Easter - Page 4

Venezuelans in the national capital, Caracas, burned effigies of dictator Nicolás Maduro and his Russian patron Vladimir Putin in public this weekend as part of an Easter tradition known as “the burning of Judas.”

President Joe Biden welcomed children and parents to the White House on Monday to celebrate Easter but made no mention of God or Jesus during his speech marking the Christian holiday.

Armed members of the Mai-Mai rebel movement stormed a Catholic church during Easter Sunday Mass in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), after which one of the rebels was shot dead by soldiers.

President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden went into hiding for the Easter weekend as controversies continue swirling around their family.

Marbach Christian Church in San Antonio, Texas, held an Easter basket giveaway event on Saturday to let neighbors know how much they are loved.

Senior British royals including Prince William and his wife Kate have attended an Easter Sunday church service at Windsor Castle.

Archbishop Justin Welby, the de facto head of the Church of England, has used his Easter message to attack British government plans to transfer some male boat migrants to Rwanda while their asylum claims are processed, claiming the policy “is the opposite of the nature of God”.

Christians celebrate Easter this Sunday, proclaiming the cornerstone of their faith, that Jesus Christ rose from the grave in a bodily resurrection. Alone among the world’s religions, Christians believe that on the third day after his public execution on Good Friday, the founder and focus of their faith rose from the dead.

Easter Sunday will mark the 61st anniversary of the Cuban and American fighters of Brigade 2506 landing at Bay of Pigs, a fitting day for an organization that emphasizes its Christian core values and bears a cross on its logo.

Slightly more Americans say they will attend an Easter church service this year — another sign that people are anxious to return to a state of pre-pandemic normalcy — a Rasmussen Reports survey released Thursday found.

British prime minister Boris Johnson declined to offer Holy Week greetings for Good Friday, Maundy Thursday, and Palm Sunday on social media — but made time to recognise the Tamil and Sinhalese new year and publish video messages to mark the Jewish Passover and Sikh Vaisakhi.

Christians worldwide are observing Good Friday today, the solemn anniversary of Jesus of Nazareth being executed on a wooden cross on a hill outside the walls the Jerusalem in Israel in the year A.D. 30. This is one of the two pivotal days of Holy Week, with the other being Easter Sunday. Christians believe that this was an act of sacrifice of a perfect and sinless person who died in the place of imperfect people to pay for their sins, securing eternal salvation for them.

The New York Times published an op-ed Friday that proposes eliminating belief in God — as one of the holiest weekends of the year begins.

The Jewish festival of Passover begins Friday evening at sundown, marking the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt thousands of years ago — an event that every Jew is meant to observe as if he or she had personally experienced it.

Former Vice President Mike Pence said on Good Friday he was joining people all over the globe to remember what Jesus Christ did for them.

International Christian aid group Open Doors spotlighted the generous and forgiving prayers of Nigerian pastors on this Easter holiday. They prayed for peace in a land that rarely knows it and asked for the salvation of enemies in a region that has no shortage of them.

Sunday in Sri Lanka will mark the third Easter since Islamic State-affiliated jihadists bombed three churches and three Christian-frequented hotels on the holiest holiday in Christianity, killing over 200 people and injuring hundreds of others.

Swedish public broadcaster SVT has been criticised after inviting an imam from a controversial school onto a programme to explain the Christian holiday of Easter.

At the end of Monday’s press briefing, a costumed individual dressed as the Easter bunny entered the room carrying a basket of candy.

The traditional Easter bunny costume included a massive mask. President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden also wore a mask for the occasion.

President Joe Biden spent his Easter weekend at the presidential retreat at Camp David, but kept everything he and his family did a secret.

BOCHNIA, Poland (AP) – Polish hospitals struggled over the Easter weekend with a massive number of people infected with COVID-19 following a huge surge in infections across Central and Eastern Europe in recent weeks.

State troopers in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut joined forces to make Easter special for a little girl who recently lost her parents.

VATICAN CITY (AP) – Christianity’s most joyous feast day was celebrated worldwide with faithful sitting far apart in pews and singing choruses of “Hallelujah” through face coverings on a second Easter Sunday conditioned by pandemic precautions.

VATICAN CITY — Christianity’s most joyous feast day was celebrated worldwide with faithful sitting far apart in pews and singing choruses of “Hallelujah” through face coverings on a second Easter Sunday conditioned by pandemic precautions.

Police were volubly expelled from a Polish church in Alberta, Canada after disrupting an Easter service, with the pastor denouncing them as “Gestapo Nazi communist fascists” and “psychopaths”.

Footage widely shared on social media shows London police interrupting a Good Friday service at a Polish church in London and threatening Christians with fines unless they dispersed.

The Italian government is expected to deploy up to 70,000 police and carabinieri over Easter weekend to prevent large gatherings and enforce lockdown restrictions.

Christians in San Pedro Cutud — a neighborhood in Pampanga, Philippines — canceled its annual Good Friday crucifixions for the second year in a row in response to federal limits on gatherings to curb the spread of Chinese coronavirus.

CESKE BUDEJOVICE, Czech Republic (AP) — A revival of an old Easter tradition has gone ahead in southern Czech Republic amid tight coronavirus restrictions.

JERUSALEM — Christians in the Holy Land are marking Good Friday this year amid signs the coronavirus crisis is winding down, with religious sites open to limited numbers of faithful but none of the mass pilgrimages usually seen in the Holy Week leading up to Easter.

The government of the Philippines will forcibly close Catholic churches in Manila if priests hold Easter masses next week in violation of a federal mandate banning religious gatherings in the city to curb the spread of coronavirus, it announced on Tuesday.

Greek churches in Thessaloniki have been accused of making secret lists of worshipers to help them get around Wuhan coronavirus restrictions and kiss church icons.

BERLIN (AP) – Germany on Sunday implemented tighter border controls on its frontiers with the Czech Republic and Austria’s Tyrol province in an effort to stem the spread of more contagious coronavirus variants.

Simply by taking a stand, Eric Dreiband said, the DOJ had encouraged several local governments to back down from extreme coronavirus measures that discriminated against religious institutions.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock thanked Muslims for their Ramadan “sacrifice” on St George’s Day, but made no mention of the English national day itself.