Photo: Reuters

Priests from different denominations celebrate the annual Inagural mass for the Ice Church in Romania's Fagras Mountains.

Priests from different Christian denominations have given their blessing to a unique ice church located at the Balea Lac resort in Romania's Fagaras Mountains.

According to the IB Times, a group of leaders came together on Thursday to hold the annual inaugural Mass for the Ice Church in the Hotel of Ice. Among the priests who came together for the ceremony were a Franciscan monk, a Romanian Orthodox priest and a Greek Catholic priest.

The Hotel of Icerevealed on its website that the church was born out of the concept of "religious tourism". The hotel sponsored the construction of the church within its premises, and said that it was intended to be open to various denominations.

The church, which is located more than 2,000 metres high in the mountains, has become a popular tourist attraction even among those of different religious orientations, the Hotel of Ice claimed. The church's architecture is based on another church in Malancrav, in Sibiu County in Romania, and its interior features an ice altar and a large crucifix also made out of ice.

Every year, the church is constructed out of sanctified ice from the waters of the Balea Lake. Priests from different Christian denominations are called to give their blessings to the waters of Balea Lake before they are frozen to make the blocks of ice for the church. Once the structure has been completed, the priests are again called to perform an inaugural Mass to commemorate the building of the new ice church.

According to the hotel, the church has celebrated baptisms and weddings as well as religious services for different Christian denominations. The church has also hosted religious concerts.

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New ice church blessed in Romania

Cardone of Keystone says fundraising would be needed to start church construction, after $ spent on
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The area surrounding East 6th Street, where the city hopes to spark new housing construction, was a predominantly Swedish neighborhood in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Swedish residents established two churches known today as Grace Lutheran Church and Grandview Baptist Church.

Grace's original house of worship, 637 E. 6th St., has been converted to a three-plex. Grandview's original building, 700 E. 6th St., has been in religious use as Kingdom Generation Church.

Grace was organized March 25, 1883, as the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church. Its church building on East 6th Street was moved there in 1888 from 4th and Iowa streets, where it had been dedicated in September 1883. The church has its roots in the First Lutheran Church, Rock Island.

In 1924, Grace held its first services in its new home at 1140 E. High St., where it remains today. Its original building was converted to a residence in 1926, according to city directories.

Leadership in the church was rapidly passing out of the hands of the founders to a new generation eager to communicate the same Gospel in the English language, a church history states. Changes had also taken place in the neighborhood in which the first church stood and one by one the families which had settled in the neighborhood of their spiritual home moved to other parts of the city. Thus it was considered advisable to seek a new location for the church building.

As the congregation became Americanized and conducted its services in English, the church was renamed Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church. The oak pulpit from the 1883 church stands in the narthex of the current house of worship.

Grandview Baptist Church has its roots in the Swedish Baptist Church of Rock Island, the first church of what would become the Baptist General Conference, now known as Converge Worldwide. Members of the Rock Island church living in Davenport dedicated their own house of worship at 700 E. 6th St., the northeast corner of Grand Avenue and East 6th Street, on Nov.11, 1883.

The church had been built in 1856 at the corner of 11th and Scott streets as the home of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church and moved to East 6th Street as a gift from the Presbyterian church.

It is a very neat substantial house of worship, the Davenport Gazette reported on Oct. 28, 1883. It is situated on a hill with a grand scenic panorama at its front, the Mississippi, Island (Arsenal), Rock Island, Moline and a large part of Davenport being in view.

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Swedish history

Story highlights Cuban Catholics start building their first churches since 1959 Religious believers had been seen as suspicious under the Castro regime The new churches are desperately needed, Cuban Catholics say

But in the isolated town of Sandino, Cuba's first Catholic church since the 1959 revolution took power is set to be built.

"There is money to start, there is the construction material to start, there are the permissions to start, so everything is ready," said Bishop Jorge Enrique Serpa Prez, who oversees the diocese where the new church will be built.

The Sandino church has been 56 years in the making, ever since Fidel Castro took power and Cuba became an officially atheist state.

Religious people fell under suspicion by the new revolutionary government, but none more so than those who belonged to the Catholic Church, which was seen as being overly sympathetic to the Batista regime that Castro had driven from power.

In the first years of the revolution, thousands of Catholic priests were jailed or forced into exile, and church property, including the Jesuit school that Castro attended, was seized by the Cuban government.

Only with the visit in 1998 of Pope John Paul II to the island did relations between the Cuban government and Catholic Church begin to thaw. Christmas again became a national holiday, and Cubans faced less official discrimination for practicing their faiths.

In December, Cuban President Raul Castro thanked Pope Francis for his role in the secret talks that led to a prisoner swap between Cuba and the United States and the start of negotiations to restore full diplomatic relations.

In 2015, church officials said requests to build new churches that had long been ensnared in red tape began to receive government approval.

While church officials said several new Catholic houses of worship are in the works, the first will be built in Sandino, a remote town at the end of a pothole-cratered road in Cuba's westernmost province.

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Cuba builds first church since Castro

Story highlights Cuban Catholics start building their first churches since 1959 Religious believers had been seen as suspicious under the Castro regime The new churches are desperately needed, Cuban Catholics say

But in the isolated town of Sandino, Cuba's first Catholic church since the 1959 revolution took power is set to be built.

"There is money to start, there is the construction material to start, there are the permissions to start, so everything is ready," said Bishop Jorge Enrique Serpa Prez, who oversees the diocese where the new church will be built.

The Sandino church has been 56 years in the making, ever since Fidel Castro took power and Cuba became an officially atheist state.

Religious people fell under suspicion by the new revolutionary government, but none more so than those who belonged to the Catholic Church, which was seen as being overly sympathetic to the Batista regime that Castro had driven from power.

In the first years of the revolution, thousands of Catholic priests were jailed or forced into exile, and church property, including the Jesuit school that Castro attended, was seized by the Cuban government.

Only with the visit in 1998 of Pope John Paul II to the island did relations between the Cuban government and Catholic Church begin to thaw. Christmas again became a national holiday, and Cubans faced less official discrimination for practicing their faiths.

In December, Cuban President Raul Castro thanked Pope Francis for his role in the secret talks that led to a prisoner swap between Cuba and the United States and the start of negotiations to restore full diplomatic relations.

In 2015, church officials said requests to build new churches that had long been ensnared in red tape began to receive government approval.

While church officials said several new Catholic houses of worship are in the works, the first will be built in Sandino, a remote town at the end of a pothole-cratered road in Cuba's westernmost province.

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Cubans start building their first churches since 1959

SANDINO, CUBA (CNN) - Pope Francis' role in brokering improved U.S.-Cuban relations has bolstered the influence of the Catholic Church in Cuba.

And for the first time since the Cuban Revolution, Catholics have received permission to build a new church on the island.

Father Cirilo Castro holds mass in a converted garage. There are no walls and just a tin roof.

It doesn't always have enough chairs, but it is the closest thing the isolated Cuban town of Sandino has ever had to a Catholic Church. Soon, construction will begin on the first church to be built in Cuba in more than 56 years - since the Cuban Revolution seized control of the island.

"I hope the church doesn't stay within these four walls - that it will go farther than that," Castro said. "That with the building of the new church there will be more people of faith."

The only thing at the site now was the building's cornerstone. Castro said it would hold 200 people when completed.

The new church represents a mending of relations between the Catholic Church and Cuban government. In the first years of the revolution, the government seized church property and expelled thousands of priests from the country.

The church has added significance for the town's residents.

"Sandino is an isolated town deep in the countryside," Patrick Oppmann said. "Here is where in the early 1960s people considered enemies of Fidel Castro's revolution were sent by the government to live in eternal exile. For many, life here was nothing short of a punishment."

Digna Martinez's family were among the hundreds, perhaps thousands, who in the early '60s were considered to be opponents of the Cuban regime.

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Cubans eye first Catholic church since revolution

Friday, January 30, 2015 - 4:13pm

SANDINO, Cuba (CNN) A neglected, weed-strewn field in a small Cuban town where there are more horses than cars seems an unlikely setting for a major shift in government policy.

But in the isolated town of Sandino, Cuba's first Catholic church since the 1959 revolution took power is set to be built.

"There is money to start, there (is) the construction material to start, there are the permissions to start, so everything is ready," said Bishop Jorge Enrique Serpa Prez, who oversees the diocese where the new church will be built.

The Sandino church has been 56 years in the making, ever since Fidel Castro took power and Cuba became an officially atheist state.

Religious people fell under suspicion by the new revolutionary government, but none more so than those who belonged to the Catholic Church, which was seen as being overly sympathetic to the Batista regime that Castro had driven from power.

In the first years of the revolution, thousands of Catholic priests were jailed or forced into exile, and church property, including the Jesuit school that Castro attended, was seized by the Cuban government.

Only with the visit in 1998 of Pope John Paul II to the island did relations between the Cuban government and Catholic Church begin to thaw. Christmas again became a national holiday, and Cubans faced less official discrimination for practicing their faiths.

In December, Cuban President Raul Castro thanked Pope Francis for his role in the secret talks that led to a prisoner swap between Cuba and the United States and the start of negotiations to restore full diplomatic relations.

In 2015, church officials said requests to build new churches that had long been ensnared in red tape began to receive government approval.

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Cuba to build first new Catholic church since Castro

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Egyptian President Al-Sisi has committed to tackling religious intolerance throughout Egypt

Egyptian Christians are enjoying greater freedoms under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a spokesman for the country's Catholic Church, has said.

Speaking to AsiaNews, Father Rafic Greiche said the government is committed to speeding up the application process for the construction of new churches; something that has been made difficult for decades.

"A permit has already been granted for the construction of a church in New Cairo and two in Upper Egypt," he said.

"These applications date back to 8-10 years ago. Others go back 15 years ago and have not received any answer."

The current law in Egypt states that churches cannot be built near schools, villages, railways, residential areas, government offices and canals, among other stipulations. "Entire cities and villages in the countryside and in Upper Egypt don't have a single church," Safwat al-Bayadi, the head of the Evangelical Church in Egypt, told Al-Monitor last year.

Al-Sisi has pledged to change this, however, and church representatives were asked to draft a more inclusive bill.

"The project is almost ready. In the new constitution there is a paragraph that requires the new parliament - which will sit after elections in March - to pass the law within a year," Fr Greiche said.

"This means that by March 2016, we will have a law on new church construction without the current hassles."

Fr Greiche also said that the government wants to "value the Christian marriage and recognise it civilly". In the past, the spokesman has insisted that "life is much better than the year when the Muslim Brotherhood was in power...the country is becoming more confident and, in a sense, one can say that the 'Egypt' has found itself.

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Life for Christians improving in Egypt, says Catholic leader