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WORLD BLIND TO CHRISTIANITY'S EVAPORATING ROOTS IN HOLY LAND
by Paul Stanway
The Calgary Herald (Alberta)
December 28, 2010 Tuesday
Final Edition
One of the staples of television news over the Christmas holiday is
coverage of celebrations in the Holy Land, providing a familiar and
comforting nod to the ancient roots of Western civilization.
Even in our increasingly secular society, images of Christians
worshipping in Nazareth and Bethlehem provide welcome confirmation
that we have a long and substantial history -- even if we're fuzzy
on the details. It all looks so traditional and Christmassy.
Unfortunately this comforting image depends to a large extent on a
dwindling number of embattled Christian communities. We are, in fact,
witnessing the twilight of Christianity across much of the Middle East.
Not so long ago Bethlehem was a majority Christian town -- about
80 per cent -- and now is down to less than a third. Nazareth, too,
has seen its Christian population almost halved in recent decades,
and in Jerusalem itself the Christian community has fallen from a
slight majority 80 years ago to below two per cent today.
Christians are leaving the West Bank, in particular, to escape the
instability and a long-standing Muslim boycott of Christian businesses
that has ravaged the community's economic foundations.
Thankfully this modern day exodus is mostly peaceful, which puts it
in marked contrast to much of the history of Christian depopulation
in the Middle East.
This is history the West has largely forgotten and ignored. Your
average European or North American will certainly be more familiar
with the story of the Palestinians and the much-publicized grievances
of the Arab world in general.
Yet we're not talking ancient history here.
Many people will have heard something of the Armenian genocide in
Turkey in the years following the First World War, but few would know
it was part of a larger religious and ethnic cleansing that also saw
the mass slaughter of Greek and Assyrian Christians.
Almost three million Armenian, Greek and Assyrian Christians perished
in what are now Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. In the first quarter
of the 20th century Christians represented about one-third of the
Syrian population, but now they account for less than 10 per cent. In
Turkey there were about two million Christians in 1920, now reduced
to just a few thousand.
Even more recently, the campaign of violence and persecution against
Iraqi Christians is surely one of the most under-reported stories
since the invasion of 2003. Iraq's Christians once made up three per
cent of its population, and now account for half of its refugees.
About 500,000 Iraqi Christians have fled that country over the past
seven years, and it's not hard to see why. As recently as the end
of October, 52 people were killed when security forces tried to free
more than 100 Catholics taken hostage during a Sunday mass in Baghdad.
Little wonder, then, at the news that only one church in Baghdad was
planning to celebrate Christmas this year.
London's Daily Telegraph newspaper recently quoted Archbishop of
Canterbury Rowan Williams on the stunning lack of interest in the
West over the decline of Christianity in its homeland. Most people
are unaware that it was the faith of millions across the region
before Islam, and has clung on tenaciously through many centuries
of persecution.
"The level of ignorance about Middle-Eastern Christianity in the
West is very, very high", he said. "A good many people think the
only Christians in the Middle East are converts or missionaries. I
have heard some quite highly placed people, who ought to know better,
saying that."
Indeed. The notion that Christianity is a foreign, Western implant
in the Middle East -- and a pretty recent one at that -- is very
apparent. That also happens to be the excuse used by militant Islam
to persecute the region's remaining Christians, so they suffer as
surrogates of a society that barely knows they exist.
So with time, it seems Christians are destined to effectively disappear
from the region that produced the faith. As one report puts it,
"there are today more Christians from Jerusalem living in Sydney,
Australia, than in Jerusalem itself."
Perhaps the one place a significant number of Christians may remain is
Egypt, where Coptic Christians still live in large numbers. Accurate
figures from the Egyptian government seem deliberately hard to come
by, but it's likely the Copts -- the Christian remnant of Egypt's
pre-Islamic people -- still make up somewhere between 12 and 18 per
cent of the population.
Apart from Egypt, Christians now make up about five per cent of the
population in the Middle East, sharply reduced from 20 per cent in
the early 20th century. At the present rate of decline, the Middle
East's 12 million Christians will likely drop to six million by 2020.
With so much of our news and current affairs concentrated on the
world's embattled minorities, it seems strange indeed that we are so
unfamiliar with the plight of these ancient Christian peoples of the
Middle East.
Perhaps they are inconvenient reminders of a religious and cultural
past we would rather forget. Except for those fleeting images at
Christmas.
Paul Stanway is a veteran Alberta journalist. His column runs every
Tuesday.
From: A. Papazian
by Paul Stanway
The Calgary Herald (Alberta)
December 28, 2010 Tuesday
Final Edition
One of the staples of television news over the Christmas holiday is
coverage of celebrations in the Holy Land, providing a familiar and
comforting nod to the ancient roots of Western civilization.
Even in our increasingly secular society, images of Christians
worshipping in Nazareth and Bethlehem provide welcome confirmation
that we have a long and substantial history -- even if we're fuzzy
on the details. It all looks so traditional and Christmassy.
Unfortunately this comforting image depends to a large extent on a
dwindling number of embattled Christian communities. We are, in fact,
witnessing the twilight of Christianity across much of the Middle East.
Not so long ago Bethlehem was a majority Christian town -- about
80 per cent -- and now is down to less than a third. Nazareth, too,
has seen its Christian population almost halved in recent decades,
and in Jerusalem itself the Christian community has fallen from a
slight majority 80 years ago to below two per cent today.
Christians are leaving the West Bank, in particular, to escape the
instability and a long-standing Muslim boycott of Christian businesses
that has ravaged the community's economic foundations.
Thankfully this modern day exodus is mostly peaceful, which puts it
in marked contrast to much of the history of Christian depopulation
in the Middle East.
This is history the West has largely forgotten and ignored. Your
average European or North American will certainly be more familiar
with the story of the Palestinians and the much-publicized grievances
of the Arab world in general.
Yet we're not talking ancient history here.
Many people will have heard something of the Armenian genocide in
Turkey in the years following the First World War, but few would know
it was part of a larger religious and ethnic cleansing that also saw
the mass slaughter of Greek and Assyrian Christians.
Almost three million Armenian, Greek and Assyrian Christians perished
in what are now Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. In the first quarter
of the 20th century Christians represented about one-third of the
Syrian population, but now they account for less than 10 per cent. In
Turkey there were about two million Christians in 1920, now reduced
to just a few thousand.
Even more recently, the campaign of violence and persecution against
Iraqi Christians is surely one of the most under-reported stories
since the invasion of 2003. Iraq's Christians once made up three per
cent of its population, and now account for half of its refugees.
About 500,000 Iraqi Christians have fled that country over the past
seven years, and it's not hard to see why. As recently as the end
of October, 52 people were killed when security forces tried to free
more than 100 Catholics taken hostage during a Sunday mass in Baghdad.
Little wonder, then, at the news that only one church in Baghdad was
planning to celebrate Christmas this year.
London's Daily Telegraph newspaper recently quoted Archbishop of
Canterbury Rowan Williams on the stunning lack of interest in the
West over the decline of Christianity in its homeland. Most people
are unaware that it was the faith of millions across the region
before Islam, and has clung on tenaciously through many centuries
of persecution.
"The level of ignorance about Middle-Eastern Christianity in the
West is very, very high", he said. "A good many people think the
only Christians in the Middle East are converts or missionaries. I
have heard some quite highly placed people, who ought to know better,
saying that."
Indeed. The notion that Christianity is a foreign, Western implant
in the Middle East -- and a pretty recent one at that -- is very
apparent. That also happens to be the excuse used by militant Islam
to persecute the region's remaining Christians, so they suffer as
surrogates of a society that barely knows they exist.
So with time, it seems Christians are destined to effectively disappear
from the region that produced the faith. As one report puts it,
"there are today more Christians from Jerusalem living in Sydney,
Australia, than in Jerusalem itself."
Perhaps the one place a significant number of Christians may remain is
Egypt, where Coptic Christians still live in large numbers. Accurate
figures from the Egyptian government seem deliberately hard to come
by, but it's likely the Copts -- the Christian remnant of Egypt's
pre-Islamic people -- still make up somewhere between 12 and 18 per
cent of the population.
Apart from Egypt, Christians now make up about five per cent of the
population in the Middle East, sharply reduced from 20 per cent in
the early 20th century. At the present rate of decline, the Middle
East's 12 million Christians will likely drop to six million by 2020.
With so much of our news and current affairs concentrated on the
world's embattled minorities, it seems strange indeed that we are so
unfamiliar with the plight of these ancient Christian peoples of the
Middle East.
Perhaps they are inconvenient reminders of a religious and cultural
past we would rather forget. Except for those fleeting images at
Christmas.
Paul Stanway is a veteran Alberta journalist. His column runs every
Tuesday.
From: A. Papazian