{"id":203342,"date":"2018-08-21T15:04:43","date_gmt":"2018-08-21T12:04:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/basilica.ro\/?p=203342"},"modified":"2018-08-21T15:04:43","modified_gmt":"2018-08-21T12:04:43","slug":"st-thekla-monastery-in-maaloula-syria-celebrates-first-liturgy-since-city-freed-from-terrorists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/st-thekla-monastery-in-maaloula-syria-celebrates-first-liturgy-since-city-freed-from-terrorists\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Thekla Monastery in Maaloula, Syria celebrates first liturgy since city freed from terrorists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"os\" data-enum=\"p3\" data-field=\" paragraph\"><strong>A great spiritual event took place recently when the Divine Liturgy was served in the St. Thekla Monastery in Maaloula, Syria on August 12.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"os\" data-enum=\"p4\" data-field=\" paragraph\">This was the first Liturgy served there in several years after the city was taken over by terrorists and several of the nuns were kidnapped for several months, reports\u00a0<em>ekklisiaonline.gr<\/em>, quoted by <em><a href=\"http:\/\/orthochristian.com\/115198.html\">orthocristian.com<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"os\" data-enum=\"p6\" data-field=\" paragraph\">The service was celebrated by His Grace Bishop Luke of Damascus.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_203322\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-203322\" style=\"width: 763px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-203322 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/298929.b.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"763\" height=\"567\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-203322\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">First Liturgy in Monastery St. Thekla, Maaloula, since city freed from terrorists. Photo: ekklisiaonline.gr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"os\" data-enum=\"p7\" data-field=\" paragraph\">The city was freed from terrorists in 2014, after which the restoration of the city and the monastery began.\u00a0<em>orthochristian.com<\/em> earlier<a class=\"tooltip\" title=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/orthochristian.com\/114918.html\"> reported<\/a>\u00a0that the nuns had returned to the monastery which had reopened its doors to pilgrims and tourists, and that the finishing touches were being put on the reconstruction.<\/p>\n<p class=\"os\" data-enum=\"p9\" data-field=\" paragraph\">Work on the monastery has now been completed, and with the liturgical life revived, the monastery is again a source of spiritual nourishment for the Orthodox faithful.<\/p>\n<p class=\"os\" data-enum=\"p10\" data-field=\" paragraph\">***<\/p>\n<p class=\"os\" data-enum=\"p11\" data-field=\" paragraph\">The Monastery of St. Thekla is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. ISIS\u00a0invaded\u00a0the small town of Maaloula on September 5, 2013, going on a rampage against Christian people and buildings, destroying all\u00a0holy sites\u00a0in the city.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_203320\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-203320\" style=\"width: 700px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-203320 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/298095.p.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"399\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-203320\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Monastery St. Thekla, Maaloula. Photo: spzh.news<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"os\" data-enum=\"p11\" data-field=\" paragraph\">3,000 fled the city, leaving only Muslims and the monastery\u2019s forty nuns, twelve of whom were kidnapped by ISIS in early December of the same year. The nuns were\u00a0<a class=\"tooltip\" title=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/www.pravoslavie.ru\/english\/69114.htm\">released<\/a>\u00a0in March 2014.<\/p>\n<p data-enum=\"p11\" data-field=\" paragraph\">Photo courtesy of:\u00a0<em>ekklisiaonline.gr<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A great spiritual event took place recently when the Divine Liturgy was served in the St. Thekla Monastery in Maaloula, Syria on August 12. This was the first Liturgy served there in several years after the city was taken over by terrorists and several of the nuns were kidnapped for several months, reports\u00a0ekklisiaonline.gr, quoted by&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":203319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[16690,16569,10386,10705,3923],"class_list":["post-203342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-autocephalous-orthodox-churches","tag-bishop-luke-of-damascus","tag-maaloula","tag-orthodox-news","tag-religious-news","tag-syria"],"better_featured_image":{"id":203319,"alt_text":"","caption":"","description":"","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":699,"height":393,"file":"2018\/08\/Prima-Liturghie-Maaloula.jpg","sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"Prima-Liturghie-Maaloula-360x360.jpg","width":360,"height":360,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Prima-Liturghie-Maaloula-360x360.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1534856344","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1","keywords":[]}},"post":203342,"source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Prima-Liturghie-Maaloula.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203342\/"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post\/"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11\/"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments\/?post=203342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203342\/revisions\/"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203319\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/?parent=203342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/?post=203342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags\/?post=203342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}