Church News

By The Rev. Anderia Lual Arok I am a Priest in the Episcopal Church, originally from South Sudan and now living in Phoenix, Arizona. My experiences during the 58 years I lived in Sudan, including living through the long years of civil wars has heightened my desire to pursue a course of study for a…

By Isha Sesay/CNN Story Highlights – Church in Phoenix, Arizona, is thought to be the first Sudanese church in the U.S. – Instructions at the church are in English but prayers are in Dinka – Children at Sunday school learn more about Sudanese traditions in worship– Sudan’s Lost Boys and Girls make up 90% of…

By Matthew Davies/Episcopal News Service ENS – Celebrations for a new nation rippled throughout Southern Sudan as election officials confirmed that nearly 99 percent of voters in the referendum had chosen independence. “There is great joy in Juba today at the official announcement of the results,” Robin Denney, an Episcopal Church missionary based in Juba,…

By Michael Ferraresi/The Arizona Republic Some parishioners saw the men being handcuffed by police. They wondered why one man was face-down on the street outside their church, blood dripping from his face. The incident outside St. Paul the Apostle Sudanese Episcopal Church, in which Phoenix police officers were accused of falsely arresting and abusing two…

By The Rev. Pat McCaughan/Episcopal News Service ‘A wound in the church’ remains a year after police confrontation ENS – Although the confrontation between police and two worshippers at St. Paul the Apostle Episcopal Sudanese Church in the Diocese of Arizona happened a year ago, there is still “a wound in the church,” according to…

By Greta Huls/Canon for Communications PHOENIX – Hundreds attended a nearly four-hour long memorial service for Manute Bol, former NBA player and humanitarian for Sudan, at Trinity Cathedral on Saturday, July 17, at 1 p.m. The service was open to the public. Dozens of men and women spoke of Bol and his humanitarian efforts. The…

By Ruth Meteer/Communications Officer, Diocese of Rhode Island. [Episcopal News Service] “We should not continue to be second-class citizens in our own country” is a well-known phrase to Americans familiar with the 1960s civil rights movement, but one that southern Sudan Bishop John Zawo of the Diocese of Ezo spoke frequently during his recent month-long…

By Episcopal News Service [Episcopal News Service] The Provincial Standing Committee of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan (ECS), meeting Nov. 23-27 in Rumbek, issued a statement saying that the peace process is on the brink of collapse and urging renewed national and international focus on the political processes of the upcoming elections and referendum….

By Fredrick Nzwili [Ecumenical News International, Nairobi] Africa’s largest church grouping is calling for urgent international re-engagement on southern Sudan, saying resettlement programs are failing and a fragile peace pact is being flouted. The All Africa Conference of Churches, whose president is Archbishop Valentine Mokiwa of the Anglican Church of Tanzania, said in a statement…

By Matthew Davies/Episcopal News Service [Episcopal News Service — Alexandria, Egypt] Calling on the Anglican Communion “not to abandon the people of Sudan in this time of danger and uncertainty,” Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul appealed to his fellow primates February 4 saying that the Church in Sudan needs “urgent support for the work of relief,…

By The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori/Presiding Bishop It is with great sorrow that I have received, in recent days, reports from brother bishops and other Episcopalians in the Sudan of the latest round of humanitarian atrocities committed by the so-called Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Since the beginning of this year, several parishes and villages…