Gaza Catholics

A really interesting aricle in the Financial Times earlier in the week. I requested details from that newspaper of copying for my blog and helpfully received their advice that I could use some of the article, subject to crediting them with the original, which I am  of course pleased to do. They did not provide details of the photographer so if he or she, wishes  to contact me about their picture,  please do so.

An extract from the Financial Times article reads:

 

For hundreds of years, empires and armies have come and gone in Gaza, but holy service at the Church of Saint Porphyrius has continued. The rituals have carried on in recent weeks as Israeli forces moved on Gaza City, bombs fell and fighting raged on the streets outside. Despite the battle around them, Greek Orthodox priests dressed in gold-trimmed cassocks have carried on holding mass for the hundreds taking shelter in the church. Built on a site first consecrated in the fifth century, this house of God has become a wartime home for many of the enclave’s Christian community.

Hopefully the church in Gaza still survives. The Christian numbers have already fallen to  under 1,000  remaining there, which sadly my old HCPT friend who was originally Iraqi from Baghdad, says is  being mirrored in  her old country as well, where one of her uncles is a Catholic archbishop, I believe. 

Let us hope and pray that the killings in Gaza cease soon and that the hostages kidnapped by terrorists, who at the time of their brutal invasion, also killed many innocents, will be released safely in the coming hours and days.