CAIRO - More than half a dozen Coptic Christians were killed and another half dozen were wounded, many seriously, after a Thursday morning drive-by shooting after a Christmas midnight mass in Nag Hamadi in Upper Egypt.
Egypt’s Coptic Christian community was celebrating midnight mass on Christmas Day, according to the Coptic calendar, when the shooter sprayed […]

TULSA - U.S. Christian evangelist Oral Roberts has died at the age of 91.
A spokesman said Roberts died in a hospital in Newport Beach, California Tuesday from complications related to pneumonia.
He founded Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Roberts said he had heard the voice of God telling him to build a university while he was […]

ABUJA - Nigerian Christians are gathered in the Niger Delta city of Warri to fast and pray with the hope that peace and stability will be restored in the Niger Delta.
Thousands of Christian worshippers sing at the special prayer session for peace in the Niger Delta. Some Nigerian Christians are deeply troubled by the fighting […]

CAIRO - Tensions between Muslims and Christians in Egypt often make headlines. The Christian minority is said to comprise 10 percent of the country’s population. But the work of a group of Christian doctors paints a more upbeat picture of coexistence. The doctors run a hospital for mostly Muslim patients in Egypt’s heartland, the Nile […]

JERUSALEM - Thousands of Christian pilgrims converged on Jerusalem for Easter Sunday celebrations  marking the biblical resurrection of Jesus Christ.   
Easter celebrations began with a sunrise service at the Garden Tomb, where Christians sang hymns of the resurrection. The garden, with its ancient tomb carved in a rock, is said to resemble the place where Jesus […]

JERUSALEM - Thousands of pilgrims converged on Jerusalem to celebrate Palm Sunday. Church bells rang through the cobblestone alleyways of Jerusalem’s Old City, marking Palm Sunday and the beginning of Easter Holy Week.
Priests wearing festive red robes and carrying palm branches led a procession through the ancient Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the traditional site […]

MOSCOW - A new patriarch has taken charge of the Russian Orthodox Church, becoming the church’s first leader to be installed since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Patriarch Kirill received his vestments in a ceremony Sunday attended by hundreds of worshippers, including dozens of top clerics, as well as Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Russian […]

MOSCOW - Russia has buried its first post-Soviet Orthodox patriarch, after a funeral attended by presidents, foreign emissaries and the country’s political elite.
A cortege of black limousines escorted the coffin of Patriarch Alexei from Christ the Savior Cathedral through Moscow streets.  Bells tolled across the city, as the 79-year-old Alexei was laid to rest at […]

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries
JOS, NIGERIA (ANS) – Hundreds of people are reported to have been killed in central Nigeria after Christians and Muslims clashed over the result of a local election.
According to the BBC, a Muslim charity in the town of Jos, the capital of Plateau State, says it collected more than 300 […]

Iraq Pledges $900,000 to Help Displaced Christians 
By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service
BAGHDAD, IRAQ (ANS) – Iraq’s president on Sunday pledged nearly $900,000 to help Christian families who have fled the northern Iraqi city of Mosul because of killings and threats.
CNN reported that according to a statement from President Jalal Talabani’s office, the money […]

Anti-Christian violence spills into Kenya as Somali Muslims attack in Nairobi 
By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service
NAIROBI, KENYA (ANS) – Among at least 24 aid workers killed in Somalia this year was one who was beheaded last month specifically for converting from Islam to Christianity, among other charges, according to an eyewitness.
According to a […]

15,000 Assyrians Have Fled Mosul in the Last Two Weeks 
By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries
MOSUL, IRAQ (ANS) – Officials in Mosul have told the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) that the number of Assyrians driven out of Mosul in the past two weeks has risen to 15,000, or about 2500 families.
An AINA spokesperson told […]

By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service
SPARTANBURG, SOUTH CAROLINA (ANS) – A Degar Christian was recently tortured and killed by Vietnamese security police.
According to a news release from the Montagnard Foundation, the murder of Y-Cung Nie occurred on April 14 after his involvement in a demonstration protesting the arrest of three Christians who had […]

Human Rights Group Launches Petition To Secure their Release  
By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service
WASHINGTON, D.C. (ANS) – A human rights group has learned that Yemeni authorities continue to detain Christians who convert from Islam to Christianity.
Yemen is located in the Middle East, bordering the Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden and Red Sea, between […]

Chinese Airport Officials Seize 300 Bibles from American Christians
 
By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service
KUNMING, YUNNAN PROVINCE, CHINA (ANS) – A group of American Christians who had more than 300 Chinese Bibles confiscated by officials when they arrived in China is refusing to leave Kunming International Airport until they get the books back.
According to […]

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries
UNITED STATES (ANS) – The son of a top Hamas leader has converted to Christianity and prays some day his family will also accept Jesus Christ as their savior, according to an Israeli newspaper. 
Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of West Bank Hamas leader Sheik Hassan Yousef, revealed for the first […]

By Mark Ellis
Senior Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
GAZA (ANS) – An English-language kindergarten, a cultural center and an attached private home in Gaza were ransacked and looted by Hamas in the early morning hours of July 27.
“They gutted it completely,” says Dr. Taysir “Tass” Abu Saada, president of Seeds of Hope International, a humanitarian organization. […]

Deportation Comes Two Weeks after King Abdullah Calls for Reconciliation Between Muslims and Christians at Saudi Hosted Interfaith Dialogue 
By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
SAUDI ARABIA (ANS) – Saudi Arabia is set to deport 15 Christians on Tuesday, August 5, for holding private worship meetings in a house in the city of Taif.
International Christian […]

WASHINGTON - A U.S.-based Jewish foundation Sunday honored more than 60 elderly Polish Christians who risked their lives hiding Jews from the occupying Nazis in World War II.
The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous gives Poles financial aid to help bolster their small government pensions.
Some of the honorees told their stories during a ceremony in Warsaw. […]

By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service
MADRID (ANS) – King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has called on followers of the world’s main religions to turn away from extremism and embrace a spirit of reconciliation.
The king was opening a conference in Madrid which brings together Muslims, Christians, Jews and Buddhists.
BBC News reported he said the […]

By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service
DALLAS, TEXAS (ANS) – Egypt’s Coptic church is calling on President Hosni Mubarak to guarantee Christians’ safety after a violent attack on a monastery in which four Copts were injured.
According to a story reported by the AFP News Service, the Coptic Ecclesiastical Council called on Mubarak to stop […]

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service  
EGYPT / ERITREA (ANS) – Egypt has begun the forcible repatriation of more than 1,000 Eritrean refugees held in several prisons around the country.
A report from Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), says the deportations, which are in violation of Egypt’s obligations under international law, have occurred in spite of a […]

Rock pioneer Bo Diddley dies at age 79 
 
By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries
ARCHER, FL (ANS) – Rock-and-roll pioneer Bo Diddley, whose innovative rhythms and guitar effects inspired legions of musicians, died Monday at his North Central Florida home, a spokeswoman said. He was 79.
According to a story written for the Miami Herald by Michael […]

Egyptian authorities threaten to deport 150 Eritrean refugees 
 
By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
CAIRO, EGYPT (ANS) – Egyptian authorities are to begin forced deportations of some 150 Eritrean prisoners currently held in Kanater prison in Cairo within a few days.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) has received information indicating that the Eritrean detainees, who originally fled […]