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them to it.”</h2> <div id="search"><form method="get" id="searchform" action="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/"> <div><input type="text" value="" name="s" id="s"/> <input type="submit" id="searchsubmit" value="Search"/> </div> </form> </div> </div> <hr/> <div id="content" class="span-13 append-1"> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-12954"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/2011/04/21/et-respondens-rex-dicet-illis-2011/#comments" title="Comment on Et respondens rex dicet illis – 2011">6 Comments</a></span> Posted on April 21st, 2011 by markfromireland</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/2011/04/21/et-respondens-rex-dicet-illis-2011/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Et respondens rex dicet illis – 2011">Et respondens rex dicet illis – 2011</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/category/english-articles/" title="View all posts in English Language Articles" rel="category tag">English Language Articles</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/category/religion/" title="View all posts in Religion" rel="category tag">Religion</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/category/series/" title="View all posts in Series" rel="category tag">Series</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/category/team-members/" title="View all posts in Team Members" rel="category tag">Team Members</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christianity/" rel="tag">Christianity</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/easter/" rel="tag">Easter</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/easter-2011/" rel="tag">Easter 2011</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/et-respondens-rex-dicet-illis/" rel="tag">Et respondens rex dicet illis</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/irakiraq/" rel="tag">Irak/Iraq</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/iraq-is-christ-crucified/" rel="tag">Iraq is Christ Crucified</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <div style="width: 516px"> <p><strong>25:40.</strong> And the king answering shall say to them: Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.</p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/wp-content/uploads/Sayidat_al-Nejat_attack_fatalities_4_month_old_boy.jpg"><img title="Iraq is Christ Crucified" style="border-top-width: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin: 0px 10px 5px 0px; padding-top: 0px; border-right-width: 0px" height="388" alt="Sayidat al-Nejat attack fatalities 4 month old boy" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715im_/http://gorillasguides.com/wp-content/uploads/Sayidat_al-Nejat_attack_fatalities_4_month_old_boy_thumb.jpg" width="516" border="0"/></a></p> <p>(Et respondens rex, dicet illis: Amen dico vobis, quamdiu fecistis uni ex his fratribus meis minimis, mihi fecistis.)</p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/wp-content/uploads/Sayidat_al-Nejat_attack_fatalitities_priest.jpg"><img title="Iraq is Christ Crucified" style="border-right: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; background-image: none; margin: 0px 10px 5px 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="388" alt="Sayidat al-Nejat attack fatalitities priest" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715im_/http://gorillasguides.com/wp-content/uploads/Sayidat_al-Nejat_attack_fatalitities_priest_thumb.jpg" width="516" border="0"/></a></p> <p>Iraq is Christ crucified</p> <p>markfromireland </p> <p>Good Friday 2011 </p> </p></div> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-13056"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/2011/04/17/%d9%85%d8%b3%d9%8a%d8%ad%d9%8a%d9%88-%d8%b3%d9%87%d9%84-%d9%86%d9%8a%d9%86%d9%88%d9%89-%d9%8a%d8%ad%d8%aa%d9%81%d9%84%d9%88%d9%86-%d8%a8%d8%b9%d9%8a%d8%af-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b4%d8%b9%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%8a/#respond" title="Comment on مسيحيو سهل نينوى يحتفلون بعيد الشعانين ويدعون الحكومة لحمايتهم">No Comments</a></span> Posted on April 17th, 2011 by Suleiman Aydin</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/2011/04/17/%d9%85%d8%b3%d9%8a%d8%ad%d9%8a%d9%88-%d8%b3%d9%87%d9%84-%d9%86%d9%8a%d9%86%d9%88%d9%89-%d9%8a%d8%ad%d8%aa%d9%81%d9%84%d9%88%d9%86-%d8%a8%d8%b9%d9%8a%d8%af-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b4%d8%b9%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%8a/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to مسيحيو سهل نينوى يحتفلون بعيد الشعانين ويدعون الحكومة لحمايتهم">مسيحيو سهل نينوى يحتفلون بعيد الشعانين ويدعون الحكومة لحمايتهم</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/category/human-rights/" title="View all posts in Human Rights" rel="category tag">Human Rights</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/category/iraq/" title="View all posts in News" rel="category tag">News</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/category/religion/" title="View all posts in Religion" rel="category tag">Religion</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christian-minority/" rel="tag">christian minority</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christian-population/" rel="tag">christian population</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christianity/" rel="tag">Christianity</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christians/" rel="tag">Christians</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/gzg-failure-to-protect-christians/" rel="tag">GZG failure to protect Christians</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/%d8%a8%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d8%b3%d9%8a%d8%ad%d9%8a%d9%8a%d9%86/" rel="tag">بالمسيحيين</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <div dir="rtl" align="right"> <blockquote> <p>شارك المئات من مسيحيي منطقة سهل نينوى، الأحد، في إحياء طقوس "عيد الشعانين" وسط صلوات من اجل السلام، ودعوات لطي صفحة الماضي والعمل لبناء العراق، ودعا بعضهم الحكومة الاتحادية لتوفيرالأمن لأبناء الطائفة، ليمارسوا حياتهم الطبيعية وطقوسهم الدينية بحرية في أنحاء البلاد. <br/>وقال كاهن كنيسة القوش غزوان يوسف بحو، في حديث لـ"السومرية نيوز"، إن "الاحتفال بعيد الشعانين الذي أقيم اليوم الأحد، تضمن احياء قداديس دينية في كنيسة مدينة القوش"، مشيراً إلى إن "المشاركين ابتهلوا خلال صلواتهم لحلول السلام والأمان". <br/>وأضاف أن "الاحتفال شهد مشاركة أوسع للمحتفلين مقارنة بالعام الماضي، كما أن عدداً من عوائل المهاجرين جاءوا من خارج العراق للمشاركة في أعياد السعانين والفصح في مناطقهم". <br/>ودعا كاهن كنيسة القوش، إلى "طي صفحة الماضي والنظر بأمل إلى المستقبل، والعمل من أجل السلام وبناء العراق"، مؤكداً في الوقت نفسه، على "أهمية بقاء المسيحيين في أرضهم ووطنهم". <br/>ويحتفل المسيحيون بعيد الشعانين (الخلاص)، في الأحد السابع من الصوم الكبير، والأخير قبل عيد الفصح أو القيامة، ويسمى الأسبوع الذي يبدأ به بـ"اسبوع الشعانين"، أو "اسبوع الآلام"، وهو يوم ذكرى دخول السيد المسيح إلى بيت المقدس، واستقباله من قبل الجموع بفرش ثيابهم وأغصان الأشجار والنخيل والزيتون احتفالاً بمقدمه. <br/>من جهته، قال كرم كامل، أحد المشاركين في الاحتفال، لــ"السومرية نيوز"، إن "للاحتفال بعيد الشعانين نكهة خاصة، ونحرص من خلال المشاركة في طقوسه على الحفاظ على التقاليد، وعلى أصالة الوجود المسيحي في العراق"، مضيفاً أن "مسيحيي المنطقة شاركوا بحماس كبير في الاحتفال، وحرص العديد منهم على ارتداء أزياء تقليدية في محاولة لإثبات وجودهم فوق أرضهم". <br/>ودعا كامل، الحكومة العراقية إلى "توفير الأمن ليتمكن المسيحيون العراقيون مم ممارسة حياتهم الطبيعية وطقوسهم الدينية بحرية في أنحاء البلاد". <br/>وبحسب مصادر مطلعة، فإن المئات من الأسر المسيحية استقرت في منطقة سهل نينوى، شمال شرق الموصل، منذ الهجوم المسلح على كنيسة "سيدة النجاة"، في منطقة الكرادة وسط بغداد، خلال تشرين الثاني الماضي، وهرباً من تهديدات الجماعات المسلحة لهم. <br/>يذكر أن عدد المسيحيين في العراق بلغ في الثمانينيات ما بين مليون إلى مليوني نسمة، وانخفضت هذه النسبة خلال حقبة التسعينيات بسبب توالي الحروب وتردي الأوضاع الاقتصادية، في حين هاجر القسم الأكبر منهم، بعد سنة 2003 بسبب أعمال العنف التي طالتهم في مناطق مختلفة من العراق. <br/>وكانت كنيسة سيدة النجاة، تعرضت في 31 تشرين الثاني الماضي، إلى اقتحام من قبل مجموعة مسلحة أقدمت على احتجاز عشرات الرهائن من المسيحيين الذي كانوا يقيمون قداس الأحد، وأسفرت العملية عن مقتل و إصابة ما لا يقل عن 125 شخصاً من المصلين، وقد تبنى تنظيم ما يعرف بدولة العراق الإسلامية في بيان له الهجوم وهدد بمواصلة استهداف المسيحيين في العراق، كما شهدت مناطق عدة في العراق، بعد الحادث، لاسيما في بغداد والموصل، حركة نزوح كثيفة لعائلات مسيحية إلى مناطق إقليم كردستان العراق، إما بفعل تلقيها تهديدات من قبل مجهولين، أو بفعل تعرض أفرادها لاعتداءات. <br/>ويضم العراق أربع طوائف مسيحية رئيسة هي الكلدان أتباع كنيسة المشرق المتحولين إلى الكثلكة، والسريان الأرثوذكس، والسريان الكاثوليك، وطائفة اللاتين الكاثوليك، والآشوريين أتباع الكنيسة الشرقية، إضافة إلى أعداد قليلة من أتباع كنائس الأرمن والأقباط والبروتستانت. </p> </blockquote> <p><strong>المصدر : </strong>  <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://www.alsumarianews.com/ar/4/20310/news-details-Iraqi%20stories.html" class="external" target="_blank">السومرية نيوز | قصص عراقية | مسيحيو سهل نينوى يحتفلون بعيد الشعانين ويدعون الحكومة لحمايتهم</a></p> </p></div> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-12671"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/2011/03/07/you-only-need-a-few-fanatics-and-it-all-falls-to-pieces/#respond" title="Comment on You Only Need A Few Fanatics And It All Falls To Pieces">No Comments</a></span> Posted on March 7th, 2011 by Burhan Aydin</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/2011/03/07/you-only-need-a-few-fanatics-and-it-all-falls-to-pieces/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to You Only Need A Few Fanatics And It All Falls To Pieces">You Only Need A Few Fanatics And It All Falls To Pieces</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/category/english-articles/" title="View all posts in English Language Articles" rel="category tag">English Language Articles</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/andrew-white/" rel="tag">andrew white</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/canon-andrew-white/" rel="tag">Canon Andrew White</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christian-minority/" rel="tag">christian minority</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christianity/" rel="tag">Christianity</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christians/" rel="tag">Christians</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christians-persecution-of/" rel="tag">Christians - persecution of</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/ethnic-cleansing-of-christians/" rel="tag">Ethnic cleansing of Christians</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/gzg-failure-to-protect-christians/" rel="tag">GZG failure to protect Christians</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/independent-the-uk/" rel="tag">Independent -The (UK)</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/invasion/" rel="tag">invasion</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/invasion-of-iraq/" rel="tag">invasion of iraq</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/iraqi-christians/" rel="tag">iraqi christians</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/islam/" rel="tag">Islam</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/kidnapping/" rel="tag">kidnapping</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/kidnappings/" rel="tag">Kidnappings</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/korea/" rel="tag">Korea</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/minority-communities/" rel="tag">minority communities</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/niger/" rel="tag">Niger</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/pakistan/" rel="tag">Pakistan</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/palestine/" rel="tag">Palestine</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/peter-moore/" rel="tag">Peter Moore</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/photos/" rel="tag">Photos</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/press/" rel="tag">Press</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/reconciliation/" rel="tag">reconciliation</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/religion/" rel="tag">Religion</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/saddam-hussein/" rel="tag">Saddam Hussein</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/streets-of-baghdad/" rel="tag">streets of baghdad</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/terry-jones/" rel="tag">terry jones</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a5%d8%b3%d9%84%d8%a7%d9%85%e2%80%8e/" rel="tag">الإسلام‎</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/%d8%a8%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d8%b3%d9%8a%d8%ad%d9%8a%d9%8a%d9%86/" rel="tag">بالمسيحيين</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <div style="border-right: black 1px solid; padding-right: 5px; border-top: black 1px solid; padding-left: 5px; float: right; padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 5px 0px 5px 15px; border-left: black 1px solid; width: 300px; padding-top: 5px; border-bottom: black 1px solid"> <p><font size="3"><strong>The Monday Interview:</strong> With his 30 armed guards, Andrew White, ‘Vicar of Baghdad’, lives on Christianity’s front line. Jerome Taylor meets him:</font></p> <p> <a title="20100307_canon_andrew_white_in_baghdad by Gorillas Guides, on Flickr" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://www.flickr.com/photos/gorillasguides/5506077910/" class="external" target="_blank"><font size="3"><img style="display: block; float: none; margin: 0px auto 5px" height="381" alt="20100307_canon_andrew_white_in_baghdad" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715im_/http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5252/5506077910_55e027241d_o.jpg" width="280"/></font> </a> </div> <p>Canon Andrew White leans over his desk and – with a mischievous glint in his eye – prepares to deliver what I now suspect is a signature move when greeting new guests. Handing over a copy of one of his books, his face breaks into a wide grin as he asks: "Would you like me to sign that for you? I tell you what, I’ll use this pen. It was the same one used to sign Saddam Hussein’s death sentence." </p> <p>Such a macabre piece of historical memorabilia might appear an unusual keepsake for an Anglican priest but then Canon White – the so-called Vicar of Baghdad – is no ordinary clergyman. As pastor to St George’s, the only Anglican church in Iraq, Canon White has been on the front line of the most violent and barbaric persecution of a Christian minority in living memory. </p> <p>Cut off from the streets of Baghdad by blast-proof barriers, razor wire and round-the-clock security, St George’s is one of the few churches still able to operate weekly services for the Iraqi capital’s rapidly diminishing Christian congregation. Scores of his worshippers have been kidnapped or murdered, and militants have routinely tried to storm the complex which lies outside the comparative safety of the Green Zone. </p> <p>Canon White, 47, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, has been shot at and kidnapped but still he returns, making sure to spend at least three weeks of every month with an embattled congregation that refer to him as their abouna (father). </p> <p>The 6ft 2in, bowtie-loving priest spoke on a brief visit back to his picturesque home in a quiet Hampshire village which he shares with his wife and two boys (for security reasons he asks us not to give their names or location). The stopover was part publicity tour for his new book Faith Under Fire, part a chance to catch up with the family. </p> <p>The Hampshire house is a pretty, single-storey family home in a quiet curving cul-de-sac, containing a theologian’s study filled with books and crucifixes from across the world. Work is a war zone 3,000 miles away, where Canon White is protected by 30 security guards. A place of sandbags and terror, particularly for Iraqi Christians, whose population has plummeted in the past 20 years from 1.4 million to just 300,000. </p> <p>The fountain pen, which Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki borrowed for a couple of days and used to sign Saddam’s death warrant, is a way of breaking the ice before talking about a subject that will inevitably be gruesome. We meet just days after Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s only Christian cabinet member, was gunned down in Islamabad and it is inevitable that the conversation quickly turns to violent persecution of Christians. "All over the world there are increasing threats against Christians," Canon White says. "Bhatti’s death is deeply disturbing. But when you’re living in the midst of the fire like in Baghdad, it’s really what happens there that concerns you. We have had 123 people killed in Baghdad since November." </p> <p>Last year in fact was a particularly brutal year for Iraq’s Christians and 2011 looked like it was going to be no different. But in the past few weeks the killings have stopped. </p> <p>As head of the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East, Canon White has built unparalleled relationships with Iraq’s senior Sunni and Shia clerics. In late January he gathered them in Copenhagen to issue a joint fatwa (religious edict) condemning any attacks on minority communities. "Until then Christians were being killed every day," he says. "After the fatwa the killings stopped. It’s crucial to remember that the vast majority of Muslims we work with, they are our friends. We can only do what we do with their help." </p> <p>When he is not administering to his flock, it is these kinds of delicate negotiations between Iraq’s religious power players that occupy much of Canon White’s time in Baghdad. He has been a key negotiator in kidnappings including that of the IT worker Peter Moore, who was released, and Ken Bigley, who was killed. He has himself been taken hostage, held in a room where freshly severed fingers and toes littered the floor, and has negotiated for the release of countless Iraqis. The violence he has seen is harrowing. Does he ever lose his faith? "Never," he says. "If anything, my faith has got stronger." It’s a reply you often hear from religious people in conflict zones – but how can religion be a force for good when it does so much harm in these situations? </p> <p>"I remind myself that if religion is a force for bad it is also a force for good," he says. "If religion is the cause of this horrific violence then it is also the cure. The only way you will be able to stop this violence is engage with Iraq’s religions in a religious way. The best thing we can do is work with the Islamic leaders as most of them are not terrorists." </p> <p>Canon White places the blame for the violence against his congregants squarely at the feet of al-Qa’ida in Iraq, the primarily foreign militant network inspired by Osama bin Laden. "Those who instigate violence are mainly from outside," he says. "There are certain people you simply can’t work with and the al-Qa’ida people fall into that category." </p> <p>But he is equally infuriated by Christian bigots and publicity seekers – such as the American pastor Terry Jones, who threatened to burn the Koran. "Pastor Terry Jones is directly responsible for the murder of some of our people," Canon White says. "They have no idea how terrible it was. Throughout the time he threatened to burn the holy Koran, they were warning us that our people would be attacked. Four of my guards were killed throughout that time. He can try and say from the safety of Florida he was trying to make an important point. But it was an important point that killed our people." </p> <p>Canon White was himself a supporter of the American-led invasion of Iraq, but after all the killing, the mutilations, the kidnappings and the mass exodus of Iraq’s Christians – does he still think it was worth it? </p> <p>It’s the first time he seems unsure of himself. "I had one day in the whole of my life when I thought to myself, why did we do this," he says. "But I remember what it was like in Iraq before the war, the fear people lived under." Yet he adds: "But at least you could walk down the street." </p> <p>I press again, was it really worth it, so much violence, so many deaths? </p> <p>"I had seen the terror of the Saddam regime and I knew there was absolutely nothing the Iraqis could do to remove that terror," he replies. "It’s been hell. So many people killed. I still say the regime had to be removed but we should have done things differently afterwards." </p> <p>Regrets are a luxury Canon White cannot afford. He has a flock in Iraq to attend to. While a semblance of peace has returned for Baghdad’s Christians thanks to the joint fatwa, Canon White knows it is temporary. "From my years and years in Palestine, Israel and Baghdad I know that the majority of people can live together," he says. "But you only need a few fanatics and it all falls to pieces." </p> <p><b>Christianity under fire</b></p> <p>IRAQ In the past 20 years, the flight of Christians has reduced the community’s population from 1.4 million to 300,000. </p> <p>EGYPT On New Year’s Day, 21 Copts were killed in a bomb in Alexandria. </p> <p>PAKISTAN Shahbaz Bhatti, the country’s only Christian cabinet member, was assassinated last week. </p> <p>NORTH KOREA Christianity is vehemently prosecuted in North Korea, where any expression of religion in the totalitarian state is viewed as open insurrection against the Communist regime. </p> <p>NIGERIA Sectarian conflict between Muslims and Christians in central Nigeria has broken out with horrendous violence over the past two years in and around the city of Jos. </p> <p><strong>Source:</strong> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/andrew-white-the-vast-majority-of-muslims-are-our-friends-2234252.html" class="external" target="_blank">Andrew White: ‘The vast majority of muslims are our friends’ – Profiles, People – The Independent</a></p> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-12237"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/2011/01/20/%d9%85%d8%a4%d8%aa%d9%85%d8%b1-%d9%84%d9%84%d8%ad%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a8%d9%8a%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a7%d8%af%d9%8a%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%81%d9%8a-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%86%d8%ac%d9%81/#respond" title="Comment on مؤتمر للحوار بين الاديان في النجف">No Comments</a></span> Posted on January 20th, 2011 by Suleiman Aydin</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/2011/01/20/%d9%85%d8%a4%d8%aa%d9%85%d8%b1-%d9%84%d9%84%d8%ad%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a8%d9%8a%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a7%d8%af%d9%8a%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%81%d9%8a-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%86%d8%ac%d9%81/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to مؤتمر للحوار بين الاديان في النجف">مؤتمر للحوار بين الاديان في النجف</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/category/iraq/" title="View all posts in News" rel="category tag">News</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/category/religion/" title="View all posts in Religion" rel="category tag">Religion</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christianity/" rel="tag">Christianity</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christians-right-to-protection/" rel="tag">christians - right to protection</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/islam/" rel="tag">Islam</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/muslimchristian-dialogues/" rel="tag">Muslim/Christian dialogues</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/muslimchristian-solidarity/" rel="tag">Muslim/Christian solidarity</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a5%d8%b3%d9%84%d8%a7%d9%85%e2%80%8e/" rel="tag">الإسلام‎</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <p dir="rtl" align="right">دعوات للتسامح والعيش المشترك يطلقها رجال الدين من مختلف الاديان والمذاهب في مؤتمر من النجف العاصمة الدينية للعراق. <br/>المؤتمر الذي حمل عنوان الحوار بين الاديان ركز على دعم المعتدلين واسكات الاصوات المتطرفة في جميع الاديان، في وقت اعتبر بعض الحاضرين أن دعوات الحوار والتسامح داخل المجتمع سيظل حبرا على ورق في حال عدم وجود تحرك جدي لرجال الدين في هذا الامر. <br/>مدير مؤسسة الفكر الاسلامي في هولندا امير جابر <br/>صوت العقلاء مغيب وصوت المتطرفين من المسلمين والمسيحيين هو العالي الان وهم موجودين في الواجة ويتمثلون بالتكفريين واليمين المشتدد في اوربا وهولاء موجودين ولهم اصوات عالية. <br/>المدير العام لشؤون الايزدية في حكومة اقليم كردستان العراق خيري بوازني. <br/>الحوار والتسامح سيبقى حبر على ورق مالم تطبق على ارض الواقع من قبل الرعيل الاول في المجتمع وهم رجال الدين. <br/>الاب مخلص قرياقوس ششه كاهن في كنيسة سيدة النجاة <br/>على كل رجالات الدين من مختلف الطوائف ان تركز على الانسان الاخر والتعايش معه بغض النظر عن الجنس او العرق التي يجب الابتعاد عنها. <br/>تهجير المسحيين وهجرة آخرين من المكونات المهمة في المجتمع العراقي والتي تسكن العراق منذ آلاف السنين وجدها البعض انها تستهدف تحريض المجتمع الدولي ضد العراق فضلا عن افراغه من كفاءاته. <br/>المتحدث باسم زعيم التيار الصدري/ صلاح العبيدي <br/>استهداف المسحيين بشكل صريح يؤلب مشاعر عالمية ضد ما يجري في العراق وهذا اسلوب جديد لما يريد القتل في البلاد، نحن بحاجة الى جلسات حوار علمي وتقديم تنازلات في الحصص والمناصب الحكومية. <br/>علاء عزيز طارش وكيل رئيس طائفة الصابئة المندان <br/>في الظروف الحالية للعراق وهجرة عدد من ابناء الصابئة هو امر مؤسف خصوصا اذا ما عرفنا ان قسم منهم هم من الكفاءات في مختلف المجالات. <br/>استمرار الدعوات للحوار والتسامح منذ العام 2003 من الساسة ورجال الدين بمختلف انتمائاتهم يبرره العنف المستمر ضد بعض المكونات في المجتمع، في وقت يشير فيه مراقبون إلى ان الجو السياسي الحالي بدأ يبيح لبعض الجهات المتشددة فرض ما يناسبها على الآخر </p> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-12029"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/12/28/we-will-resist-and-we-will-remainmgr-sako/#comments" title="Comment on We will resist and we will remain–Mgr Sako">1 Comment</a></span> Posted on December 28th, 2010 by Hussein Al-Bayati</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/12/28/we-will-resist-and-we-will-remainmgr-sako/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to We will resist and we will remain–Mgr Sako">We will resist and we will remain–Mgr Sako</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/category/english-articles/" title="View all posts in English Language Articles" rel="category tag">English Language Articles</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/category/human-rights/" title="View all posts in Human Rights" rel="category tag">Human Rights</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/category/religion/" title="View all posts in Religion" rel="category tag">Religion</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/archbishop-louis-sako/" rel="tag">Archbishop Louis Sako</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/asianews/" rel="tag">asianews</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/baghdad/" rel="tag">Baghdad</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/basrah/" rel="tag">Basrah</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christianity/" rel="tag">Christianity</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christians/" rel="tag">Christians</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christians-and-muslims/" rel="tag">Christians and Muslims</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christmas/" rel="tag">Christmas</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/churches/" rel="tag">churches</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/ethnic-cleansing-of-christians/" rel="tag">Ethnic cleansing of Christians</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/iraqi-christians/" rel="tag">iraqi christians</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/martyrs/" rel="tag">Martyrs</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/middle-east/" rel="tag">Middle East</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/mosul/" rel="tag">Mosul</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/religion/" rel="tag">Religion</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/security-measures/" rel="tag">security measures</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/turkmen/" rel="tag">Turkmen</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/%d8%a8%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d8%b3%d9%8a%d8%ad%d9%8a%d9%8a%d9%86/" rel="tag">بالمسيحيين</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <blockquote><p>" We live in Iraq today, a painful experience, culminating in the massacre of Our Lady of Deliverance, which have shocked Christians and Muslims together, but we are determined to withstand the ordeal. We will not give in to temptation and frustration because life is a gift from God and it is greater than the hands of evil can destroy it".</p> <hr/></blockquote> <p>Many liturgical functions called off, no Christmas decorations, and no celebrations after dark. The Iraqi prime minister calls attacks on Christians "a crime against national unity". An appeal for peace and solidarity among ethnic groups and religions, and a message of hope from the archbishop of Kirkuk.</p> <p>Kirkuk (<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://www.asianews.it/news-en/A-gloomy-Christmas-in-Iraq.-Mgr-Sako:-we-will-resist-and-we-will-remain-20350.html" class="external" target="_blank">AsiaNews / Agencies</a>) – A Christmas of fear and sadness for Iraqi Christians, in memory of the martyrs killed Oct. 31 in the Syrian Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad. Many masses were called off across the country, and security measures heightened. But in the midst of this also the determination expressed in a message also sent to <i>AsiaNews </i>by Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk. According to <i>Middle East Concern</i>, the celebrations were cancelled as a result of threats posted on Web sites of Islamic groups. "The decision was taken after the threats were repeated on Tuesday, December 22. The churches in Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk have decided not to put up Christmas decorations and called off ceremonies after dark”.</p> <p>Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has called on Christians not to leave Iraq. "Attempts to keep Christians away from their homeland and their land, which clung to them through the centuries, is a great crime against national unity," al-Maliki said in a statement marking the Christmas holiday. But many churches in Mosul did not hold celebrations while in Basra the roads leading to churches were cordoned off with barbed wire, and the buildings were surrounded by security forces.</p> <p>In this gloomy picture, the archbishop of Kirkuk, wants to talk about hope. "As long as we get back to each other: Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen, Muslims and Christians, we resist and we stay, because Iraq without us loses its beautiful multi-identity. We remain because are committed to love and to return to each other. This is the road to resurrection, life and renewal".</p> <p>Archbishop Sako recalled Oct. 31: " We live in Iraq today, a painful experience, culminating in the massacre of Our Lady of Deliverance, which have shocked Christians and Muslims together, but we are determined to withstand the ordeal. We will not give in to temptation and frustration because life is a gift from God and it is greater than the hands of evil can destroy it".</p> <p>"If we go back to the essence of religion and to our common human roots, inevitably we will meet tour national fraternity in equality, justice, solidarity. Then risk will vanish and life will reflect abundantly This is good news of Christmas, the birth of Jesus Christ with his message of hope: Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace. "</p> <p>The Archbishop of Kirkuk concluded his message with an appeal for peace: "Peace is the base of all goods: we ask it in prayer and implement it with mutual love and solidarity. Then the miracle happens and we will have peace on earth for human beings and the glory of God in the highest. We both believe that God is the Lord of the impossible".</p> <p></p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://www.asianews.it/news-en/A-gloomy-Christmas-in-Iraq.-Mgr-Sako:-we-will-resist-and-we-will-remain-20350.html" class="external" target="_blank">IRAQ A gloomy Christmas in Iraq. Mgr Sako: "we will resist and we will remain" – Asia News</a></p> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-11986"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/12/24/christian-exodus-from-iraq-gathers-pace/#respond" title="Comment on Christian exodus from Iraq gathers pace">No Comments</a></span> Posted on December 24th, 2010 by Nur Hussein Ghazali</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/12/24/christian-exodus-from-iraq-gathers-pace/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Christian exodus from Iraq gathers pace">Christian exodus from Iraq gathers pace</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/category/english-articles/" title="View all posts in English Language Articles" rel="category tag">English Language Articles</a>, <a 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href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a5%d8%b3%d9%84%d8%a7%d9%85%e2%80%8e/" rel="tag">الإسلام‎</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/%d8%a8%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d8%b3%d9%8a%d8%ad%d9%8a%d9%8a%d9%86/" rel="tag">بالمسيحيين</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <p>Their cathedrals stand silent and their neighbourhoods are rapidly emptying. Now <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/iraq" class="external" target="_blank">Iraq</a>’s Christians face two further unthinkable realities: that Christmas this year is all but cancelled, and that few among them will stay around to celebrate future holy days.</p> <p>It has been the worst of years for the country’s Christians, with thousands fleeing in the past month and more leaving the country during 2010 than at any time since the invasion nearly eight years ago. Christian leaders say there have been few more defining years in their 2,000-year history in central Arabia.</p> <p> <a title="20102412_captioned_memorial_murdered_christians by Gorillas Guides, on Flickr" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://www.flickr.com/photos/gorillasguides/5287899085/" class="external" target="_blank"><img style="display: block; float: none; margin: 0px auto 5px" height="276" alt="20102412_captioned_memorial_murdered_christians" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715im_/http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5245/5287899085_689e1097d8_o.jpg" width="460"/></a> <p>The latest exodus follows a massacre led by al-Qaida at a Chaldean Catholic church in central Baghdad on 31 October, which left about 60 people dead, almost 100 maimed and an already apprehensive community terrified. Since then, the terrorist group has targeted Christians in their homes, including family members of those who survived the attack.</p> <p>In Baghdad, as well as the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk, Christmas services have been cancelled for fear of further violence. Church leaders said they would not put up Christmas decorations or celebrate midnight mass. They told families not to decorate their homes, for fear of attack after al-Qaida reiterated its threat to target Christians earlier this week.</p> <p>"Now more than 80% of Christians are not going to the churches," said the head of Iraq’s Christian Endowment group, Abdullah al-Noufali. "There is no more sunday school, no school for teaching Christianity. Yesterday we had a discussion about what we would do for Christmas. We took a decision just to do one mass. In years before we had many masses."</p> <p>Noufali’s church was closed and barricaded in 2005 when violence was consuming Baghdad. Many others had stayed open since then. Until now. In the wake of the attack on the Our Lady of Salvation church, at least 10 churches are believed to have been closed. At others, congregations are down to a handful.</p> <p>Iraq’s Christian population has halved since the ousting of Saddam Hussein. But in the past two months, the rate of departure has soared. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees is reporting high numbers of registrations by Christians in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. And in Iraq’s Kurdish north, the number of refugees is overwhelming.</p> <p>Christians have been arriving since the president of the Kurdish regional government, Massoud Barazani, offered them protection and refuge days after the massacre.</p> <p>Kurdish officials say at least 1,000 families have taken up the offer. Noufali believes the number is far higher. He says the Kurds have been warm and welcoming, but fears that moving there does not offer his community a long-term solution.</p> <p>"We have seen in Kurdistan that they have no ability to accept the Kurdish students in the universities," he said. "There are not enough chairs in the university for them. They must have opportunity to learn and work. The problem is not just security."</p> <p>In Lebanon, the plight of Iraq’s Christians is being carefully scrutinised. Father Yusef Muwaness, of the Council of Catholic Churches in the Middle East, said: "We understand the shock [the Iraqis] are enduring. We want them to know that they won’t be left alone.</p> <p>"There are ancient issues at work. These people [al-Qaida] are killing because of a fatwa. There has not been a mufti who has stood up and said this is wrong."</p> <p>Lebanon’s Christians once held a demographic majority. Emigration and a brutal civil war has whittled numbers away. Amin Gemayel, a former Lebanese president and now patriarch of many of the country’s remaining Christians, believes far more could be done by Muslim leaders to ensure that the exodus is not total.</p> <p>"The Christians were very nationalistic," he said. "They are part of the foundations of this area. We can’t understand such extremity then passivity from the leaders. When the region is completely cleansed of other religions (apart from Islam) it will be a surrender to the fundamentalists."</p> <p>In the Chaldean archdiocese in Baabda, above Beirut, Father Hanna has been receiving Iraqi families fleeing their homeland. "I would go back there to give a service in front of one person, if I had to," he said. "But even that may not be possible now. Since 1 November, we have seen 450 families register here. Many more have gone to the UN."</p> <p>Among those who have stayed in Iraq and tried to build a new life in the north, there are mixed feelings. "Three days after the church attack I left my house (in Baghdad) and came to the KRG," said Georges Qudah, 30, a pharmacy assistant. "At the main checkpoint I said we are a Christian family, and they said we are welcome to stay as long as we want. I feel safe and comfortable here, but the problem is how to live. The council here has given us blankets and beds, but housing is very expensive."</p> <p>In Baghdad, there are few signs of the joy of Christmas.</p> <p>"There is no hope here anymore," says Noufali. "No one can believe they [the Christians] will stay. Christmas came with two messages, peace in the world and hope for the people and we need these two things for our life in Iraq. If there are no more Christians here, I am certain Iraq will become a more dangerous country."</p> <h3>Christianity in the Middle East</h3> <p> Freedom of worship for Christians varies greatly across the Middle East. <p>In Lebanon, where about half the population are Christian, believers are allowed to practise their faith without fear of persecution. The Maronite Church is the largest, most politically active and influential denomination, holding 34 of the 64 Christian seats in the Lebanese parliament.</p> <p>In Jordan, Christians are free to profess their faith, build churches, schools, hospitals and universities. They attend mass and there are public celebrations of religious festivals and ceremonies. They experience less discrimination and more freedom than fellow believers in Egypt and Iraq. There is a similar portrait of stability and freedom in Syria, where Christians comprise up to 10% of the population.</p> <p>Evangelising bvy Protestants in Jordan has prompted a crackdown on churches, visas and summer camps. Attempting to convert Muslims is illegal, but there is no law against proselytising to other Christians and some Catholic and Orthodox groups have complained of energetic wooing from Protestants. It is this evangelising that has offended authorities, keen to avoid religious zealotry of any sort.</p> <p>What Saudi Arabia lacks in violent persecution it makes up for in outright intolerance. There is no religious freedom in Saudi Arabia, which counts a million Catholics in its population. The country allows Christians to enter for work purposes but severely restricts the practise of their faith.</p> <p>Christians worship in private homes and there are bans on religious articles including Bibles, crucifixes, statues, carvings and items bearing religious symbols. The religious police bar the practice of any religion other than Islam. Conversion of a Muslim to another religion is considered apostasy and carries a death sentence if the accused does not recant. Still, Christians in Saudi Arabia are positively blessed compared with those of Iraq. <strong>Riazat Butt</strong></p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/23/iraq-christian-exodus-christmas" class="external" target="_blank">Christian exodus from Iraq gathers pace</a> | by Martin Chulov in Baghdad |  <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://www.guardian.co.uk/" target="_blank" class="external">The Guardian</a></p> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-11944"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/12/14/analysis-an-exodus-of-christians-from-iraq/#respond" title="Comment on Analysis: An exodus of Christians from Iraq">No Comments</a></span> Posted on December 14th, 2010 by Yusuf Al-Jezani</div> <h3><a 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href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/lebanon/" rel="tag">Lebanon</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/middle-east/" rel="tag">Middle East</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/minority-communities/" rel="tag">minority communities</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/monasteries/" rel="tag">Monasteries</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/mosul/" rel="tag">Mosul</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/new-york-times/" rel="tag">New York Times</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/niger/" rel="tag">Niger</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/nigeria/" rel="tag">Nigeria</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/pakistan/" rel="tag">Pakistan</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/prince-turki-al-faisal/" rel="tag">prince turki al faisal</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/religious-freedom/" rel="tag">religious freedom</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/saudi/" rel="tag">Saudi</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/security-forces/" rel="tag">security forces</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/syria/" rel="tag">Syria</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/syrian-catholic-church/" rel="tag">syrian catholic church</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/unhcr/" rel="tag">UNHCR</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a5%d8%b3%d9%84%d8%a7%d9%85%e2%80%8e/" rel="tag">الإسلام‎</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <div style="border-right: black 1px solid; padding-right: 5px; border-top: black 1px solid; padding-left: 5px; float: right; padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 5px 0px 5px 15px; border-left: black 1px solid; width: 360px; padding-top: 5px; border-bottom: black 1px solid"> <p>“What is often unnoticed in the Middle East is the devastating effect of U.S. policy on Christians in the region. U.S. policymakers have never taken the plight of Christians seriously, whether in Iraq or in Lebanon. There may be protests of specific violations, but not in those areas where the U.S. or Israelis have other strategic interests. For all the communication with U.S. government over the past 20 years, I have seen no serious action from any administration to improve protection for Christians. Religious freedom is basically a reporting matter and no more.”<img style="display: block; float: none; margin: 0px auto 5px" height="286" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715im_/http://gorillasguides.com/images/UNHCRstartstohelphundredsofIraqiChristia_33C/20081024_christian_refugee_child_syria.jpg" width="359"/></p> <p>"Iraqi Christians represent only 3 percent of the population, they account for 20 percent of the Iraqis who have emigrated abroad."</p> <p>"That’s largely because they have the connections to Western churches and family members who are already abroad in places like Detroit, Toronto, Los Angeles and elsewhere and therefore have a better chance of getting out."</p> </p></div> <p>WASHINGTON — A steady exodus of Christians from the Middle East and — most dramatically — from Iraq since the October slaughter of 57 churchgoers in Baghdad, has a long and layered history.</p> <p>The diminishing Christian presence in the land where the faith began some 2,000 years ago is an issue about which anyone — of any faith, or of no faith — who is concerned about the future of the Middle East, should care deeply.</p> <p>But when it comes out of a simple, emotional response by a Christian West wanting to defend a Christian minority in the East during Christmas time, it leads down a dangerous road in history. It’s a perilous path that sets out from the Crusades, when England and France marched off to save the Holy Land and its Christians from Muslim conquest, and one littered with moral hazards and potential for even greater violence.</p> <p>The whole message of the New Testament would be to care about all who are suffering in war-torn Iraq, not just Christians. And there are lots of people suffering in Iraq.</p> <p>So the starting point to understanding the lessons of the recent Iraqi Christian exodus is to not allow the religious extremists — neither Muslim nor Christian nor any other faith — to exploit the attacks and present them out of context as a “clash of civilizations,” that self-fulfilling prophecy coined by the late Harvard University historian, Samuel Huntington.</p> <p>A glimpse of the writing on the wall can be seen along the back alleys in the Iraqi Christian neighborhoods of Baghdad and Mosul. That’s where a militant fringe has for years been scribbling anti-Christian hatred in the form of graffiti.</p> <p>A particularly ominous anti-Christian bit of graffiti, which I first saw spray-painted on walls at least 12 years ago in Egypt when Islamic fundamentalists were targeting Coptic Christians, has reportedly resurfaced in Iraq in recent months. The translation from the Arabic slogan is this: “First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.”</p> <p>The phrase is an overt threat intended to say that Muslims, who worship on Friday, have already pushed many Jews, who worship on Saturday, out of the Middle East and that now they will do the same to the Christians.</p> <p>Long before Sept. 11 and the “War on Terror,” it often felt like Selma, Ala. circa 1960 in many Christian minority communities of the Middle East.</p> <p>This climate of threat and intimidation and sometimes violence has been boiling to the surface in places around the world where the Muslim majority collides with a Christian minority, such as Egypt, Pakistan, Sudan, Iran, Nigeria and elsewhere.</p> <p>But nowhere is a palpable sense of fear and a Christian exodus from the Middle East more dramatic right now than Iraq, where analysts estimate that fully half of the country’s Christians have left since 2003.</p> <p>It was Oct. 31, a Sunday, at the Syrian Catholic Church of Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad that the climate of fear was made horrifyingly real and where it became clear that Al Qaeda-inspired elements were going to go right to the third rail of the Western influence in the Middle East by targeting indigenous Christians — trying to break the 2,000-year continuum of a living Christian presence in Iraq.</p> <p>It was at the very end of an All Saints Day mass, when eight heavily armed men, purportedly inspired by Al Qaeda, invaded the church in the heart of Baghdad just as Wassim Sabih, the priest, was about to conclude the service with the words, “The Mass has ended, go in peace.”</p> <p>According to published reports based on eyewitness accounts, Sabih never got the words out as the militants opened fire. They pointed their weapons at him and silenced him as he began pleading for the release of his parishioners.</p> <p>They took the parishioners hostage and demanded the release of two Muslim women who were supposedly held by Egyptian Coptic Christians. Iraqi Security Forces responded and in the wild gun battle that ensued, grenades were thrown by the militants, and in the end of that Sunday’s mass, 57 people were dead, including two priests.</p> <p>A group calling itself The Islamic State of Iraq claimed responsibility for the attack. Believed to be an offshoot of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the group issued a bulletin, saying, “All Christian centers, organizations and institutions, leaders and followers are legitimate targets.” And that they will kill Christians “wherever they can reach them.”</p> <p>In the historical comparison of Selma, the Ku Klux Klan, which in this context would be Al Qaeda, has always been menacing, but now it is on the rise and openly attacking churches.</p> <p>It is attempting to stoke the emotional fury of a Christian West to defend the indigenous Christians, and draw it deeper into a fight, to draw us into an understanding that this is indeed a “clash of civilizations.”</p> <p>That is precisely how Al Qaeda sees this historical moment. And it is precisely why it’s wise for the United States and the West to avoid seeing it that way. Al Qaeda is a tiny criminal, terrorist organization with a warped, 12th-century ideology.</p> <p>It is not a civilization.</p> <p>Drew Christiansen, editor of "America," a national Catholic weekly magazine published by Jesuits, said that too often there is an overreaction or selective reaction to these attacks, and too little done by U.S. policymakers.</p> <p>“What is often unnoticed in the Middle East is the devastating effect of U.S. policy on Christians in the region,” he said. “U.S. policymakers have never taken the plight of Christians seriously, whether in Iraq or in Lebanon. There may be protests of specific violations, but not in those areas where the U.S. or Israelis have other strategic interests. For all the communication with U.S. government over the past 20 years, I have seen no serious action from any administration to improve protection for Christians. Religious freedom is basically a reporting matter and no more.”</p> <p>Predictably, there are often shrill responses to these kinds of attacks on churches, particularly from the Christian right and at times from right-wing Jewish groups that see peril in the whole message of Islam and are quick to see these attacks as evidence of that.</p> <p>Here’s an example. I recently sat with John Eibner, head of something called Christian Solidarity International, which is a Washington-based advocacy group focusing on the persecution of Christians around the world, said on the Christians in Iraq, "Only the U.S. can save them and if we don’t, the U.S. will be responsible for what amounts to genocide."</p> <p>"The human rights community doesn’t want to touch this because it is not politically correct," he said.</p> <p>There’s a kernal of truth in that and no reason to doubt Eibner is well intentioned, but overreacting to events in the Middle East can often conflate the problems and calling the violence and intimidation a "genocide" is ridiculous.</p> <p>Prince Turki Al Faisal, the longtime head of Saudi intelligence and the former ambassador to Washington, was in the United States in November and participated in an interfaith dialogue with Christian groups. In an interview with GlobalPost, he referred to the attacks in Iraq, saying, “It’s Al Qaeda being Al Qaeda. They are making a concerted strategy knowing it would cause a reaction and an overreaction in the West. They absolutely know what they are doing … We have to be careful not to let them succeed by overreacting.”</p> <p>The truth is just about everyone lives in fear in Iraq, and just about everyone has suffered violence. Many religious and ethnic groups have been targeted in much larger numbers in the violence and chaos that followed the 2003 invasion.</p> <p>Just two days after the church attack, a spate of bombs in Sunni and Shia neighborhoods killed 68 people and wounded hundreds. An article in Monday’s editions of<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/world/middleeast/13iraq.html?_r=1&ref=middleeast" class="external" target="_blank"> The New York Times</a> [2] provides an important piece of context to focus on: While Iraqi Christians represent only 3 percent of the population, they account for 20 percent of the Iraqis who have emigrated abroad.</p> <p>That’s largely because they have the connections to Western churches and family members who are already abroad in places like Detroit, Toronto, Los Angeles and elsewhere and therefore have a better chance of getting out.</p> <p>More than half of the Iraqi Christian community, estimated to be 800,000 prior to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, have left, according to the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute.</p> <p>But the threat to Christians and the violence they are suffering is just as bad as the threat to Shia or Sunni Muslims, who are also trying to be part of a new Iraq — one where violence is beginning to subside and where the governing crisis is finally settling down. Those Iraqis care about their Christian neighbors and friends and know the important role they play in Iraq moving forward. Those are the Iraqis who don’t want the Christians to flee.</p> <p>In 2006, I had a chance to actually ask Samuel Huntington about his 1996 book, "The Clash of Civilizations," and about whether it’s central premise might actually be self-fulfilling, particularly in the wake of Sept. 11. He often felt that his scholarship was taken out of context, he said, and he confided that he wished he had titled it differently, perhaps “Clashes of Civilizations” or something not to allow people to so easily misinterpret his work.</p> <p>Huntington passed away, but we have a chance to not allow people to misinterpret history or the events unfolding around us, and that’s how best to ponder the suffering of Christians — and everyone else — in Iraq.</p> <blockquote></blockquote> <p><strong>Source:</strong> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/iraq/101213/iraq-christians-al-qaeda?page=0,0" class="external" target="_blank">Iraq | Christianity | Al Qaeda</a></p> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-11835"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/12/02/hundreds-of-christian-families-on-the-move-in-iraq/#respond" title="Comment on Hundreds of Christian families on the move in Iraq">No Comments</a></span> Posted on December 2nd, 2010 by Suheila Jamil</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/12/02/hundreds-of-christian-families-on-the-move-in-iraq/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Hundreds of Christian families on the move in Iraq">Hundreds of Christian families on the move in Iraq</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/category/english-articles/" title="View all posts in English Language Articles" rel="category tag">English Language Articles</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/category/human-rights/" title="View all posts in Human Rights" rel="category tag">Human Rights</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/amil/" rel="tag">Amil</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/ankawa-com/" rel="tag">ankawa com</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/azzaman/" rel="tag">azzaman</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christian-families/" rel="tag">christian families</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christian-minority/" rel="tag">christian minority</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christianity/" rel="tag">Christianity</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christians/" rel="tag">Christians</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christians-persecution-of/" rel="tag">Christians - persecution of</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/churches/" rel="tag">churches</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/ethnic-cleansing-of-christians/" rel="tag">Ethnic cleansing of Christians</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/iraqi-christians/" rel="tag">iraqi christians</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/kirkuk/" rel="tag">Kirkuk</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/kurdish-regional-government/" rel="tag">kurdish regional government</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/leon-barkho/" rel="tag">leon barkho</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/monasteries/" rel="tag">Monasteries</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/northern-iraq/" rel="tag">northern iraq</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/security/" rel="tag">Security</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/%d8%a8%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d8%b3%d9%8a%d8%ad%d9%8a%d9%8a%d9%86/" rel="tag">بالمسيحيين</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <p>Hundreds of Iraqi Christians families have fled their hometowns in search for security. </p> <p>Anti-Christian violence has escalated recently with several cities turning into bloody scenes in which innocent Christians have been killed or injured. </p> <p>The attacks have in the past few days targeted Christian property with several houses blown up in both Baghdad and Mosul. </p> <p>The fleeing Christians leave behind homes, furniture, jobs, professions, careers as well churches and monasteries some of which are more than 1000 years old. </p> <p>The government has promised to help but the aid is peanuts. It offers every fleeing family 500,000 Iraqi dinars (about $400). The sum can hardly cover one-month rent in the relatively quiet Kurdish north, for instance. </p> <p>More than 500 families, fleeing mainly cities such as Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk, are on the move. </p> <p>Iraqi Internet news web sites with a focus on the plight of Iraqi Christians, among them the prominent <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://www.ankawa.com/english/" class="external" target="_blank">ankawa.com</a>, have shown pictures and footage of Iraqi Christians fleeing their areas to safer towns and villages in the north. </p> <p>Many of the families are among low-income groups and cannot afford to rent flats or houses. They are temporarily housed in churches and schools. </p> <p>The Kurdish regional government has promised to help, but it is extremely hard for any authority in a developing region such as northern Iraq to deal with the an influx of hundreds of families. </p> <p>Christians in some cities like Mosul are reported to be terrified. Despite the hardship, some families have decided to stay put as they find it too painful to abandon hometowns where family roots date back to the birth of Christianity. </p> <p>There are no exact numbers on how many Christians remain in Iraq, but their population has dwindled and many fear that the country is on its way to lose its once vibrant, intelligent and hard-working Christian minority forever.</p> <p><strong>Source:</strong> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news\new%20folder\kurd.htm">Hundreds of Christian families on the move in Iraq</a> By Leon Barkho <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?code=ennewsen" class="external" target="_blank">Azzaman in English</a></p> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-11700"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/10/26/exodus/#respond" title="Comment on Exodus">No Comments</a></span> Posted on October 26th, 2010 by Ali</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/10/26/exodus/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Exodus">Exodus</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/category/english-articles/" title="View all posts in English Language Articles" rel="category tag">English Language Articles</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/category/human-rights/" title="View all posts in Human Rights" rel="category tag">Human Rights</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/category/religion/" title="View all posts in Religion" rel="category tag">Religion</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/al-amin/" rel="tag">al-Amin</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/america/" rel="tag">America</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/arabs/" rel="tag">Arabs</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/arbil/" rel="tag">Arbil</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/archbishop-paul-faraj-kidnapping-and-murder-of/" rel="tag">Archbishop Paul Faraj - 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Anwar</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/saudi-arabia/" rel="tag">Saudi Arabia</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/vatican/" rel="tag">Vatican</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/violence/" rel="tag">violence</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/west-bank/" rel="tag">West Bank</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a5%d8%b3%d9%84%d8%a7%d9%85%e2%80%8e/" rel="tag">الإسلام‎</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/%d8%a8%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d8%b3%d9%8a%d8%ad%d9%8a%d9%8a%d9%86/" rel="tag">بالمسيحيين</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <div style="padding-right: 5px; padding-left: 5px; float: right; padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 5px 0px 5px 15px; width: 360px; padding-top: 0px"> <div class="container"> <div class="shadow"> <div class="frame"> <strong>From Israel to Iraq, a Christian flight of Biblical proportions has begun.</strong> <p><a title="20100913_cross_with_lights_Arbil by Gorillas Guides, on Flickr" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://www.flickr.com/photos/27086036@N02/5117481728/" class="external" target="_blank"><img height="238" alt="20100913_cross_with_lights_Arbil" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715im_/http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1189/5117481728_113dc0d2e6_o.jpg" width="350"/></a></p> </p></div> </p></div> </p></div> </p></div> <p>In the centre of the rebuilt Beirut, the massive old Maronite Cathedral of St George stands beside the even larger mass of the new Mohammad al-Amin mosque. The mosque’s minarets tower over the cathedral, but the Maronites were built a spanking new archbishop’s house between the two buildings as compensation. Yet every day, the two calls to prayer – the clanging of church bells and the wailing of the muezzin – beat an infernal percussion across the city. Both bells and wails are tape recordings, but they have been turned up to the highest decibel pitch to outdo each other, louder than an aircraft’s roar, almost as crazed as the nightclub music from Gemmayzeh across the square. But the Christians are leaving.</p> <p>Across the Middle East, it is the same story of despairing – sometimes frightened – Christian minorities, and of an exodus that reaches almost Biblical proportions. Almost half of Iraq’s Christians have fled their country since the first Gulf War in 1991, most of them after the 2004 invasion – a weird tribute to the self-proclaimed Christian faith of the two Bush presidents who went to war with Iraq – and stand now at 550,000, scarcely 3 per cent of the population. More than half of Lebanon’s Christians now live outside their country. Once a majority, the nation’s one and a half million Christians, most of them Maronite Catholics, comprise perhaps 35 per cent of the Lebanese. Egypt’s Coptic Christians – there are at most around eight million – now represent less than 10 per cent of the population.</p> <p>This is, however, not so much a flight of fear, more a chronicle of a death foretold. Christians are being outbred by the majority Muslim populations in their countries and they are almost hopelessly divided. In Jerusalem, there are 13 different Christian churches and three patriarchs. A Muslim holds the keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to prevent Armenian and Orthodox priests fighting each other at Easter. </p> <p>When more than 200 members of 14 different churches – some of them divided – gathered in Rome last week for a papal synod on the loss of Christian populations in the lands where Christianity began, it was greeted with boredom or ignored altogether by most of the West’s press.</p> <p>Yet nowhere is the Christian fate sadder than in the territories around Jerusalem. As Monsignor Fouad Twal, the ninth Latin patriarch of Jerusalem and the second to be an Arab, put it bleakly, "the Israelis regard us as 100 per cent Palestinian Arabs and we are oppressed in the same way as the Muslims. But Muslim fundamentalists identify us with the Christian West – which is not always true – and want us to pay the price." With Christian Palestinians in Bethlehem cut off from Jerusalem by the same Israeli wall which imprisons their Muslim brothers, there is now, Twal says, "a young generation of Christians who do not know or visit the Holy Sepulchre".</p> <p>The Jordanian royal family have always protected their Christian population – at 350,000, it is around 6 per cent of the population – but this is perhaps the only flame of hope in the region. The divisions within Christianity proved even more dangerous to their community than the great Sunni-Shia divide did to the Muslims of the Middle East. Even the Crusaders were divided in their 100-year occupation of Palestine, or "Outremer", as they called it. The Lebanese journalist Fady Noun, a Christian, wrote a profound article from Rome last week in which he spoke of the Christian loss as "a great wound haemorrhaging blood", and bemoaned both Christian division and "egoism" for what he saw as a spiritual as well as a physical emigration. "There are those Christians who reach a kind of indifference… in Western countries who, swayed by the culture of these countries and the media, persuade eastern Christians to forget their identity," he wrote.</p> <p>Pope Benedict, whose mournful visit to the Holy Land last year prompted him to call the special synod which ended in the Vatican at the weekend, has adopted his usual perspective – that, despite their difficulties, Christians of the "Holy Land" must reinvigorate their feelings as "living stones" of the Middle Eastern Church. "To live in dignity in your own nation is before everything a fundamental human right," he said. "That is why you must support conditions of peace and justice, which are indispensable for the harmonious development of all the inhabitants of the region." But the Pope’s words sometimes suggested that real peace and justice lay in salvation rather than historical renewal.</p> <p>Patriarch Twal believes that the Pope understood during his trip to Israel and the West Bank last year "the disastrous consequences of the conflict between Jews and Palestinian Arabs" and has stated openly that one of the principal causes of Christian emigration is "the Israeli occupation, the Christians’ lack of freedom of movement, and the economic circumstances in which they live". But he does not see the total disappearance of the Christian faith in the Middle East. "We must have the courage to accept that we are Arabs and Christians and be faithful to this identity. Our wonderful mission is to be a bridge between East and West."</p> <p>One anonymous prelate at the Rome synod, quoted in one of the synod’s working papers, took a more pragmatic view. "Let’s stop saying there is no problem with Muslims; this isn’t true," he said. "The problem doesn’t only come from fundamentalists, but from constitutions. In all the countries of the region except Lebanon, Christians are second-class citizens." If religious freedom is guaranteed in these countries, "it is limited by specific laws and practices". In Egypt, this has certainly been the case since President Sadat referred to himself as "the Muslim president of a Muslim country".</p> <p>The Lebanese Maronite Church – its priests, by the way, can marry – understands all too well how Christians can become aligned with political groups. The Lebanese writer Sami Khalife wrote last week in the French-language newspaper L’Orient-Le Jour – the francophone voice of Lebanon’s Christians – that a loss of moral authority had turned churches in his country into "political actors" which were beginning to sound like political parties. An open letter to the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, warning him to try to turn Lebanon into a "front line" against Israel, was signed by 250 Lebanese. Most of them were from the minority Christian community.</p> <p>Nor can the church ignore Saudi Arabia, where Christianity is banned as a religion just as much as the building of churches. Christians cannot visit the Islamic holy cities of Mecca or Medina – the doors of the Vatican and Canterbury Cathedral are at least open to Muslims – and 12 Filipinos and a priest were arrested in Saudi Arabia only this month for "proselytism" for holding a secret mass. There is, perhaps, a certain irony in the fact that the only balance to Christian emigration has been the arrival in the Middle East of perhaps a quarter of a million Christian Filipino guest workers – especially in the Gulf region – while Patriarch Twal reckons that around 40,000 of them now work and live in Israel and "Palestine".</p> <p>Needless to say, it is violence against Christians that occupies the West, a phenomenon nowhere better, or more bloodily, illustrated than by al-Qa’ida’s kidnapping of Archbishop Faraj Rahho in Mosul – an incident recorded in the US military archives revealed on Saturday – and his subsequent murder. When the Iraqi authorities later passed death sentences on two men for the killing, the church asked for them to be reprieved. In Egypt, there has been a gloomy increase in Christian-Muslim violence, especially in ancient villages in the far south of the country; in Cairo, Christian churches are now cordoned off by day-and-night police checkpoints.</p> <p>And while Western Christians routinely deplore the falling Christian populations of the Middle East, their visits to the region tend to concentrate on pilgrimages to Biblical sites rather than meetings with their Christian opposite numbers. </p> <p>Americans, so obsessed by the myths of East-West "clashes of civilisation" since 11 September 2001, often seem to regard Christianity as a "Western" rather than an Eastern religion, neatly separating the Middle East roots of their own religion from the lands of Islam. That in itself is a loss of faith.</p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-exodus-the-changing-map-of-the-middle-east-2116463.html" class="external" target="_blank">Robert Fisk: Exodus. The changing map of the Middle East – Robert Fisk, Commentators – The Independent</a></p> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-11568"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/10/07/vatican-synod-mulls-middle-east-christian-exodus-reuters/#respond" title="Comment on Vatican synod mulls Middle East Christian exodus | Reuters">No Comments</a></span> Posted on October 7th, 2010 by Mohammed Al-Hamadani</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/10/07/vatican-synod-mulls-middle-east-christian-exodus-reuters/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Vatican synod mulls Middle East Christian exodus | Reuters">Vatican synod mulls Middle East Christian exodus | Reuters</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/category/english-articles/" title="View all posts in English Language Articles" rel="category tag">English Language Articles</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/category/human-rights/" title="View all posts in Human Rights" rel="category tag">Human Rights</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/category/religion/" title="View all posts in Religion" rel="category tag">Religion</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/arab-society/" rel="tag">arab society</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/catholic-church/" rel="tag">Catholic Church</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/catholics/" rel="tag">Catholics</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christian-churches/" rel="tag">christian churches</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christian-exodus/" rel="tag">christian exodus</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christianity/" rel="tag">Christianity</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christianity-in-the-middle-east/" rel="tag">christianity in the middle east</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christians/" rel="tag">Christians</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christians-persecution-of/" rel="tag">Christians - 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Christians made up around 20 percent of the region’s population a century ago, but now account for about five percent and falling.</p> <p>"If this phenomenon continues, Christianity in the Middle East will disappear," said Rev. Samir Khalil Samir, a Beirut-based Egyptian Jesuit who helped draw up the working documents for the October 10-24 synod at the Vatican.</p> <p>"This is not an unreal hypothesis — Turkey went from 20 percent Christian in the early 20th century to 0.2 percent now," he told journalists in Paris. The Christian exodus since the U.S.-led 2003 invasion "could bleed the Church in Iraq dry."</p> <h3>CALL FOR CHANGE</h3> <p>Instead of simply appealing for more aid to Catholics in the region, the experts who prepared the synod call for sweeping social changes to bring forth democratic secular states, interfaith cooperation and a rollback of advancing Islamism.</p> <p>"At issue is the renewal of Arab society," said Samir, who stressed most Christians and Muslims there are fellow Arabs.</p> <p>Challenged by western-style modernity, many Middle Eastern societies have fused their Arab and Muslim identities, he said, narrowing religious freedom for non-Muslim minorities.</p> <p>The working document stated: "Catholics, along with other Christian citizens and Muslim thinkers and reformers, ought to be able to support initiatives at examining thoroughly the concept of the ‘positive laicity’ of the state.</p> <p>"This could help eliminate the theocratic character of government and allow for greater equality among citizens of different religions, thereby fostering the promotion of a sound democracy, positively secular in nature."</p> <p>The document pins most of the blame for the Christian exodus on political tensions in the region: "Today, emigration is particularly prevalent because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the resulting instability throughout the region."</p> <p>It cited the "menacing social situation in Iraq," where about half the estimated 850,000 Christians there in 2003 have since fled sectarian violence and persecution, and "political instability of Lebanon" as further factors driving them out.</p> <p>The rise of political Islam since the 1970s, especially its violent variations, menaces the whole region, it added, saying: "These extremist currents, clearly a threat to everyone, Christians and Muslims alike, require joint action."</p> <h3>CHRISTIAN COOPERATION</h3> <p>The region’s Christians have also been weakened by age-old splits. The Catholics are divided into Latin Catholic, Coptic, Maronite, Chaldean, Armenian, Syrian and Greek Melkite churches — and they are outnumbered by various Orthodox churches.</p> <p>Protestants are also present, in older communities founded by colonial missionaries or in newer evangelical groups whose aggressive proselytising — often backed by conservative U.S. churches — has provoked a backlash from Muslim authorities.</p> <p>The synod document urges the sometimes competing Catholic churches to work with each other and with other Christians to make their voice heard in Middle Eastern society.</p> <p>Its advice to open up to other churches and faiths, simplify their ancient liturgies and introduce more Arabic into their services echoes the Second Vatican Council reforms that worldwide Roman Catholicism launched back in the 1960s.</p> <p>Highlighting this openness, the synod has invited an Iranian ayatollah, a Lebanese Muslim and a rabbi from Jerusalem to attend the proceedings and address the 250 participants.</p> <p>"I don’t think people in the West appreciate to what extent the thematics of the synod are totally new to so much of the Church in the Middle East," said Rev. David Jaeger, a Franciscan and leading Roman Catholic expert on the Middle East.</p> <p>"The whole discussion of the civic duty of the Christian … is totally new for the region as a whole. For 13 centuries, Christians in the Middle East have been made to live in a kind of socio-economic ghetto," he told Reuters Television in Rome.</p> <p>As Samir summed it up: "If we can do something with other Christians, it is better than doing it alone. If we Christians can do something with the Muslims, that is even better."</p> <p><strong>Source: </strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://af.reuters.com/article/egyptNews/idAFLDE6952EJ20101007?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=egyptNews&rpc=401&sp=true" class="external" target="_blank">Vatican synod mulls Middle East Christian exodus | News by Country | Reuters</a></p> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="navigation"> <div class="alignleft"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130126104715/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/christianity/page/2/">« Previous Entries</a></div> <div class="alignright"></div> </div> </div> <div id="sidebar" class="span-10 last"> <div class="span-10" id="tabs"> <ul> <li class="ui-tabs-nav-item"><a href="#featured-articles">Featured Articles</a></li> <li class="ui-tabs-nav-item"><a href="#latest-articles">Latest Articles</a></li> </ul> <div id="featured-articles" class="widget"> <ul> <li><a 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