Ecumenical News International News Highlights 03 March 2003

Indian church leaders disappointed by ruling party victory in Tamil Nadu

New Delhi (ENI). Christian leaders in Tamil Nadu expressed disappointment after the governing party of the southern Indian state won a district election, widely seen as a referendum on a controversial state law banning forced religious conversions. The opposition Congress Party had hoped to capitalise on Christian discontent about the law which, churches said, was directed against religious minorities and could put at risk Christian relief work. [226 words, ENI-03-0094]

Sudanese warring parties accelerating mobilisation warn churches

Johannesburg (ENI). Sudanese church leaders warned of accelerated military mobilisation and that parishes all over Sudan were reporting forced recruitment by warring parties in the country’s civil war, despite continuing peace negotiations. The church leaders were speaking at the Sudan Ecumenical Forum which assembled more than 60 Sudanese church leaders and their international church partners at Bronkhorstspruit, near Pretoria, in South Africa, to lend weight to Sudanese peace efforts. [453 words, ENI-03-0095]

Orthodox church in India canonises second saint

Kochi, India (ENI). The largest Orthodox church in India has canonised a second saint at the church’s base at Kottayam in the southern state of Kerala. Leaders of the nearly two-million-strong Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church on 24 February solemnly canonised Vattasseril Geevarghese Mar Dionysius. Dionysius headed the church from 1909 until his death in 1934 and was its first Catholicos, or most senior leader. [300 words, ENI-03-0093]

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