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’