Eastern Celebrations Mask Deeper Doctrinal Collapse
VaticanNews portal reports on three Eastern Christian events: Christmas preparations at Damascus’ Mar Elias Church (site of a 2025 suicide attack), Iraqi celebrations for martyrs Mar Behnam and Sara, and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church’s launch of a YouTube channel for children. The article frames these as signs of “faith and resilience” while systematically excluding the supernatural ends of the Church (salus animarum) in favor of naturalistic solidarity.
Damascus “Resilience” Replaces Sacramental Realism
The portal describes Syrian Christians erecting “the largest Christmas tree in Syria” on the site where attackers “killed and injured many people during the Divine Liturgy.” This reduction of Ecclesia martyrum to psychological resilience commits two grave omissions:
- No mention of the martyrs’ state of grace or whether victims received viaticum before the attack – the sole concern of Holy Mother Church when blood is shed in her temples (Council of Trent, Session XIV, On the Most Holy Sacrament of Extreme Unction).
- The transformation of a sacred crime scene into a festival of lights parallels the conciliar sect’s obsession with “human dignity” over divine justice. As Pius XI declared: “Peace is only possible in the kingdom of Christ” (Encyclical Quas Primas, §1), not in worldly displays of endurance.
“A powerful sign of faith and resilience: despite the tragedies, the Christian community remains standing.”
Herein lies the neo-church’s core heresy: equating bodily survival with fidelity. Contrast this with Christ’s warning: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (Matthew 10:28). True Catholic resilience demands odium fidei persecution and sacramental purity – elements suspiciously absent given the conciliar sect’s invalid Eucharistic rites.
Syncretistic Martyr Cult in Nineveh
The article promotes the feast of “Mar Behnam and Sara” – allegedly 4th-century pagan converts martyred by their father King Sennacherib, who later converted after being “struck by madness and then healed.” This uncritical celebration exhibits three doctrinal violations:
- The story mirrors Gnostic conversion tropes (miraculous healing preceding baptism) condemned by St. Irenaeus (Adversus Haereses, I.23.4). Authentic martyrologies like Prudentius’ Peristephanon never subordinate martyrdom to therapeutic miracles.
- Canon 1237 §1 of the 1917 Code forbade veneration of saints without Apostolic approval. These obscure “martyrs” lack recognition in Roman Martyrology or pre-conciliar Eastern calendars, suggesting neo-church innovation.
- The account whitewashes paganism by depicting Sennacherib’s baptism as automatic post-conversion, contrary to St. Augustine’s teaching that pagan rulers must “submit their crowns to Christ the King” (City of God, V.24).
Modernist Catechesis Through “Svitlyk” Project
Ukraine’s Greek Catholic sect launches a YouTube channel “to help children stay connected to their faith, the Church and Ukraine,” featuring an angel character teaching “Christian values.” This exemplifies the condemned modernist error of adapting revelation to modern mediums (Pius X, Lamentabili Sane, §58). Specifically:
- The angel “Svitlyk” (Little Ray) anthropomorphizes celestial beings, violating St. Thomas Aquinas’ teaching that angels appear in human form “not as their proper form, but assumed” (Summa Theologica I.51.2).
- “Educational videos” replace catechism memorization – the Church’s proven method for implanting truths (St. Pius X, Acerbo Nimis, §13).
- Promoting “kindness” without defining it as caritas in veritate (charity in truth) fosters the indifferentism condemned in Syllabus of Errors (§15-17).
Systemic Apostasy Revealed Through Omissions
The article’s silence on below proves its anti-Catholic essence:
- No invocation of Christ the King – The Damascus tree-lighting occurs without reference to the “Social Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ” (Pius XI, Quas Primas, §18), reducing Christmas to a celebration of community survival.
- No distinction between true and false martyrs – Behnam and Sara’s story lacks the odium fidei requirement defined by Benedict XIV (De Servorum Dei Beatificatione, III.11).
- No warning against electronic sacramentalization – “Svitlyk” presumes grace can be transmitted digitally, denying the ex opere operato nature of sacraments (Council of Trent, Session VII, Canon 8).
Source:
News from the Orient – Dec 19, 2025 (vaticannews.va)
Date: 19.12.2025