from now.” _ Cardinal Francis George, Roman Catholic archbishop of Chicago, speaking Wednesday (June 16) in Washington at the”Frontiers of the Mind in the 21st Century”symposium.
DEA END RNS