Aid to the Church in Need Edinburgh Event: The Victory of the Cross
Father Samer Nassif of Lebanon speaking at Aid to the Church in Need’s 2009 Edinburgh event
11 May 2009 19:00
St Mary’s Cathedral
York Place
Edinburgh
EH1 3JD
THE concerns of the suffering Church in India and the Middle East were in the spotlight at Aid to the Church in Need’s The Victory of the Cross event in Edinburgh – where a new initiative in Scotland to help persecuted Christians was unveiled.
During the event at Saint Mary’s Cathedral in Edinburgh on Monday 11th May, Cardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien, the Archbishop of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh, announced that Aid to the Church in Need is to open an office in Scotland this summer.
After Mass, up to 120 people packed into the Cathedral hall to hear keynote speaker Father Samer Nassif, a Maronite priest from Lebanon, describe the dramatic decline of Christianity in the Middle East.
Father Nassif told the audience there were “four times more Christian martyrs in the 20th century than during the first four centuries of Christianity”.
But he also sounded a note of hope when he spoke of the growing vocations in countries where Christians are persecuted.
Following Father Nassif’s talk, Aid to the Church in Need UK’s Head of Press and Information, John Pontifex, described speaking with Christian refugees in displacement camps in Orissa, east India.
The Christians had fled their villages after extremists attacked them with guns and explosives, setting homes and churches on fire.
In his homily during Mass, Cardinal O’Brien had stressed the necessity of supporting persecuted Christians, emphasising that wealth and possessions are gifts from God.
He said: “At the deepest of levels we must realise that human beings don’t really possess anything for ourselves.
“What we have is really given to us on loan; our material possessions, the wealth we think we have in our banks or in our savings are not really for ourselves but they are for others.”
The Cardinal congratulated Aid to the Church in Need on its new office in Scotland and voiced his ongoing support for the charity’s work.
Reflecting on the event, Aid to the Church in Need Scottish Secretary Doctor John Watts said: “We were delighted and grateful for the support of all our friends.”