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In his traditional Christmas epistle, Patriarch Irinej Gavrilović put special emphasis on the position of Serbs in Kosovo, saying that suffering and injustice persist there. He noted, “Unrest and violence rule in Kosovo and Metohija. For decades and centuries, they’ve robbed us of that province, of historical Old Serbia”. The patriarch wrote his message ahead of Christmas… celebrated by Serbia‘s majority Orthodox believers according to the Orthodox calendar, on 7 January. He said, “To our brothers and sisters in Kosovo and Metohija we say, ‘Be aware that you aren’t alone and forgotten, the entire Serbian nation and justice-loving people of the world are with you’”, calling on Kosovo Serbs to live in peace, harmony, and love, both with each other and with everyone else.
Patriarch Irinej also touched on the position of Serbs in former Yugoslav republics, noting that a campaign against the Cyrillic script is “used as a cover to continue the exile of Serbs from Croatia, to intimidate them, to prevent them from coming back”. He appealed to the Macedonian authorities to immediately release Archbishop Jovan Vraniškovski, head of the Orthodox Archdiocese of Ohrid of the Serbian Orthodox Church, who’s “unjustly held captive, his flock is denied freedom of faith and conscience”. He also urged the international community to prevent further discrimination. Vladyki Irinej also protested incessant “attacks of the authorities in Montenegro on the identity, status, and freedom of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and its attempts to interfere with its internal affairs and canonical structure”. In his epistle, the Patriarch wondered why the ideologues of the schismatic Montenegrin Orthodox Church don’t require a similar thing from Roman Catholics as well, to ask them to move their seat from the Vatican to Montenegro.
3 January 2014
B92
http://www.b92.net/eng/news/society.php?yyyy=2014&mm=01&dd=03&nav_id=88872
Christian Kids from Syria to Holiday at Russian Camp Due to Russian Generosity… Americans Nowhere to Be Seen
Tags: Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija, Christian, Christianity, Eastern Orthodox Church, Kirill I of Moscow, Kosovo and Metohija, Kosovo Serb, Kosovo Serbs, Ma'loula, Moscow Patriarchate, Orthodox, Orthodoxy, Patriarch Kirill, Patriarch Kirill I, political commentary, politics, Religion, Religion and Spirituality, Russia, Russian, Russian Orthodox Church, Serbia, Syria, UNICEF, Vladimir Yakunin
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On Monday, 100 children from the Damask Orthodox Shelter in the Mar Tekla Monastery in the Christian village of Ma’loula shall arrive in Moscow for a two-week vacation in a Russian holiday camp. V I Yakunin, the head of the Centre of National Glory supervisory board, one of the backers of the project, told us, “I’m certain that the Syrian kids will remember their stay in a Russian camp for their whole lives. I hope that this would be able to redirect the kids from the horrible events that befell them”. The kids will meet Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev of Moscow and all the Russias, have a tour around Moscow, take part in projects, and do sports. The Centre, together with the Andrei Pervozvanny Foundation, arranged holidays for kids from hot spots in the past… ten years ago, it sponsored some 540 children from Kosovo and Metohija.
The three years of conflict in Syria completely or partly destroyed some 1,600 schools and more than half of all hospitals. According to UN estimates, more than 9 million refugees inside Syria and more than 2 million in neighbouring countries are now in need of help. UNICEF estimated that the number of Syrian children living in poverty reached 6.6 million in June 2014. In the past, Russia assisted Syria. In 2013, the MChS sent 200 tons of humanitarian aid to Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. In return, the Syrian government decided to introduce the Russian language into the school curriculum starting in the 2014/15 school year.
28 July 2014
Rossiya Segodnya
http://en.ria.ru/society/20140728/191376506/Russia-to-Host-100-Syrian-Orthodox-Children-for-Two-Week.html