Apr

2013

8:53am, EDT

Gunmen kidnap two bishops in Syria

By Dominic Evans and Alistair Lyon, Reuters

BEIRUT -- Two Syrian bishops kidnapped by gunmen on Monday are still missing, church sources in Damascus and Aleppo said on Wednesday, contradicting a report that the men had been freed.

A source at the Syriac Orthodox Archdiocese of Aleppo said the bishops had not been released and he was unaware of any contact with their abductors. At the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Damascus, a source also said there was no indication they had been freed.

The Israelis, British and French say there is evidence Syria used deadly Sarin gas against civilians. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports.

Greek Orthodox archbishop Paul Yazigi and Syriac Orthodox archbishop Yohanna Ibrahim were seized near the northern commercial and industrial hub of Aleppo, which is contested by rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.

Authorities blamed the abduction on a "terrorist group", the label they usually give to anti-Assad rebels, but opposition fighters in the province denied they had kidnapped the two and said they were working for their release and trying to find out who had taken them.

The bishops were the most senior church figures caught up in the fight between Assad's forces and rebels trying to end four decades of family rule by Assad and his late father.

The conflict has killed more than 70,000 people and frightened minority groups as the mainly Sunni Muslim rebels gain ground in northern Syria, where Salafi and jihadi groups, including the al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, have emerged as among the most formidable insurgent formations.

Slideshow: Syria uprising

A look back at the conflict that has overtaken the country.

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Mar

2012

1:02pm, EDT

Rowan Williams quits: could Anglican church have its first black spiritual leader?

Leon Neal / AFP - Getty Images

A file picture taken on July 11, 2008 shows Archbishop of York John Sentamu speaking to the media about the plight of the people who have fled Zimbabwe in Parliament Square in London.

By Alastair Jamieson, msnbc.com

LONDON - The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams - spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion - is to step down, ending a turbulent era in which Church of England has been sharply divided on issues such as same-sex marriage, female clergy and gay bishops.

He announced on his website Friday he would be leaving his post at the end of the year after a decade of wrestling with the near-impossible task of reconciling traditionalists and liberals among the church's 77 million worldwide followers.

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The church is known in the U.S. as the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America. Its Presiding Bishop is currently Katharine Jefferts Schori.

"Williams was in an almost impossible position, trying to keep together the two tectonic plates of the increasingly liberal American Anglican church and the conservatives in Africa," Jonathan Wynne-Jones, a Chicago-based journalist and former Religious Affairs Correspondent of Britain's Sunday Telegraph told msnbc.com.

"The Episcopal Church is very liberal on issues such as gay marriage and gay clergy - it ordained a lesbian bishop two years ago - and Williams has been caught between them and conservatives without really satisfying either side."

Williams has also tried to reach an agreed position on the ordination of women as bishops in the Church of England after a string of traditionalists left to join the Roman Catholic church.

Unlike the Catholic Church, the Anglican movement's head has no direct control over its members, making the structure of authority harder to define. It has approximately 1.9 million followers in the United States and central America.

Williams, an academic and a poet, will move to a new post as master of Magdalene College at Cambridge University.

In an interview with the Press Association on Friday, he spoke of the demands of the job, hoping that his successor "has the constitution of an ox and the skin of a rhinoceros".

He added: "I think the Church of England is a great treasure. I wish my successor well in the stewardship of it."

The current favorite to succeed him is the Uganda-born Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, a populist conservative with a high media profile thanks to his attention-grabbing acts, such as sky-diving to raise money for families of servicemen killed in Afghanistan.

The Daily Telegraph reported that other possible contenders to replace Williams include: Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London who gave the address at the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton last year; Bishop of Bradford Nick Baines, known as the ''blogging'' bishop, in recognition of his enthusiasm for new media; and Tim Stevens, the Bishop of Leicester.

However, Wynne-Jones said: "Sentamu is the hot favorite but I would not be surprised if the eventual choice is somebody who has kept a lower profile."

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