Their churches were unable to verify claims they were released
Two Orthodox bishops who were kidnapped were reported to have been released yesterday, yet that report now seems to have been false. Their churches still say the two bishops are missing. From the Christian Science Monitor:
The fate of two prominent Orthodox bishops reportedly kidnapped in northern Syria remains uncertain, after their churches were unable to verify a claim that the pair had been released by their "terrorist" captors.
BBC News reports that Greek Orthodox Bishop Boulos Yazigi and Syriac Orthodox Bishop Yohanna Ibrahim, both leaders of their churches in Aleppo, are still missing and their families remain concerned about their well being. The two men were seized and their driver killed on Monday by an "armed terrorist group" according to Syrian state television, which routinely describes all rebels as terrorists.
The French Oeuvre d'Orient Christian association claimed yesterday that Bishop Yazigi and Bishop Ibrahim had been freed and returned to Aleppo, but members of Bishop Yazigi's archdiocese told Agence France-Presse that they had no evidence of that.
