Confusing times, in which a future persecution of Christians in Syria is thwarted by the vetoes of Russia and the People's Republic of China; those two countries certainly had their own reasons for voting against the adoption of a draft resolution proposed by the United States and European members of the United Nations Security Council, but at least the wholesale persecution of Christians in Syria (as in neighboring Iraq and in Egypt) is postponed for the moment. Meanwhile, another Copt building (a church dedicated to Saint George) was burned down by Muslims yesterday in Aswan Province, Egypt.
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As we had asked before, in this time of upheaval and uncertainty, please, be mindful of Christians in Syria - the land that gave us so many conversions, saints, martyrs and confessors, since the earliest days of our Church, the land that gave us, through its ancient Petrine See of Antioch (now located in southern Turkey), some of the major rites of the East, including that of Constantinople.
"Remember in your prayers the Church in Syria, which now has God for its shepherd, instead of me."
(Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Romans)
