Belgium.

Euthanasia cases in Belgium double in last five years.

Euthanasia now accounts for 4% of deaths in Belgium. CT.

Do The Will of The Father.

Birdie.

St Martin-in-the-Fields.

 The London church that helped shape a nation: 300 years of St Martin-in-the-Fields.

St Martin-in-the-Fields sits on the edge of Trafalgar Square in London. (Photo: Getty/iStock)

Few parish churches are as famous as St Martin-in-the-Fields in central London. This year, it marks its 300th anniversary. This is the story …

The original church

As the name suggests, the original parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields lay in farmland outside London, but as London grew, it ended up in central London. It is not known when the first church was built, but the earliest recorded mention of it is from 1222.

St Martin

The church was dedicated to St Martin of Tours, who was a fourth-century Roman soldier who had a spiritual conversion as an adult. He is famous for giving half his cape to a poor beggar and then leaving the army when he renounced war to become a bishop. He is considered the patron saint of beggars. There are many churches dedicated to him, but St Martin-in-the-Fields is perhaps the most famous of all.

The medieval church

In medieval times, St Martin-in-the-Fields was a church run by the monks of Westminster Abbey. It was rebuilt in Tudor times. As London grew, so did the church congregation and the church building. In the eighteenth century, the original building was built of brick and had a tiled roof with a stone tower and buttresses, but it was in a state of decay.

The current church building

In 1720, Parliament passed the St Martin-in-the-Fields Act for rebuilding the church. The architect who was commissioned to design a new church was the Scotsman James Gibbs, and he took inspiration from other churches designed by Sir Christopher Wren. 

He designed a rectangular church with a west front built with a portico of six Corinthian columns and a Portland stone spire above. The foundation stone was laid on 19 March 1722, and the Gothic spire, which rises 192 feet above the floor, was added in 1724. Bells were cast in 1725, and the new church was consecrated 300 years ago on 20 October 1726 by the Bishop of London.

When it opened, the design was unique, but later the design became famous and inspired other churches around the world, such as St Andrew’s in the Square in Glasgow, but also St Michael’s Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington, DC, and others across the British Empire. The church building is now a Grade I listed building.

Location

St Martin-in-the-Fields now has a prime position at the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square, near to the National Gallery and Charing Cross London Underground station. However, the church was there first, and it predates Trafalgar Square, which dates from the 1820s, and Charing Cross station, which opened in 1864. In the Victorian era, the church became very fashionable and is mentioned in the book David Copperfield by Charles Dickens.

Ministry under Dick Sheppard

The church came into prominence during the time that Rev Dick Sheppard was vicar, from 1914 to 1927. Dick Sheppard was ordained in 1908 and briefly served as a war chaplain, and his experiences led him to adopt pacifism. He came to St Martin-in-the-Fields late in 1914, when it was a fashionable church for the well-to-do. He was inspired by his war experience and by the story of St Martin to turn the church into a place where faith was put into action.

Seeing men going off to war and returning from war from Charing Cross, he opened the crypt as a refuge for soldiers, providing food, rest and hospitality. After the war, it was kept open for the homeless or people who missed the last bus home. In 1920, the church started an annual Christmas Appeal to raise money for vulnerable people. The church also acted as a social centre for those in need, and members of the church ministered to the local homeless.

Pacifism

After the Great War, Rev Dick Sheppard became involved in the peace and reconciliation movement, and he allowed sermons critical of the war and prayed both for soldiers from both sides and for conscientious objectors, which was unusual at the time. After leaving St Martin’s, Sheppard founded the Peace Pledge Union in 1934, which became Britain’s largest pacifist movement.

Connection with the BBC

After the BBC started in 1922, it was St Martin-in-the-Fields which provided the first Christian service ever to be broadcast, on 6 January 1924. In 1926, Dick Sheppard made his Christmas Appeal on the radio, and it has been held annually ever since. This year will be its 100th appeal.

St Martin’s was the church chosen by the BBC for regular religious broadcasting, and evening services were played on the BBC and across the BBC World Service. The radio broadcasts brought Dick Sheppard some fame, and his preaching attracted huge numbers. As the BBC expanded its religious output, it began broadcasting services from other churches around the UK, but it still sometimes broadcasts from the church.

Social justice campaigns

The church became the headquarters for the Church League for Women’s Suffrage, which sought voting rights for women. In 1928, it hosted a thanksgiving service when women finally gained the vote on the same terms as men.

Following the Sharpeville massacre of 1960, when South African police shot and killed anti-apartheid demonstrators, the church’s vicar, Rev Austen Williams, publicly condemned apartheid. The congregation became active supporters of the anti-apartheid cause, and the church also became a venue for anti-apartheid vigils and demonstrations, helped by its central position by Trafalgar Square.

The Handel connection

The organ was originally gifted by King George I to the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields in London in 1726. It was supposedly a favourite instrument of Handel during his time in England. It was purchased from St Martin-in-the-Fields by the vicar of St Mary’s and moved to Wotton around 1800.

Over time, the church became known for high standards of liturgical music and attracted distinguished organists and composers. One of the people connected to the church in the 1700s was the composer George Frideric Handel, who sometimes played the organ. The new church had a new, larger organ which was paid for by King George I, and Handel played at its grand opening in 1726. It was said to be his favourite organ, although he also played at St George’s in Hanover Square. When it was replaced in 1800, it was moved to the parish church of Wotton-under-Edge in Gloucestershire, where it is still played.

Concerts

The church’s concerts, recordings and broadcasts have introduced countless listeners to sacred music. In 1958, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields was founded by Sir Neville Marriner and John Churchill and gave its first concert in 1959. It became one of the world’s leading chamber orchestras and carried the church’s name to an international audience. Services, concerts and special events were transmitted nationally and internationally by the BBC, helping establish the church’s reputation as “the parish church of the nation”. Today, people visit the church for lunchtime and evening concerts.

The crypt

During the Second World War, when the Blitz started, St Martin-in-the-Fields turned the crypt into a public air raid shelter with a canteen for members of the armed forces. In 1948, St Martin’s formally established its Social Service Unit. From the 1970s, St Martin’s began moving away from providing direct overnight accommodation in the crypt and towards specialist support services beyond its walls.

The homelessness work evolved into what became The Connection at St Martin’s, which is now a separate charity focused on helping rough sleepers get off the streets into housing and support. The charity moved to a more practical base in nearby Adelaide Street, not in the crypt itself, which allowed the crypt to be redeveloped for other uses.

A café had existed there from at least the mid-20th century, and from 1987, parts of the crypt were deliberately developed as a cultural space and rooms for letting commercially to provide income for other services. From 2005, the crypt and underground spaces were extensively rebuilt and modernised, creating the café, shop, exhibition and event spaces seen today.

Legacy

St Martin-in-the-Fields has been a place where new ideas began. It pioneered religious broadcasting, working with the homeless, internationally famous music-making and charitable initiatives that spread far beyond London. Few parish churches can claim such a combination of architectural, musical, social and national significance as St Martin-in-the-Fields.

300th anniversary exhibition

St Martin’s likes to think of itself as at the heart of London and on the edge of Trafalgar Square. The church this year marks its 300th anniversary with a programme which includes worship, exhibitions, concerts, educational activities and community events that seek to connect the church’s history with its continuing mission.

There is also a free exhibition called St Martin-in-the-Fields: 300 Years at the Heart and on the Edge until 15 November, which is in the crypt.

Tercentenary service

The church is also still a place of worship with regular Sunday and midweek lunchtime services which can be joined in person or online. There will be a special tercentenary celebratory service at 10am on Sunday 18 October. The service will feature a grand procession of charities and organisations that trace their origins to St Martin-in-the-Fields. Then there will be addresses from representatives of some of the organisations and a sermon from Revd Dr Sam Wells. The service will be followed by a reception. CT.

Sickening!

 Christian Red Cross volunteer slain in northwest Nigeria.

Lydia Nwankwo (Photo: Facebook)

Unidentified gunmen shot and killed a Christian woman volunteering with the Nigerian Red Cross Society in an Oct. 6 attack on her team’s vehicle in Sokoto state, sources said.

Lydia Nwankwo, 30, was shot dead at around 7 p.m. when her team’s vehicle came under fire on the Kajiji-Shagari road in Shagari County, relatives said.

“Bandits opened fire on their vehicle,” her sister, Chisom Nwankwo, told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “Lydia was shot in the chest and died on the spot. Her body was brought home in a Hilux vehicle at about 11 p.m. that night.”

Another sister, Victoria Nwankwo, said that, along with the Red Cross, Lydia Nwankwo was working with a development partner supporting the Sokoto State Ministry of Health.

“Lydia did not die because she was rich. She did not die because she was a politician. She died because she chose to go where others refused to go,” Victoria Nwankwo told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “She left the comfort of her home to serve vulnerable communities in hard-to-reach areas in Sokoto. She was there to help mothers, children and the sick. She was there to bring health, food, and hope.”

Chisom Nwankwo said her sister was “was engaged in assisting people affected by waves of terrorist attacks in Sokoto state.”

“Lydia was returning from field operations in Kajiji community, Shagari Local Government Area,” Chisom Nwankwo said. “Her team of five were ambushed around 7 p.m. on the Kajiji-Shagari road, after they had carried out field work in Tambuwal Local Government Area.”

Area resident Suleiman Ayuba told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News that Lydia Nwankwo was shot dead by “Muslim jihadists.”

“She was a Christian humanitarian worker,” Ayuba said. “She and her team, were on the way back from field work with a partner that supports the Sokoto State Ministry of Health when they were attacked.”

The Sokoto State Red Cross Society issued a press statement saying Lydia Nwankwo died in a “bandit attack.”

“The Nigerian Red Cross Society, Sokoto South Division, is in deep mourning following the tragic passing of its volunteer, Lydia Chinenye Nwankwo,” the society’s Bello Bawa said. “Lydia was a committed humanitarian who dedicated her time to serving vulnerable communities. We condole with her family, friends and the entire Red Cross family. May her gentle soul rest in peace.”

Police in Sokoto state issued a statement saying only, “We are aware of the incident, but investigations are ongoing,” though there were also reports of a police inspector being killed in the incident, as well as other attacks in Shagari County.

More Christians were killed in Nigeria than in any other country from Oct. 1, 2024 to Sept. 30, 2025, according to Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List. Of the 4,849 Christians killed worldwide for their faith during that period, 3,490 – 72 percent – were Nigerians, an increase from 3,100 the prior year.

Nigeria ranked No. 7 on the WWL list of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.

In the country’s North-Central zone, where Christians are more common than they are in the North-East and North-West, Islamic extremist Fulani militia attack farming communities, killing many hundreds, Christians above all, according to the report. Jihadist groups such as Boko Haram and the splinter group Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), among others, are also active in the country’s northern states, where federal government control is scant and Christians and their communities continue to be the targets of raids, sexual violence, and roadblock killings, according to the report. Abductions for ransom have increased considerably in recent years.

The violence has spread to southern states, and a new jihadist terror group, Lakurawa, has emerged in the northwest, armed with advanced weaponry and a radical Islamist agenda, the WWL noted. Lakurawa is affiliated with the expansionist Al-Qaeda insurgency Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, or JNIM, originating in Mali. CT.

© 2026 Christian Daily International-Morning Star News

Scandalous. Evil!

 Christian’s death sentence upheld under blasphemy law in Pakistan.

By Christian Daily International / Morning Star News Oct 12, 2026 12:06 EDT.

Blasphemy laws were among oppressive measures opposed in protest in Faisalabad, Pakistan on National Minorities Day on Aug. 11, 2026. Minorities Alliance Pakistan

Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Wednesday (Oct. 7) announced that it had upheld the death sentence of a Christian convicted under blasphemy laws while acquitting his brother, with rights advocates questioning the contrasting outcomes after years of legal proceedings, sources said.

A three-member Supreme Court bench dismissed Qaiser Ayub’s appeal, upholding his death sentence under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), which criminalizes derogatory remarks about Muhammad, the prophet of Islam; Ayub was accused of publishing blasphemous material online.

Headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Yahya Afridi and comprising Justices Shakeel Ahmad and Ishtiaq Ibrahim, the bench set aside the conviction and death sentence of his brother, Amoon Ayub, ruling that the prosecution had failed to establish his personal involvement in the alleged offense.

The brothers, residents of Lahore, were sentenced to death by a trial court in 2018. The Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi Bench upheld their convictions in 2022.

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The case arose from allegations that blasphemous material had been published on a website registered in Qaiser Ayub’s name.

Qaiser Ayub, 49, a computer science graduate, has maintained that he shut down the website in 2009, but that Muslim friends later revived it while retaining Qaiser Ayub’s name in the copyright information. After the allegations surfaced, the brothers left Pakistan for Singapore and later Thailand. Qaiser Ayub was arrested after returning to Lahore in 2014, while Amoon Ayub, 46, was arrested in 2015.

In its nine-page judgment, the Supreme Court distinguished between the digital and documentary evidence it considered sufficient to uphold Qaiser Ayub’s conviction and the circumstantial evidence it found inadequate to establish Amoon Qayub’s guilt.

The court rejected Qaiser Ayub’s assertion that he had no connection with the WordPress blog, which displayed his name, email addresses, office address and telephone numbers. Domain registration records recovered from Qaiser’s laptop included documents dated June 2, 2009, which the court said showed that he had purchased and registered the primary domain. The use of the domain’s official email credentials to create the WordPress blog further connected him to the publishing platform, the court reasoned.

Investigators recovered a desktop computer and a laptop following Qaiser’s arrest. The court said forensic examinations found images, articles and other material corresponding to content published on the blog. It rejected the defense allegation that the incriminating files had been planted, citing correspondence between the material on the devices and the online publications.

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The court also rejected objections to the complainant’s credibility and the delay in registering the First Information Report (FIR). Muhammad Saeed initially reported the matter in August 2010, but the FIR was registered on June 9, 2011. The court attributed the delay to uncertainty over jurisdiction in internet-related offenses and preliminary investigations by the Federal Investigation Agency. It noted that Saeed and the accused were strangers and found no evidence of an established history of enmity that would explain a false accusation.

Having considered the digital, documentary and testimonial evidence, the Supreme Court found no legal infirmity in the lower courts’ findings against Qaiser Ayub and upheld his conviction and death sentence.

The court reached a different conclusion regarding Amoon Ayub. Prosecutors had relied partly on a landline connection registered in his name and the tenancy of office premises held in his name. The court said these arrangements did not conclusively establish that he had created or uploaded the material, noting that telephone connections, internet subscriptions and rental agreements could be registered in one family member’s name while being used by others.

Finding insufficient evidence of Amoon Ayub’s personal knowledge or participation in the alleged offense, the court extended the benefit of doubt to him, set aside his conviction and sentence, and ordered his release.

The American Center for Law and Justice’s (ACLJ) international legal team and its Pakistani affiliate, the Organization for Legal Aid (OLA), represented the brothers in their legal battle.

“Since 2025, our attorneys have appeared before Pakistan’s Supreme Court to argue the brothers’ appeal,” Shaheryar Gill, senior counsel and head of the ACLJ, told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “The court scheduled the case for argument 13 times, but each hearing was postponed. Finally, on July 6, the court heard the arguments and reserved its judgment, which was announced on Oct. 7.”

He said the legal team was overjoyed by Amoon Ayub’s acquittal but heartbroken for his brother. Gill recounted that when he called Amoon Ayub’s wife, Huma, to congratulate her, she broke down in tears and thanked God.

“For 11 years, Huma has visited her husband in prison every week,” Gill said. “Now, after more than a decade of separation, they will finally be together again.”

ACLJ/OLA will file a revision petition asking the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision to uphold Qaiser Ayub’s death sentence, he said, describing the ruling as deeply troubling and setting a dangerous precedent in Pakistan’s blasphemy cases.

Rao Abdur Raheem, purported leader of the so-called “blasphemy business group” accused of entrapping people in false blasphemy cases, described the ruling as a milestone in enforcing the country’s blasphemy laws. In a video circulating on social media, Raheem is seen wearing garlands outside the court alongside Saeed, the complainant.

“This is the first time the barrier of the Supreme Court has been crossed in 40 years in the history of Pakistan since Section 295-C was added to the blasphemy law,” Raheem said, describing the decision as the culmination of a long legal struggle.

The Voice of the Victims of Blasphemy Business Group, which supports families victimized by blasphemy cases, questioned the human cost of Amoon Ayub’s years in detention and under prosecution.

“If Amoon Ayub has been acquitted after such a prolonged legal ordeal, who will answer for the 16 years taken from his life?” the group asked in an Oct. 8 statement on its Facebook page, calling for accountability for wrongful implication.

“Justice cannot be measured only by the final verdict. It must also consider the human cost of prolonged incarceration, the consequences of wrongful implication, the suffering of families, and the years of life that can never be returned,” it stated.

Pakistan’s blasphemy laws have long drawn criticism from human rights organizations and legal experts. Besides blatantly violating freedom of speech, they warn that the provisions can be misused in personal disputes and have disproportionately affected religious minorities. Although the country has yet to carry out a state execution for blasphemy, accusations have repeatedly triggered mob violence and extrajudicial killings, while suspects can spend years in detention awaiting trial.

In the latest incident, a Muslim mob set fire to a Christian’s house and shop in Gharial Kalan village in Sheikhupura District, Punjab Province, on Friday (Oct. 9) after he was accused of sharing blasphemous content on Facebook, forcing more than 35 Christian families to flee their homes amid fears of further violence.

Police arrested Kamran Masih, 40, a father of three who ran a small pharmacy, on Oct. 8. He was accused of sharing a video posted by a U.S.-based, ex-Muslim Pakistani and charged under provisions concerning alleged disrespect toward the family and companions of Islam’s prophet and hurting religious sentiments.

“As word of Masih’s arrest spread, his family and other Christians started fleeing the village, fearing a mob attack,” a source told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News on condition of anonymity. Dozens of Muslims gathered outside the shop and adjacent residence on Friday (Oct. 9), and some set both buildings on fire, the source said.

Open Doors, a Christian support organization, ranked Pakistan eighth on its 2026 World Watch List of 50 countries where Christians face the most severe persecution, citing systemic discrimination, mob violence, forced conversions, bonded labor and gender-based violence. It warned that weak law enforcement and widespread impunity have allowed perpetrators of anti-Christian violence to evade accountability. CD.