50,000 Christians Flee Syria?

In a repose to the Duma a Russian diplomat serving in Syria has estimated that 50,000 Christians have fled Syria or been killed during the course of the ongoing Syrian conflict. More here.

Bosnian Serbs Commemorate 1992-1995 Victims

On yesterday's feast of Sts. Peter and Paul Bosnia's Serbs, led by Bishop Vasilije (Kacavenda) of Zvornik, commemorated over 3,000 Serb civilians killed between 1992 and 1995 by Bosnian Muslim forces attempting to ethnically cleanse northeastern Bosnia of its Serb population. The leader of this campaign, Naser Oric, was given a 2-year jail term by the United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, but was later acquitted. More here and (in Serbian) here.

Patriarch Irinej Receives Representatives of Serb Refugees from Croatia

Representatives of associations representing Serb refugees from Croatia have visited the seat of the Pech Patriarchate in Belgrade to bring their concerns to the attention of Patriarch Irinej (Gavrilovich) of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Since the end of the conflict between Croatia and its Serb minority in the 1990s the Croatian government has failed to restore the property of its Serb citizens, identify the remains in unmarked graves across the country, or to establish an impartial system of courts to try those involved in war crimes during the period. More here.

"Shades of Grey: The Record of Archbishop Stepinac"

An excellent survey on why many have reservations over the veneration of Roman Catholic Archbishop Alojzije Cardinal Stepinac of Zagreb can be found here. Yes, the biases and past political associations of the author, Srdja Trifkovic, are well known. They do not, however, change Cardinal Stepinac's words or actions, and the article is therefore worth a read.

South Sudan Refuses War Over Abyei

South Sudanese President Salva Kiir has said that his country will not go to war with North Sudan over the latter's ongoing effort to ethnically cleanse a disputed district straddling the North-South Sudan border. More here.

Israel Approves West Bank Housing Expansion

The Israeli government has approved the construction of 294 homes on Palestinian Arab territory on the West Bank in the wake of an announcement from the US government that it still expects a peace between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority to include Palestinian Arab control of the entirety of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The houses will become residences for Jewish fundamentalists wanting to live in the area. More here.

EU Arrests Albanian War Crimes Suspects

The European Union has arrested nine war crimes suspects in Kosovo after a 2-hour standoff with Kosovar police. One of the nine arrested was the police commander in the southern Kosovar city of Prizren. All were members of the Kosovar Liberation Army. More here.

Serbia and Kosovo to Hold New Round of Negotiations

EU-moderated talks between Serbia and Kosovo are being scheduled. This round of talks will focus on the state of ethnically Serb northern Kosovo and the status of its residents, who continue to be governed by the Serbian government, in Kosovo. More here.

Armenians Protest Turkish Premier's Visit to Lebanon

Armenians living in Lebanon protested the arrival today of Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan. Lebanon's 150,000 Armenians are primarily descended from the survivors of the Armenian Genocide in eastern Anatolia organizedin 1915  by the Turks and Kurds. Armenian politicians in Lebanon were cautious in their comments on the Turkish leader's visit, but the Armenian Orthodox Church of Cilicia spoke against it and the Turkish government's ongoing denial of the Armenian Genocide. More here.

Iraq's Christians Continue to Leave

Since the 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein at least 300,000 of Iraq's then 800,000 Assyrians, Syriac and Antiochian Orthodox Christians, and Chaldean Catholics have fled the country for Jordan, Syria, and the West. Although despotic, the Baathist government protected the security and rights of the country's religious minorities, which both the United States and the post-Saddam Iraqi government have failed to do. More here.

Update on St. Gabriel's Monastery in Tur Abdin, Turkey

I misspoke in my last posting - the Syriac Orthodox Church in Turkey is still in the courts over the ownership of the lands of St. Gabriel's Monastery in Tur Abdin, with six cases having been brought against the monastery by either the Turkish government or local Kurdish villages. This appears to be in response to a recent increase in the number of ethnic Syrians returning to the area, which used to have a substantial Syriac Orthodox minority (as well as large Armenian and Antiochian Orthodox minorities) and was the seat of the Syriac Orthodox patriarch from 1160 till 1932. A recent press release on the situation can be found here.

Metropolitan Theodosius on Palestinian Unity

Metropolitan Theodosius (Hanna) of Sebaste in Palestine, the only ethnically Arab hierarch of the Church of Jerusalem, has called for the unity of the Palestinian Arab resistance movements and for international invention in the State of Israel's ongoing ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. More here.

Graves Vandalized in Turkey

Apparently on 28 October seventy-eight Orthodox Christian graves were vandalized on the island of Imbros. Imbros and its neighboring island, Tenedos, was 99% Orthodox Christian and Greek-speaking. After the islands' inclusion into Turkey at the end of World War I, however, the Turkish government forced and pressured the islands' Greek population into immigrating until only two or three hundred remain today as a minority in their homeland. Among others, the current Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople and the recently reposed Archbishop Iakovos of New York were natives of Imbros. More here.