King Charles remembered the plight of Christians facing persecution around the world, as he attended an atmospheric, candle-lit Advent service at Westminster Abbey.<\/p>\n The service, with a strong Orthodox Christian influence, along with Anglican and Catholic prayers, warned against religious discrimination, with a message from the King supporting those “in areas where it is not easy to live out one’s faith”.<\/p>\n There was also a seasonal message of hope in the winter gloom, with the King hailing “the light, hope and, above all, the peace of this season”.<\/p>\n The King particularly seemed to enjoy the Advent hymn, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, which he described in the Order of Service as “magnificent”.<\/p>\n The service, conducted by the Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr David Hoyle, brought together a range of representatives of Christian denominations, including the Most Reverend Hosam Naoum, the Anglican Archbishop of Jerusalem and the Middle East.<\/p>\n It was a meditative service marking the approach of Christmas, and in many ways, unorthodox, as well as Orthodox, with a colourful range of religious robes and a rich mix of different languages and musical styles.<\/p>\n The sermon was given by Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe, a senior Catholic clergyman, who spoke of the importance of rejecting intolerance and and the “massive persecution of Christians in so many places”.<\/p>\n He remembered the death of a bishop in Algeria, Pierre Claverie, who had been killed by Islamist extremists in 1996<\/a>, and who was later mourned by both Christians and Muslims.<\/p>\n Cardinal Radcliffe said “pointless violence had flowered into friendship”.<\/p>\n The congregation also heard the testimony of Ribqa Nevash, who spoke of the pressure on Christians in present-day Pakistan, saying churches had been burned and Christians had faced discrimination<\/a> because of their religion.<\/p>\n The 25-year-old, originally from Faisalabad, said she was relieved to be in the UK where she could openly celebrate Christmas.<\/p>\n King Charles is known to have a great interest in Orthodox Christianity and an array of icons had been set up for the service.<\/p>\n There was a hymn sung in Greek by the Coptic Orthodox Diocesan Choir and a carol by the choir of the Syriac Orthodox Church.<\/p>\n There was also a 14th-Century carol, and prayers sung in Latin, which rose up in the high ceilings of the medieval Abbey.<\/p>\n The King’s message focused on the Advent hymn, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, and he quoted its message of hope with the line: “Dispel the long night’s lingering gloom, and pierce the shadows of the tomb.”<\/p>\n The King has a long commitment to building bridges between faiths, and the congregation also included representatives of Muslim, Jewish, Sikh and Hindu communities.<\/p>\n In October he visited the Vatican for a historic religious service with Pope Leo<\/a> in the Sistine Chapel.<\/p>\n Sign up here to get the latest royal stories and analysis<\/a> every week with our Royal Watch newsletter. Those outside the UK can sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.aol.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" King Charles attended a candle-lit service with guests from many faiths [PA Media] King Charles remembered the plight of Christians facing persecution around the world, as he attended an atmospheric, candle-lit Advent service at Westminster Abbey. The service, with a strong Orthodox Christian influence, along with Anglican and Catholic prayers, warned against religious discrimination, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2193763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[423590,423589,183315,423587,423584,423588,423582,368048,423583,423585,305577,423586,371571],"class_list":["post-2193762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-catholic-prayers","tag-emmanuel","tag-king-charles","tag-message-from-the-king","tag-message-of-hope","tag-o-come","tag-orthodox-christian","tag-pa-media","tag-persecution-of-christians","tag-religious-discrimination","tag-service","tag-the-service","tag-westminster-abbey"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/King-supports-persecuted-Christians-in-Advent-service.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2193762"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2193764,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193762\/revisions\/2193764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2193763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2193762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2193762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2193762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/div>\n
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