According to Turkish media, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has given instructions to change the statute of the complex of St Sophia, the ancient Christian Byzantine Basilica currently open to the public as a museum, so that it can also be used again as a place of Islamic prayers. Hagia Sophia was transformed into a mosque after the Ottoman capture of Constantinople in 1453, and then became a museum in 1935. At the end of May, thousands of people filled the vast square outside to celebrate the anniversary of the Ottoman conquest and lobby for its reopening as a mosque.
Christians and Muslims hope a project to reconstruct Mosul's iconic places of worship, badly damaged by Islamic State militants during their occupation of the city, will also help to rebuild trust between Iraq's religious communities. The $50.4 million Unesco project, funded by the United Arab Emirates, envisions rebuilding not only the Great Mosque of al-Nouri and its minaret, but also the Dominican church of Our Lady of the Hour and the Al-Tahera Syriac Catholic Church.Dominican Fr Olivier Poquillon says Mosul's Sunni Muslims told Unesco that if they rebuilt the Great Mosque, the old city needed the Dominican church restored too. "We are sharing a joint responsibility to rebuild for the common good," he said. Workers are having to clear mines as they gather historical stones from ruins.
Belgian churches, mosques and synagogues reopened for public worship on Monday 8 June after the country's National Security Council overruled a decision by the top administrative court for a delay. The council said houses of worship could receive a maximum of 100 people as long as they observed social distancing with 10 square meters for every participant. This ceiling would be raised to 200 in July, it added. The Belgian bishops issued a long list of conditions and measures to take for churches to reopen, and thanked the faithful for following Mass transmissions online and organising prayer sessions and other ways to express their faith.
The site where Jesus is thought to have fed the 5,000 and healed a blind man has been submerged by flooding, forcing archaeologists to abandon excavations until the end of the year. They are trying to prove that the lost town of Bethsaida- hometown to disciples Andrew, Peter and Philip – once stood at El-Araj on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. However, heavy rains caused the Sea of Galilee – also known as Lake Kinneret and Lake Tiberias – to flood the excavation site and fish are now swimming around the ruins.
The pandemic caused by Covid-19 is “without doubt having devastating effects with tragic consequences for the poorest populations", say the Bishops of the Symposium of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM). Last week, they highlighted the impact of lockdown on key sectors such as tourism and the hotel industry. There is fear of a “social explosion” in countries “already burdened with debt and where unemployment continues to worsen", they said. SECAM calls for debt alleviation and for large multinational companies which exploit Africa’s raw materials "to make significant contributions to the host countries to enable them to provide basic social services such as hospitals, schools, and adequate and affordable housing". They urge pharmaceutical companies, “not to exploit the situation to make profit but join in the efforts to provide care for vulnerable people".
Bishop Petrus Canisius Mandagi of Amboina in Indonesia’s Maluku province says he can hardly believe that amid the Covid-19 pandemic that has caused so much misery, some seek to profit from it. “They are now becoming richer,” the Sacred Heart bishop said during a live-streamed Mass on Pentecost Sunday at St Francis Xavier Cathedral in Ambon. He suggested those profiteering do not want to see a decline in the number of new cases, “because if the pandemic subsides their income will also drop”.
An identical replica of a Baroque Marian column torn down by an angry mob more than 100 years ago, has been returned to Prague’s Old Town Square. The seventeenth-century column was toppled in 1918, days after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, by radicals who saw it as a symbol of Habsburg repression and Catholic domination of the country. The sculptor of the replica Petr Vána and the Marian Column Restoration Societyrealised their 30-year quest to return the Virgin Mary to her spot atop the 17-metre column amidst applause, cheers, prayers and hymns.
Economic crisis and closures during the pandemic continue to threaten Lebanon’s Maronite Catholic schools. The Secretariat of Catholic Schools has issued an open letter to President Michel Aoun, criticising the lack of public support, especially in depressed regions where schools operate essentially free of charge. Last week, the Maronite Archbishop of Beirut, Boulos Abdel Sater, ordered the cancellation of an instalment of fees due from many students. Some institutes – such as those headed by the Marists – have continued to pay the wages of employees, while others halved the salaries of their teaching and non-teaching staff.
Archbishop Cyprian Kizito Lwanga of Kampala called for increased charity during the coronavirus pandemic, as he led a small number of church leaders in marking the feast of Uganda Martyrs’ day. For the first time in many years, the annual 3 June festival was postponed after Covid-19 regulations affected the movement of pilgrims and preparation plans. About 60 people were allowed to participate in celebrations which are usually attended by millions of Christians from the East African region at the Martyrs’ Shrine in Namugongo. The priests wore red vestments symbolising the blood of martyrs and the fire of Pentecost. “The martyrs teach us that at the moment of crisis and challenges, we should increase our works of charity and our works of love,” said Lwanga in his homily. The Christian martyrs who were killed between 1886 and 1887. Kabaka Mwanga II, the King of Buganda Kingdom ordered the burning to death of the young men after they refused to recant their Christian faith. Of the 45 martyrs, 22 were Catholics while 23 were Anglicans.
Tropical Storm Amanda hit Guatemala and El Salvador last week and re-formed off the coast of Mexico as Tropical Storm Cristobal. At least 30 people have been killed in the three countries. Amanda caused flooding and landslides in El Salvador and Guatemala at the start of the week. Then Cristobal made landfall on Wednesday on Mexico’s Gulf Coast before continuing and hitting the coast of Louisiana on Sunday.
The Archbishop of Yucatan, Gustavo Rodríguez Vega, called for people to donate supplies to victims and said that churches should open their doors to people in need, while maintaining social distancing.
José Antonio Eguren, Archbishop of Piura in northern Peru, said this week that state and federal government must do a better job coordinating actions to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus in the region. Archbishop Eguren said that support has been slow to arrive to Piura, where more than 600 people have died of Covid-19. As of Sunday night, Peru had reported 5,465 deaths due to the virus.
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