MONTREAL – Now that the military in Iraq has declared ISIS defeated, about 30,000 Christians have returned to their villages in the Nineveh Plains with help from Aid to the Church in Need.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis expressed his joy and "prayerful solidarity" to the new head of the Assyrian Church of the East, 73-year-old Catholicos Gewargis III.

AMMAN, Jordan - Dozens of Christians are feared to be among the 230 people abducted by Islamic State after the extremist group's militants captured a central Syrian town in early August.

TORONTO - The first and last time the Judith oratorio was heard by an audience was in 1888 in Birmingham, England. It was written by one of Britain’s best-loved composers of the time, Hubert Parry, and was well-received by the critics of the era. But then the work fell into obscurity.

TORONTO - Not only is the Islamic State causing catastrophic human tragedy throughout Syria and Iraq, it is engaged in a “cultural genocide” as it destroys anything in its way that is not part of its idea of Islam, said Sascha Priewe.

AMMAN, Jordan - A call for an area to protect Christians and other religious minorities in Syria and Iraq is gathering pace even as April marks the centenary of the 1915 genocide of Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Christians.

CHICAGO - Catholicos Dinkha IV, patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, died March 26 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. A virus infection and pneumonia were cited as the cause of death. He was 79.

AMMAN, Jordan - Christian leaders again called for help for Assyrian Christians as Islamic State militants stepped up their attacks against their towns in northern Syria.

BEIRUT - A pontifical aid organization has begun sending aid to families who fled their homes when Islamic State militants raided a cluster of Assyrian Christian villages on the Khabur River in northeast Syria.

AMMAN, Jordan - Christians in the Middle East welcomed the release of nearly 20 Assyrian Christians abducted by Islamic State militants in northeastern Syria, but expressed concern that more than 200 others remained in captivity.

BEIRUT - Two Syrian-born patriarchs separately urged the international community to work together to address the crisis in Syria and the region.

AMMAN, Jordan - A prominent Syrian Christian political leader has called for U.S.-led coalition forces to use airstrikes to aid fellow Christian and Kurdish fighters battling Islamic State militants following reports of flagrant abductions and church burnings in northwest Syria.

WASHINGTON - Amid frequent reports of brutal killings and attacks by Islamic State militants, the director of an Islamic group in the United States strongly believes that people of faith must "collectively denounce" these actions of "stark evil" and "cruel barbarism."

DOHUK, Iraq - Dozens of Assyrian Christians were abducted by Islamic State forces during a new offensive against a string of villages in northeastern Syria, aid and civil rights organizations reported.