Copts

A fire ripped through a packed Coptic Orthodox church during morning services in Egypt's capital on Sunday, quickly filling it with thick black smoke and killing 41 worshippers, including at least 15 children.

A French-Norwegian archaeological team has discovered new Christian ruins in Egypt's Western Desert, revealing monastic life in the region in the fifth century AD, the Egyptian antiquities ministry said on March 13.

he Bulgarian Orthodox Church celebrates on Thursday, January 18, the Day of St. Athanasius, who is the ruler of snow and ice.

In Bulgarian folk beliefs, the holiday - known as Atanasovden - is said to mark the middle of winter, when the season starts to change over, setting the ground for spring.

Egypt's president on Sunday inaugurated a new cathedral for the Coptic Orthodox Church and one of the region's largest mosques in a highly symbolic gesture at a time when Islamic militants are increasingly targeting the country's minority Christians.

The Ministry of Education, Research and Religion will grant licenses to all houses of worship operating in Greece since 1955, according to a cyclical issued on Wednesday.

The move concerns houses of worship used by the Muslim minority in Thrace, northern Greece, and on the islands of Kos and Rhodes, synagogues and the churches of Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals and Copts.

The Greek Foreign Ministry on Saturday condemned Friday's attack by a gunman on a Coptic Christian church and a Christian-owned shop near Cairo in Egypt that left 11 people dead.

Egypt has created a "national council" to combat the rise of Islamist "terrorism" which has targeted its security forces and Coptic Christian minority, in a presidential decree issued on Wednesday.

The decree, published in Egypt's official gazette, sets up a "national council to combat terrorism and extremism" by adopting a "global national strategy."

With all the attacks we see against the Christian communities in the wider area of the Middle East, we think the following short interview of a man who is the author of a book dedicated exactly on this issue, will be of a great interest:

Egyptian forces have struck “terrorist training camps” in retaliation for an attack on Coptic Christians, President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi says.

State media say the strikes hit the town of Derna in neighbouring Libya.

Gunmen earlier attacked a bus carrying worshippers in central Egypt, killing at least 28 people and wounding 25 others, officials say.

Gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying Coptic Christians south of the Egyptian capital on May 26, killing 24 people and wounding 25, officials said.