FaithWorld

(Cover of a Koran -- N.B. not the free version to be distributed in Germany,29 April 2005 /Crystalina)

A leader of Germany’s ruling party has criticised plans of an ultra-conservative Muslim group to hand out millions of copies of the Koran, calling it a threat to religious peace.

The Salafist Muslim group “The True Religion” intends to distribute 25 million free German translations of the Koran to non-Muslims in Germany as well as in prisons, mosques, hospitals and schools.

“There is little in principle against the distribution of religious works,” Guenter Krings, vice chairman of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, told the Rheinische Post newspaper on Wednesday, but added that this depended on the distributor.

“The radical Salafist group is disturbing the religious peace in our country with their aggressive approach,” he said.

(Our Lady of the Rosary Roman Catholic church in Doha, the first Christian church built in Qatar, before the first Mass celebrated there on March 15, 2008. REUTERS/Fadi Al-Assaad )

Turkey’s top Muslim cleric has stepped into an international row over Christianity on the Arabian Peninsula, rejecting comments attributed to the Saudi grand mufti that all churches there should be destroyed.

Mehmet Görmez, head of the Religious Affairs Directorate in Ankara, told a Turkish newspaper that Islam respected the rights of other faiths and calls for the destruction of churches went against centuries of tolerance.

(A member of the English Defence League takes part in a demonstration of far-right protestors in Aarhus, March 31, 2012. REUTERS/Fabian Bimmer )

Far-right anti-Islam activists struggling to throw off the shadow of Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik gathered in Denmark on Saturday, but met a protest many times bigger.

The rally was attended by a few hundred far-right activists from Nordic countries, Britain, France, Germany, Poland and elsewhere to try to form a European-wide anti-Islamic movement.

(Austrian Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache holds the Austrian flag in his office in Vienna March 21, 2012. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger )

Appearing to make light of the Holocaust would be the kiss of death for most European politicians, but for Austria’s Heinz-Christian Strache it has meant little more than a temporary dip in his popularity.

The 42-year-old leader of the Freedom Party has bounced back in opinion polls after a barrage of criticism in January for reportedly likening attacks on him and his backers to treatment of the Jews in Nazi Germany.

(Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, the Kingdom's grand mufti, prays at the Grand Mosque in Riyadh February 6, 2008. REUTERS/Ali Jarekji)

Christian bishops in Germany, Austria and Russia have sharply criticized Saudi Arabia’s top religious official after reports that he issued a fatwa saying all churches on the Arabian Peninsula should be destroyed.

In separate statements on Friday, the Roman Catholic bishops in Germany and Austria slammed the ruling by Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Shaikh as an unacceptable denial of human rights to millions of foreign workers in the Gulf region.

(Joachim Gauck stands in front of a TV screen with a picture of Germany's Federal Assembly after being elected by the assembly as president, in Berlin, March 18, 2012. REUTERS/Thomas Peter)

Germans resoundingly elected Joachim Gauck, a former Lutheran pastor and human rights activist from communist East Germany, as president of the European Union’s largest country on Sunday, posing a potential headache for Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In the largely ceremonial office of president, Gauck presents no threat to Merkel’s domination of national politics. But his moral authority, independence of mind and lack of party affiliation could make him an awkward partner for her government as it struggles to overcome Europe’s economic crisis. Gauck, 72, won 991 votes in the federal assembly comprising members of parliament and regional delegates. His main rival, veteran anti-Nazi campaigner Beate Klarsfeld, got 126 votes.

(A Polish pub in Edinburgh, Scotland, May 22, 2008 REUTERS/Quentin Webb)

Christians far outnumber Muslims as migrants around the world, including in the European Union where debates about immigration usually focus on new Muslim arrivals, according to a new study issued on Thursday.

Of the world’s 214 million people who have moved from their home country to live in another, about 106 million (49 percent) are Christians while around 60 million (27 percent) are Muslims, the study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life said.

Only 3.6 million Jews around the world have moved across international borders, the study said, but that is 25 percent of the world’s Jewish population, by far the highest proportion on the move of any faith group.

(Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal (3rd R) lights a giant menorah during a Hanukkah ceremony in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, December 20, 2011. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch)

Yitshak Ehrenberg has witnessed a transformation in Germany’s Jewish community during his 15 years as an Orthodox rabbi in Berlin and he is determined to harness a new generation to ensure the religion thrives here.

“After the war, most of the community were refugees, survivors, broken souls who had lost their family and sometimes even their faith,” the 62-year-old told Reuters from a luxurious living room filled with modern art and family photographs.

(Former East German rights activist Joachim Gauck, the joint candidate of the government and opposition for the post of president, at the Chancellery in Berlin February 19, 2012. REUTERS/Thomas Peter )

Joachim Gauck, a former anti-Communist human rights activist in East Germany who is set to become the next German president, is a moral authority to be reckoned with. The Lutheran pastor, who has been called Germany’s answer to Nelson Mandela, was one of a number of Protestant clerics who helped bring down the communist East German regime, setting the stage for the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification in 1990.

The 72-year old, who is married and has four children, ran the state-run archives on the Stasi after reunification and earned recognition for exposing the crimes of the dreaded East German secret police. Even after his retirement in 2000, the author of many books continued his campaign for human rights. His new book, “Freedom — A plea,” hits stores nationwide on Monday.

(Visitors toast with their one-liter beer mugs during the opening day of the Munich Oktoberfest beer festival in Munich September 20, 2003. REUTERS/Michael Dalder)

Crematoriums in Germany are struggling to adapt to an increasingly obese population and a boom in extra-large coffins that has led at least one to widen its oven doors. The Schweinfurt crematorium in Bavaria had to widen the doors by 30 cm to handle larger bodies, which burn longer and hotter and now arrive around once a week, its manager said.

“We burn particularly large coffins Monday mornings when the ovens are cold,” Helmuth Schlereth said by telephone from the southern region. “There is more body fat that spreads out and has to be burned.”