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Middle East Christians face a bleak future

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  • Middle East Christians face a bleak future

    The Times (London)
    September 7, 2013 Saturday


    Middle East Christians face a bleak future

    Michael Binyon reports from Jordan on the high anxiety shared by all
    the long-established churches in the region

    by Michael Binyon

    Their churches have been bombed, burnt and ransacked. Thousands flee
    their homes to seek safety in exile, as Islamist extremists incite
    mobs to attack the dwindling communities that remain. Christians in
    the Middle East are today facing the greatest dangers they have known
    for centuries.

    In Iraq, as sectarian violence takes the country back to the brink of
    civil war, a once flourishing Christian community has all but
    disappeared. Churches stand abandoned where whole villages have fled.
    In Egypt over the past month Islamist mobs have burnt churches and
    murdered Christians across the country, venting their fury at the
    overthrow of President Morsi on the vulnerable Coptic minority.

    In Syria fearful church leaders, caught between government repression
    and massacres by Jihadist rebels, are bracing themselves for American
    bombs which they fear will unleash a new round of persecution.

    This week in Jordan leaders and scholars from many Christian
    denominations - Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Coptic, Assyrian, Anglican,
    Evangelical, Lutheran, Chaldean Catholic, Greek Melkite, Greek
    Catholic and Syrian Orthodox - voiced their fears and defiance at an
    extraordinary gathering called by the King. The aim was to reaffirm
    the place of Christians in Arab culture and strengthen resistance to
    the Islamists now trying to drive Christianity out of the Middle East
    for ever.

    "Our region is undergoing a state of violence and intra-religious,
    sectarian as well as ideological conflicts," King Abdullah told the
    bishops, archbishops and clergy. "These common challenges and
    difficulties that we face as Muslims and Christians necessitate
    concerted efforts and full co-operation among us all to overcome."

    The two-day meeting was convened by Prince Ghazi, the King's cousin, a
    professor of Islamic theology and Cambridge PhD, who has championed
    interfaith dialogue and underlined the theological links between Islam
    and Christianity. He said that for the first time in hundreds of years
    Christians were being targeted, suffering "not only because of the
    blind and deaf sedition that everyone has suffered from in certain
    Arab countries since the beginning of what is incorrectly called the
    Arab Spring, but also because they are Christians".

    He condemned this persecution - theologically according to Muslim law,
    morally as Arabs and fellow tribesmen and emotionally as neighbours
    and dear friends.

    Underlining the common struggle of mainstream Islam and Christians
    against the extremists and Jihadists, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, the
    influential former Grand Mufti of Egypt, told the conference that the
    situation in Egypt was now worse than 50 years ago.

    The torchings of churches and sectarian killings were, he said,
    forcing mass migration among the 10-million strong Coptic community.
    He blamed incitement by some mosque preachers broadcast by
    loudspeakers, discriminatory laws, the new Islamist constitution
    brought in by the Muslim Brotherhood, the growing separation of
    Christians and Muslims in the workplace and the lack of dialogue. The
    exodus of Christians from the lands where the faith began was
    under-lined by dozens of church leaders as the greatest challenge
    facing them. Some voiced fears that Christianity might disappear
    altogether, blaming not only Islamist violence but also growing
    official discrimination: Christians are denied Jobs, barred from
    promotion, denied access to their faith at school, and across the Arab
    world made to feel second-class citizens. "We feel marginalised and
    excluded, and are facing growing inJustice," said Raphael 1st Sako,
    the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch of Babylon. He blamed the "fanatic
    religious discourse" against Christians and discrimination. "I am an
    Iraqi citizen, no matter what my religious faith. I have legitimate
    rights and must be entitled to take part in all levels of life."

    Others noted that Arab Christians, a presence in the region 700 years
    before Islam, were made to feel as though they were guests in their
    homeland. They particularly resented being seen as allies of the West
    whose patriotism and loyalties were questionable. As many remarked,
    Christian Arabs had taken the lead in Arab nationalist activity during
    the Ottoman period, had taken full part in the wars against Israel and
    were at the forefront of the fight to maintain the Arab presence in
    Jerusalem and prevent its Judaicisation. But as one speaker noted
    bluntly, the real force driving Christians abroad was fear. "If
    Christians are killed in the north of Iraq, families in Baghdad leave
    the next day," said Archbishop Avak Asadourian of the Armenian church.

    Speakers from Syria were circumspect.

    Most were terrified of the growing extremist presence among the Syrian
    rebels. The choice, one priest noted, was often stark: convert or be
    killed. Indeed Youhanna 10th, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch,
    said that his brother, the bishop of Aleppo, had been kidnapped - one
    of two priests believed to have been seized by rebels. Nothing has
    been heard of him since.

    Muslim speakers underlined the damage done to Islam by Christian
    emigration. "Emigration carries a negative message," said Muhammad
    Sammack, secretary of the National Committee of Islamic-Christian
    Dialogue. "It says that Islam refuses to tolerate the other. It feeds
    Islamophobia across the world."

    A common call from all Christian leaders was for better education so
    that Muslim and Christian children could learn mutual respect. Even
    Jordan, held up by many as a rare example of fairness and a haven for
    Christians, was criticised by the head of the Christian churches in
    the country for not implementing reforms in education and ensuring
    full civic rights.

    Blame also lay with discriminatory laws on mixed marriages, on media
    that highlighted the calls by extremists rather than the voices of
    moderation, on the negative connotations of "minority" status and on
    the damage done by the long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "Solve that
    issue and all other questions could be resolved," said Bishop Munib
    Younan of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Holy Land. The
    Anglicans were well represented.

    The Episcopal bishops of Egypt and Jerusalem were Joined by the Rev
    Toby Howarth from Lambeth Palace and former Bishop Michael Langrish of
    Exeter, representing the Archbishop of Canterbury. Mr Howarth made the
    point that Western Christians too often had a skewed assumption that
    Christianity was an import to the Middle East rather than an export
    from it. And he underlined the importance both of intra-Christian and
    intra-Muslim dialogue.

    He also was one of the few speakers to note the importance of women in
    faith issues. Only two nuns Joined the panel of 80 male clerics. One
    male speaker said that if faith issues were left to women, half the
    problems would disappear immediately.

    Western involvement proved to be one of the most sensitive issues.
    Almost everyone made clear his opposition to US military action in
    Syria - none more so that the representative of the Russian Orthodox
    Church, whose overtly political speech, laying the blame for the
    Syrian crisis on the rebels and saying nothing about the recent poison
    gas atrocity, drew some sharp private comment and a rebuke by Sheikh
    Aref Nayed, a Libyan Muslim scholar. He said that the Russian Orthodox
    Church would do better to advise the Kremlin to stop supplying arms to
    the Assad government.

    Because of the political sensitivities, no one wanted to see a final communiqué.

    But Dr Olav Tveit, the secretarygeneral of the World Council of
    Churches, read out a WCC statement condemning any US missile strike,
    which made allusion to the Amman discussions.

    Most delegates expressed relief that a discussion of their plight has
    been held Just at a time when the Middle East was entering what many
    saw as the most dangerous period for decades. They insisted that
    religious leaders should play a role in the Israeli-Palestinian
    negotiations and said they were ready to Join hands with Muslims to
    protect Arab rights while also fighting the intolerance that many
    Muslims said was doing as much harm to their faith as it was to
    Christianity.

    'The situation of Copts in Egypt is worse now than it was 50 years ago'

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