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1717  Lugha ya kimaumbile Turkey Court Questions Validity of Church Leader Members of the worldwide ecumenical family have expressed support and solidarity to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew as the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople - today's Istanbul - is facing growing hardships imposed by the Turkish judiciary.
On 26 June a ruling by Turkey's Supreme Court of Appeals contested the ecumenical standing of the Patriarchate, stating that it is a religious body only authorised to perform religious functions for the Greek Orthodox minority in the country.
The court also ruled that the Patriarchate does not have any legal personality and that the Patriarch is not allowed to bear the title "ecumenical".
The ruling stated that the Patriarch as well as the Patriarchate officers are subject to Turkish law regarding their titles and activities. On 21 August, Bartholomew was summoned to testify before a prosecuting authority in Istanbul on his use of the title "Ecumenical" at a world conference of Orthodox youth that took place in the city a few weeks earlier.
In the face of these developments, on 27 August the Conference of European Churches (CEC) expressed its "strong support" for the right of the Patriarch to use of the title "Ecumenical".
In a letter addressed to Bartholomew, CEC's general secretary, the Venerable Colin Williams, wrote: "We could think of no other church leader in Europe who is so naturally recognised as a key figure in the ecumenical aspirations of the [continent's] churches."
On 29 August a similar letter addressed to Bartholomew by the World Council of Churches (WCC) General Secretary, the Rev Dr Samuel Kobia, expressed the Council's "whole-hearted appreciation of the authenticity and importance of the Ecumenical Patriarchate as an institution and the Ecumenical Patriarch as an office within the wider church world".
In his letter, Kobia conveyed to the Patriarch the WCC's "firm support" and reaffirmed Bartholomew's "ecumenical standing" while cherishing his "leadership in the global ecumenical movement". Tafsiri zilizokamilika  Türk Yargıtayının Kilise Liderlerinin Geçerlilikleri Hükmü | |
2404 Lugha ya kimaumbile Freedom for Last Three Korean Hostages Taliban militants in Afghanistan have released the last three South Korean hostages
Thursday after freeing 16 of the 19 South Korean hostages over the last two days in separate rounds of handovers.
A rebel negotiator told Agence France-Presse that the Taliban had handed over four hostages
to Afghan tribal leaders earlier on Thursday while the remaining three were released later on Thursday afternoon.
An Associated Press reporter who witnessed all three of Wednesday's handovers also saw the
morning handover of two men and two women to the officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross on a road in central Afghanistan's Janda area.
"They (the hostages) are in different locations and we have to bring them to one place before handing them over," said Taliban negotiator Qari Mohammad Bashir, who was involved in a series of meetings with a South Korean delegation to free the aid workers, according to AFP.
South Korean presidential spokesman '%s' said Thursday that once free, the group would head to Kabul before returning home via Dubai, putting an end to a six-week hostage crisis that began with the abduction of the original group of 23 that was travelling by bus in the insurgency-plagued Ghazni province to provide free medical services to poor Afghan citizens.
Since the July 19 abduction – the largest abduction of foreigners in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001 – two male hostages have been killed. The leader of the group, '%1', was found dead on July 25, and the body of 29-year-old '%2' was found July 30. Prior to the latest releases, two females – 37-year-old '%3' and 32-year-old '%4' – were freed on Aug. 13.
The latest releases occurred a day after the Taliban and South Korea struck a deal in which Korea promised to withdraw its 200 troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year and to block South Korean Christian missionaries from working in the country. The rebels had reportedly foregone their original demand for a prisoner exchange.
Although the South Korea presidential spokesman said Tuesday it may take some time before the actual releases take place, the first set of hostages – three women – was released the next day in the village of Qala-e-Kazi and was followed several hours later by the release of one man and four women in a desert close to Shah Baz. As evening approached, four more hostages – one man and three women – were handed over on a main road about 30 miles from Ghazni, according to The Associated Press.
Sammul Presbyterian Church in '%b', South Korea, the home church of the Korean hostages, has identified the 12 released as '%n'.
The identities of the most recently freed hostages have not yet been confirmed.
[Christian Today correspondent '%m' in Washington, USA contributed to this report] Tafsiri zilizokamilika Son Üç Koreli Rehineye Özgürlük | |
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1139 Lugha ya kimaumbile EU Chief to Assess Greek Forest Fire as Churches, Villages Destroyed BRUSSELS - The European Union's regional policy chief will visit Greece on Friday to assess how much financial aid the bloc can award to help deal with the damage caused by the country's worst forest fires in decades.
Regional Policy Commissioner Danuta Huebner will study how Greece can tap the EU's 1 billion euro ($1.36 billion) Solidarity Fund, which helps member states reconstruct after major natural disasters, two European Commission officials said.
The fires have ravaged Greece and yesterday engulfed a Greek Orthodox church in Thisoa village in central Peloponnese, some 250 km southwest of Athens.
"Commissioner Huebner wants to see the extent of the damage herself. The Greeks will have to apply for aid from the Solidarity Fund themselves," one official told Reuters.
It is too early to say how much Greece could get, but the sum is likely to be large, another official said. In 2002, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and France shared 728 million euros of EU cash to counter damage from summer floods.
Greek firefighters on Wednesday gained the upper hand over forest fires that have killed at least 63 people and left the government shaken by accusations of incompetence.
The European Commission, the EU executive, was discussing the disaster at its first meeting after the summer holidays on Wednesday. this is article for newspaper, so please use article language, thank you! Tafsiri zilizokamilika Yunanistan'daki Orman Yangınları | |
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