Pressure Grows to Declare War Against Christians a Genocide

"Christianity in the Middle East is shattered," Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, Nebraska Republican, told the IDC [In Defense of Christians] conference on Sept. 9. "The ancient faith tradition lies beaten, broken and dying. Yet Christians in Iraq and Syria are hanging on in the face of the Islamic State's barbarous onslaught. This is genocide."

As I repeatedly strive to emphasize, "genocide" is a secular term, and while it is accurate in a forensic way, for us, as Orthodox Christians, we must school ourselves to speak of this as a "New Age of Martyrdom." 

Our brothers and sisters in Iraq, Syria and the Middle East � as well as in Egypt and throughout North and Central Africa, as well as in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Philippines, Indonesia and throughout the entire Islamic world � are ascending a real Golgotha. Christianity is being crucified anew, and the evil is increasing in vast waves of persecution. Europe and North America are next. 

We must wake up, stand with our suffering brothers and sisters, pray for them, honor them as confessors and martyrs, and prepare ourselves for the trials to come through diligently living and practicing our most holy faith.

And, we must clearly state that this "New Age of Martyrdom," this "genocide," is the direct result of devout Muslims following the commands in the Qur'an, imitating Muhammad's example as extolled in the ahadith and the Sira, and applying the doctrines of Islamic jurisprudence. It is not just the Islamic State waging war against and persecuting Christians. It is also ordinary Muslims � neighbors of Christians � who are taking their religion more seriously and acting according to its commands. 

Islam itself is the direct cause of the first genocide of the 21st century, this "New Age of Martyrdom."

Pressure Grows to Declare War Against Christians a Genocide

by Douglas Burton, Washington Times via AINA, September 23, 2015:

Memorial to martyrs killed in 2010 church bombing; Baghdad, Iraq.

Human rights activists see it. Foreign leaders see it. And more than 80 members of the U.S. Congress see it. Together, they are pressuring the leader of the free world to declare there is a Christian genocide going on in the Middle East.

Their campaign -- which was discussed at a Capitol Hill conference earlier this month hosted by the two-year-old In Defense of Christians nonprofit -- has an influential ally on its side.

Pope Francis, making his first visit to the United States on Wednesday, has noted the number of Christians being martyred today exceeds the number martyred during the days of the Roman Empire.

In fact, the sheer numbers of Christians murdered and tortured every year in a dozen countries in the developing world is only getting worse, thanks to the relentless campaign of the ISIS and al-Qaeda terror groups.

For example, in 2014, 2,000 Christians were murdered in Iraq alone, which is the number cited by historian Edward Gibbon as the total number of Christian martyrs in the first three centuries of Christianity.

In Iraq, where Christian churches were planted 1,800 years ago, Christianity has been wiped out except for 200,000 refugees sheltering in Kurdistan and a few in Baghdad. Their language, Aramaic; their homeland, the Nineveh Plain; and their calamity are Biblical in scale. Hundreds have been publicly tortured and executed in Mosul while women and children have suffered severe levels of sexual violence since the Islamic State took control in 2014.

"Christianity in the Middle East is shattered," Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, Nebraska Republican, told the IDC conference on Sept. 9. "The ancient faith tradition lies beaten, broken and dying. Yet Christians in Iraq and Syria are hanging on in the face of the Islamic State's barbarous onslaught. This is genocide."

A year after Congress authorized a special envoy to expedite the humanitarian relief of persecuted minorities in Iraq, the Obama administration has finally chosen a person to fill the spot. Knox Thames has been named the State Department's special adviser for religious minorities in the Near East (NEA) and South and Central Asia (SCA). His appointment was announced Sept. 16 by Ambassador David Saperstein, ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. The Christian refugees in Irbil hope that Mr. Thames hits the ground running.

"The appointment represents a positive step toward strengthening the U.S. response to religious persecution in the Middle East," says Delia Kashat, who works for the Nineveh Council of America, a newly established office that raises awareness on the plight of threatened Iraqi minorities, including the Yazidis.

"History is repeating itself," she says of the latest crisis that reminds many refugees of the massacre of 3,000 Assyrian Christians in August 1933 and the Armenian genocide of 1915 that also claimed the lives of many Assyrian Christians.

"Having suffered multiple genocides over time, the true natives of Iraq and Syria serve as the equilibrium and peacemakers of the country," she says. Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Assyrian and Chaldean Christians in all provinces have suffered kidnappings, torture and brutal attacks, and massive exodus has followed the ascendance of the Islamic State.

Ms. Kashat grew up in the Detroit metro area, home to around 150,000 Chaldean Christian immigrants, but her parents were born in the Nineveh Plain and fled Iraq in 1973. "They came to this country because this is where is they could freely live and practice their faith," she says.

Whether they call themselves Assyrian or Chaldean, Catholic or Orthodox, Iraqi Christians belong to a common ethnicity and claim descent from the ancient peoples who established Assyria 4,500 years ago.

Currently there are 14 Christian parties seeking seats in the Kurdish regional parliament, and each is tied to a particular church, according to Louay Mikhael, a Chaldean Christian rom Dohuk, who arrived in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife and child only in April.

Mr. Mikhael represents the Chaldean Syriac Assyrian Popular Council of the Kurdish Regional Government (CSA Popular Council), which will open its lobbying office in Washington in the coming weeks. Both Ms. Kashat and Mr. Mikhael are working in Washington to raise awareness on the issues affecting ethnic-religious minority populations.

After the surge of the Islamic State in the summer of 2014 approximately 130,000 people -- virtually the entire population of Christians remaining in the Nineveh Plain near Mosul -- have either fled the country or taken shelter in Kurdish cities.

"On Aug. 6 when ISIS attacked Qaroquosh, approximately 55 miles from Irbil, we had 60,000 people arriving in one day," said Rev. Douglas Bezi, the Chaldean Catholic priest who manages a refugee center in the Christian suburb of Ainkawa.

The city of Irbil and its suburbs have nearly 100,000 Chaldean Catholic refugees sheltering in rented apartments, unfinished buildings or steel shipping containers. "When they arrived, I divided them into two groups, those who wanted to return in one group and those who wanted to leave the country," Father Bezi said. "But after a year, no one wants to return to the Nineveh Plain. More than 60 percent of my people are traumatized, and wake up every day demoralized."

Iraqi Christian advocates are united in their priorities for the United States: They want direct humanitarian assistance and international condemnation of the abuses these vulnerable groups face.

A Congressional resolution introduced Sept. 9 by Mr. Fortenberry and Rep. Anna Eshoo, California Democrat, calls on signers of the United Nations' Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, signed in 1948, to be "reminded of their legal obligations" under the agreement.

It also says those who have forced the migration of religious communities from their ancestral homelands -- especially the Nineveh Plain, the historic home of Yazidis -- be "tracked, sanctioned, arrested, prosecuted and punished."

"Christianity is running the risk of becoming extinct in the region it was born. What is happening to the Christian community in Iraq will happen to all of Christianity in the Middle East if we don't take action," Ms. Kashat said.

Douglas Burton, a former U.S. State Department official in Kirkuk, Iraq, is a former opinion editor of Insight on the News.

5 Middle East Churches That Could Cease to Exist If Islamic State Influence Continues to Spread

A high-level overview of five of the local Christian Church communions most severely threatened by the 21st-century resurgence of pure Islam. 

Coptic Icon of Jesus Christ, Pantocrator

The below article is a welcome contribution to the education of American Protestants and Evangelicals, some of whom do not consider Eastern Christians of any kind to be true Christians. This is also a great help for us in our daily prayers for those being persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ. 

At the same time, it must be noted that the thumbnail sketches in the Christian Post article below concerning non-Chalcedonian Christology do not do justice to the theology of these "Oriental" churches. Further reading for an expanded understanding of this issue is highly recommended.

Therefore, immediately below are links to related articles which explore in far greater depth the question over the "non-Chalcedonian" Christian Churches.

_______

THE NON-CHALCEDONIAN CHURCHES:

Regarding the division which occurred after the Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon in 451, and recent efforts to examine anew the faith of the non-Chalcedonian churches, see the following:

• RECENT EFFORTS FOR UNITY BETWEEN THE TWO FAMILIES OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH - Coptic.net
• VARIOUS DOCUMENTS CONCERNING EASTERN ORTHODOX AND ORIENTAL ORTHODOX JOINT COMMISSION AND UNITY - Orthodox Joint Commission
• Beyond Dialogue: The Quest for Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Unity Today - Rev. John Erickson, Dean, St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary

The report at Coptic.net linked above begins with this statement:

Since 451, at the Council of Chalcedon,  there has been a division within the Orthopdox [sic] Church due to different Christological terminology. In recent times, members  of the Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian Orthodox Churches  have met together coming to a clear understanding that both  families have always loyally maintained the same authentic Orthodox Christological faith, and the unbroken  continuity of  the apostolic tradition, though they may have used Christological terms in different ways. It is this common faith and continuous loyality [sic] to the apostolic tradition  that has been the basis of the conversations held over the last two decades towards unity and communion.

For a traditionalist Orthodox response to recent dialogues between Orthodox and non-Chalcedonian churches, see:

• Eastern Orthodoxy and "Oriental Orthodoxy" - Orthodox Christian Information Center

As for my own view of the non-Chalcedonian question, I give thanks to God for all things, even for our sufferings and for this new age of global Christian persecution, for it enables each one of us to confess Jesus Christ, and to prove our love for Him and our faith in Him. Regardless of semantic differences in the theological expression of our faith in Jesus Christ, we are united at the very least by a communion of blood, a communion of the Cross, a communion of martyrdom.

See also:

• What is an Assyrian Christian?
• What is an Armenian Christian?

_______

5 Middle East Churches That Could Cease to Exist If Islamic State Influence Continues to Spread
Christian Post via Pravmir � August 24, 2015

There are Christian churches throughout the Middle East that trace their roots back to the time of the apostles that could cease to exist if Islamic State and other radical Muslim groups continue to gain control of more territory in the region.

The Islamic State Caliphate: Darkness falls across the Middle
East, North Africa, Central Asia, and on into Europe.

Author George J. Marlin, who is also chairman of the Board of Aid to the Church in Need USA, recently released a book titled Christian Persecutions in the Middle East, which not only discusses the growing threat to believers in the region, but also provides the history of many of the churches that have existed in the Middle East since the time of the apostles that could now be facing extinction at the hands of Muslim extremists.

Listed below are five of those churches.

1. The Syrian Orthodox Church

The Syrian Orthodox Church came into its modern formation when Syrian Christians rejected decrees made by the Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and Western Christian Churches at the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451. The Council acknowledged that Christ has two natures, divine and human, which come together in one person.

(PHOTO: REUTERS/MAJED JABER. Jordanian Christian clerics hold a mass at the Syriac Orthodox Church in Amman, May 21, 2013.

In an attempt to hold onto their beliefs about Christ, which state that He is one nature of full humanity and full divinity, Syrian Christians regrouped under their own bishops and broke away from the established church.

The Syrian Orthodox Church traces its origins back to the church of Antioch found in the New Testament and considers St. Paul its first Bishop. The head of the Syrian Orthodox Church today is known as the �Patriarch of the God-protected City of Antioch and of all the Domain of the Apostolic Throne.� He is elected by fellow bishops and must be celibate. The patriarch resides in Damascus and the church has archdioceses in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey, Jordan, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Palestine.

Today, the Syrian Orthodox Church has 5 million members worldwide.

2. The Coptic Orthodox Church

The Coptic Orthodox Church � Coptic meaning Egyptian � traces its roots back to A.D. 42 when St. Mark the Apostle first brought Christianity to Egypt. Monophysitism, the belief that Christ has a single divine nature, first took root in Egypt and was embraced by the head of the church and patriarch of Alexandria, Dioscorus.

Coptic bishop surveys church in Minya, destroyed by Muslims.

His teachings were condemned by the Council of Chalcedon, leaving many Egyptian believers separated from Catholic and other Orthodox churches.

The Coptic Orthodox church continues to be operated today under the leadership of its patriarch, formally known as �The Most Holy Father and Patriarch of the great city of Alexandria and of all Egypt, of Nubia, Ethiopia and the Pentapolis, and of all places where St. Mark preached.� He is elected by the church�s bishops and must be celibate, abstain from meat and fish for life, and be over 50 years old.

The church�s membership has eroded significantly since the conquest of Egypt by Muslim Arabs in A.D. 640 and Coptic Orthodox Christians are now a persecuted minority in the region.

3. The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem

Church fathers at the Council of Chalcedon decided that Jerusalem should be elevated from being a diocesan see to patriarchate because of its significance to the birth of the Christian faith. The decision led to the reorganization of 60 diocese in the region that now come under the jurisdiction of a Jerusalem patriarch.

PHOTO: REUTERS/AMMAR AWAD. Members of the Greek Orthodox clergy await the arrival of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Metropolitan Theophilos before the washing of the feet ceremony outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem�s Old City, April 9, 2015, ahead of Orthodox Easter.

The city flourished as a Christian hub until Arabs conquered the city in A.D. 637. During this period, Christian monasteries and churches were destroyed while much of the population converted to Islam.

European Crusaders took back the land in 1099 and appointed a Latin patriarch. But when Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt and Syria reconquered Jerusalem in 1187, the Latin patriarch serving at that time fled.

The Ottoman Turks took control of the city in 1516 and Constantinople, the former capital of the Byzantine Empire, re-established itself in Jerusalem, which led to the selection of Greek patriarchs in the region.

Today, the Orthodox Church controls many of the holy sites in Jerusalem. Patriarch His Beatitude Theosophilos III has headed the church since 2005 and he resides in Jerusalem where he oversees the affairs of the church�s 130,000 members.

4. Melkites (Melkite Greek Catholic Church)

The Melkite Greek Catholic Church was originally comprised of Christians from Alexandria, Antioch and Syria that complied with the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451. The Church also traces its origins back to the New Testament Antioch church.

PHOTO: REUTERS/MUHAMMAD HAMED. Christians take part in a candlelight march and prayed for peace in Gaza, Jordan, and in the Arab region, at the Greek Orthodox Church, in Al-Fuheis near Amman August 11, 2014.

Melkite, a term which derives from the Syriac word for king, was originally used to describe Christians in the Middle East who embraced the Christology of the Council of Chalcedon.

After the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox schism of 1054, many Orthodox believers in Antioch looked to re-establish communion with Rome and in 1729, the churches were reunited under the Councils of Reunion.

The Melkite title was then reserved for members of the Antioch Orthodox who were reunited with Rome. The Melkite Church is headed by a patriarch who is elected by its bishops. His election must be confirmed by the Vatican and the leader currently resides in Damascus. There are around 1.2 million Melkite Catholics worldwide and most of them reside in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel.

5. The Chaldean Catholic Church

The Chaldean Catholic Church descended from the remnant of Nestorian Christians or believers who followed the teachings of former Constantinople Patriarch Nestorius that were contested by the Council of Chalcedon who resided in what is now modern-day Iraq.

PHOTO: REUTERS/AHMED SAAD. Iraqi Christians attend mass at Mar George Chaldean Church in Baghdad, March 1, 2015. Iraqi Christians say they have no intention of leaving the country despite the recent abduction of over 100 Assyrian Christians by the Islamic State.

After the mass slaughter of Christians in the region at the hands of the Mongols, a family of believers who passed down the office of patriarch for generations governed those who had survived.

John Sulaka, an abbot at a Nestorian monastery opposed the established patriarch and sought to have communion with Rome by traveling there in 1551. He was ordained as a bishop by the Catholic Church and upon his return, he set up a new patriarch affirmed by the pope.

Sulaka, who had taken on the new name Simon VIII, was captured and killed in 1555 by the Pasha of Amadya, and for the next few centuries the Chaldeans fell into chaos.

In 1830 under Pope Pius VIII, however, they were brought into full communion with Rome and a new patriarch was established who resided in modern day Mosul, Iraq. Today, there are 18 Chaldean dioceses in the Middle East with 10 of them being located in Iraq. The patriarch was moved to Baghdad after World War II and its 500,000 members are mostly comprised of Assyrians.

For more information on churches that have roots in the Middle East that are now facing the threat of radical Islam read George J. Marlin�s book Christian Persecutions in the Middle East.

Islamic State bulldozes 1,500-year-old Syrian monastery, captures over 200 Syriac Christians

Islam's war against Christianity continues to advance. In this report you see it all: Muslims conquering, destroying Christian sites, taking of captives, offering the "three choices" � convert to Islam, pay the jizya, or death." And tens of thousands of Muslims from all over the world are flocking to the Middle East to join the Islamic State because they see it adhering to pure Islam.

Islamic State bulldozes 1,500-year-old Syrian monastery

by Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch � August 21, 2015

Besides removing supposed temptations to idolatry, Islamic jihadists want to destroy the artifacts of non-Muslim civilizations because doing so testifies to the truth of Islam, as the Qur�an suggests that the destroyed remnants of ancient non-Muslim civilizations are a sign of Allah�s punishment of those who rejected his truth:

Many were the Ways of Life that have passed away before you: travel through the earth, and see what was the end of those who rejected Truth. (Qur�an 3:137)

This is one of the foundations of the Islamic idea that pre-Islamic civilizations, and non-Islamic civilizations, are all jahiliyya � the society of unbelievers, which is worthless. Obviously this cuts against the idea of tourism of ancient sites and non-Muslim religious installations. V. S. Naipaul encountered this attitude in his travels through Muslim countries. For many Muslims, he observed in Among the Believers, �The time before Islam is a time of blackness: that is part of Muslim theology. History has to serve theology.� Naipaul recounted that some Pakistani Muslims, far from valuing the nation�s renowned archaeological site at Mohenjo Daro, saw its ruins as a teaching opportunity for Islam, recommending that Qur�an 3:137 be posted there as a teaching tool.

�Isis in Syria: 1,500-year-old Mar Elian monastery bulldozed by Islamic State in Qaryatain,� by Gianluca Mezzofiore, International Business Times, August 21, 2015 (thanks to David):

Islamic State (Isis) militants have bulldozed parts of the ancient monastery of Mar Elian in Qaryatain, a strategic town located in the central Syrian province of Homs which has been seized from forces loyal to president Bashar al-Assad earlier this month. IS-linked Twitter accounts posted pictures of the destruction of the monastery, which was founded in 432 on the claimed spot of St. Elian�s death, for �worshipping a God other than Allah�.

According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), IS also transferred dozens of Assyrian Christians, who were kidnapped after the capture of Qaryatain, near its northern Syria de facto capital of Raqqa.

Mar Elian is also the place where priest Jacques Mourad was abducted back in May. Mourad was known to help both Christians and Muslims and was preparing aid for the arrival of hundreds of refugees from Palmyra�.

The jihadist group captured Qaryatain, which lies south-west of Palmyra Roman ruins and 85km from Homs, after heavy clashes with regime forces. Then the group abducted about 230 Syriac Orthodox and Syriac Catholics. Of those captured, 48 have been released and 110 were transferred to Raqqa, according to SOHR. The Christians would be given the choice of conversion to Islam or paying �jizya�, a tax on non-Muslims.

Earlier in March, IS blew up part of the ancient monastery of Mar Behnam in Iraq near the predominantly Christian town of Qaraqosh, south-east of Mosul. Photos released by IS members on social media show the 4th-century monastery�s tomb complex of Mar (Saint) Behnam and Mart (Saint) Sarah reduced to rubble.The monastery was also founded in the 4th century and built on the tomb of Berhnam and his sister Sarah, who were converted to Christianity by St Matthew. IS fighters stormed the monastery in July 2014 and expelled its resident monks.

�They�re doing this gradually. They scared the people away and now they�re destroying these people�s heritage. I don�t understand: why would you do that? Why destroy something it�s not yours?,� al-Jeloo said. �No palace, monastery, church, ruins is ours to destroy. It�s the world�s property. That�s why I�m concerned the world�s community is not doing enough to stop Isis.�

In March, an IS-linked Twitter account posted pictures of what appears to be jihadists smashing crosses and defacing statues, Christian murals and paintings at St George Chaldean Catholic monastery near Mosul. The monastery, located on the Ba�werah neighbourhood on a hill north of Mosul on the other side of the Tigris river, was founded by the Assyrian Church of the East in the 10th century but rebuilt as a seminary by the Chaldean Catholic Church in 1846.

Also in March, IS militants reportedly bulldozed the 2,000-year-old city of Hatra, and the Nimrud archaeological site near Mosul. On 26 February, the jihadist group published a video showing militants destroying artefacts in a Mosul museum and at the Nergal Gate to ancient Nineveh.

ISIS threatens ancient monastery filled with Christians

A 1,650-year-old monastery in northern Iraq, one of the oldest Christian monasteries in the world, is in danger of falling to ISIS.

by Leo Hohmann � June 2, 2015

WND via Pravmir

St. Matthew�s Monastery is a 1,650-year-old structure built into the side of a mountain

on the Nineveh Plain of northern Iraq.

St. Matthew�s monastery, founded in A.D. 363, has survived the Ottoman and Persian Empires, Mongol invaders and Kurdish conquests. Today it�s threatened by ISIS. Only three monks remain.

It has served as a place of refuge for persecuted Christians and other religious minorities for centuries, but now its very existence is threatened.

Some of the earliest Christians sought safety there. And when Islamic hordes stormed the city of Mosul, just 20 miles away, last June, the monastery�s thick stone walls again became a safe haven.

Located about 20 miles north of Mosul, the monastery is in protected Kurdish territory but is just a little more than three miles from the front lines of battle.

�We can see the battles and the airstrikes from here in front of us, especially at night. The sky lights up at night, but we of course are not scared. God protects us,� Father Yousif Ibrahim, one of three monks who resides in the monastery, told USA Today. There are also six students living at St. Matthew�s.

Before Iraq fell into chaos, the monastery was home to thousands of nuns, priests and students with the Syriac Orthodox Church. The ancient church traces its founding back to the time of Christ. Some of its earliest founders may have personally known Jesus Christ. They still speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus.

It houses one of the most ancient Christian libraries in the region. Many of the oldest manuscripts have been removed and taken to Kurdish-controlled areas.

Christian refugees running out of places to hide

More than 125,000 Christians have been forced from their homes over the past 12 months. They now live as refugees, most of them in the semi-autonomous state of Kurdistan.

ISIS has previously vowed to destroy all Christian historical sites in the areas that fall under its control. In March, it destroyed the ancient Christian Mar Behnam Monastery in the predominantly Christian town of Qaraqosh in northern Iraq.

The jihadists have desecrated Christian cemeteries, seized Christian girls for sex slaves and killed other children in front of their parents� eyes.

ISIS destroyed Jonah�s tomb in Mosul in July and destroyed countless Assyrian artifacts in Nimrod in March. The jihadist organization believes Christian relics represent a religion of polytheistic infidels and are an affront to Islam.

St. Matthew�s is built like a fortress into the side of Mount Al-Faf. Kurdish soldiers pushed the ISIS fighters back last summer to about four miles from St. Matthew�s, but the monastery is again in danger of falling to the Islamic jihadists

On CBS� �60 Minutes� in March, Father Ibrahim told Lara Logan the worst part was the uncertainty.

�We don�t know exactly, but we are expecting the worst,� he told Logan.

Mosul has been completely emptied of its 10,000 Christians.

Nicodemus Sharaf, the archbishop, now lives as a refugee in Kurdish capital of Erbil along with 60,000 other Christian refugees.

Despite all of the Christian refugees in Iraq and Syria, most of the refugees being sent to the United States and other Western countries are Muslim. The United Nations selects and assigns almost all of the refugees.

When he left Mosul, Sharaf said ISIS fighters were already inside the city.

�I don�t have time to take anything. He told me you have five minutes. I took just five books; they are very old.�

Many even older were left. Christian relics dating to the first century B.C. fell into the hands of ISIS.

ISIS uses the Arabic letter �N� for Nazarene to mark the homes of Christians. When they use red paint to put the �N� on a home, the occupants can expect a visit soon by ISIS fighters. They are given a choice: Convert, pay the Islamic head tax or die.

�Speak up. Of course there is good people in the Islam people. Not all are bad, I believe. But where is the good people? Where is their voice? Nothing!� Archbishop Sharaf said. �Where is their voice? Few! Few!

�They lost our dignity here. I�m sorry to say that. We don�t have dignity in our country, in our land.�

Obama�s airstrikes offer little hope

President Obama�s airstrikes are seen as pinpricks on ISIS.

Archbishop Bashar Warda, who leads the flock of the Chaldean Catholics in Erbil, told Logan ISIS �is a cancer� that needs to be defeated.

Logan asked if that meant militarily.

�Please God,� he said. �It�s a disease, so sometimes you take some hard measures, unfortunate measures, to remove this cancer.�

In its heyday, St. Matthew�s monastery was home to 7,000 monks. The area surrounding the complex was named Al-Faf, meaning �the thousands,� in homage to the legion of monks who worshiped, taught and studied on its steep dry slopes, USA Today reported. �But just like the Christian population in Iraq, that number has dwindled dramatically over the years.�

Islamic jihadist groups have systematically targeted Christians over the past century, and ISIS is only a continuation of that long history, Ibrahim told the newspaper. Despite holding fort at the monastery, Ibrahim says St. Matthew�s, and Christianity in Iraq, are living on borrowed time.

Iraq�s Christians will eventually abandon the nation, Ibrahim said, leaving their history behind. Only then will he consider fleeing the war-torn country himself.

�The shepherd cannot leave his sheep,� he told USA Today.

�Saint Matthew ended up here because he was fleeing persecution, but persecution follows us,� Sahar Karaikos, one of the six students still at St. Matthews, told the newspaper. �We can�t run from it, we have to stand in front of our history.�

Islamic State Militants Destroy Assyrian Churches Northern Syria

"The group has reportedly destroyed most of the churches in the area before withdrawal, military sources reported."

By Zozan Shekho

ARA News via AINA � May 26, 2015

The Assyrian Virgin Mary Church in Tel Nasri, Syria,

was destroyed by ISIS on April 15.

Hasakah, Syria -- Radicals of the Islamic State's (IS/ISIL) withdrew from several Assyrian villages in Tel Temir countryside in northeastern Syria, after battles with Kurdish and Assyrian forces.

The group has reportedly destroyed most of the churches in the area before withdrawal, military sources reported on Monday.

Speaking to ARA News, Fayez Korko, member of Haras al-Khabur force, said that a huge devastation hit the Assyrian areas in the vicinity of Tel Temir at the hands of IS terrorists, especially the worship places and civilians' property.

"They dropped the church's crosses and crashed them all. They also damaged all contents of the churches and painted anti-Christian slogans on the walls," he added.

"We've expected to witness such a scene after the forced departure of the terrorist group from those villages," Korko said.

The source pointed out that some of the Assyrian families were able to return to their homes in the town of Tel Temir, adding that other displaced families from the countryside are unable to return as their houses were exposed to complete destruction by the radical group.

"The IS brutality caused a mass destruction in agricultural and economic resources of the displaced Assyrian families," Korko told ARA News.

"Many Assyrians fled to Lebanon and northern Iraq after IS terrorists destroyed their churches and houses," he added.

The Assyrian member of the Haras al-Khabur, which was fighting alongside the Kurdish forces of the People Protection Units (YPG) against ISIL, pointed out that the entire Assyrian villages have been liberated, but there are some of them the joint forces did not enter yet.

In February 23, 2015, militant fighters of the Islamic State launched an offensive on the Assyrian-majority villages near Tel Temir in Hasakah province, taking over several villages and abducting more than 200 people. The YPG backed by allied Christian forces of the Haras al-Khabur and the Syriac Military Council retook these villages and forced IS to withdraw.

The joint forces have liberated the Assyrian areas with the support of the U.S.-led coalition's warplanes.

100 Years of Silence

Of the 2.6 million Greeks of Ottoman Turkey in 1914, over 700,000 additional Thracian and Anatolian Greeks were slaughtered, bringing the total Greek deaths to over one million.

Related: The Armenian Genocide

by Thea Halo, Author of Not Even My Name, and A Lid for Every Pot, painter, former WBAI news correspondent.
Huffington Post � May 20, 2015
h/t AINA

In the struggle between denial and silence, silence wins hands down. That is, silence wins out over denial if the genocide of a people is to be complete. For almost 100 years, Pontic Greeks have mourned the loss of the 353,000 fathers, mothers, grandparents, children, friends and community members who were slaughtered outright, or who died agonizing deaths on long death marches to expulsion from 1916 to 1923. My mother was among them. Of the 2.6 million Greeks of Ottoman Turkey in 1914, over 700,000 additional Thracian and Anatolian Greeks were slaughtered, bringing the total Greek deaths to over one million.

Although the Pontic Greeks had settled on the southern shores and in the mountains along the Black Sea since 875 B.C., and other Greeks had settled in Anatolia since 1200 B.C., over 2,000 years before the first Turkish tribes invaded, today it's difficult to find anyone who has heard of the Pontians or Anatolian Greeks, as if they never existed? Ditto for the Assyrians who had settlements in Asia minor dating back four thousand years before the genocide that took the lives of at least 275,000 Assyrians, more than half their population. As with the Pontic Greeks, until recently, it was rare to find anyone who knew Assyrians still existed in the modern world.


Armenian scholars rightfully criticize the Turkish government for the denial of the Armenian Genocide that took place 100 years ago. However, it's rarely mentioned that the first target of what, for many, has become know exclusively as The Armenian Genocide, began against the Greeks under Ottoman rule in Thrace in the spring of 1913, before the commencement of WWI, and then in the summer of 1914 against the Anatolian Greeks who lived along the western coast of Turkey. Boycotts against Greek shops and goods, massacres of Greeks in towns and villages -instigated by Young Turk propaganda - and conscription of Greek men into the dreaded labor battalions, where they were worked and starved to death, was responsible for hundreds of thousands of Greek deaths.

How did the Young Turks incite hatred against former neighbors? US Consul General George Horton, who was stationed at Smyrna from 1911 to 1917 and again from May 1919 to September 1922, reported that in the spring of 1914, the Aegean Coast Greeks were demonized to induce the Turkish population to destroy them. Horton wrote:

[V]iolent and inflammatory articles in the Turkish newspapers appeared unexpectedly and without any cause ... so evidently "inspired" by the authorities ... Cheap lithographs ... executed in the clumsiest and most primitive manner ... represented Greeks cutting up Turkish babies or ripping open pregnant Moslem women, and various purely imaginary scenes, founded on no actual events or even accusations elsewhere made. These were hung in the mosques and schools. ... and set the Turk to killing...

The sequence of events is noteworthy. U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau Sr., reported at the time that the Young Turks were so successful against the Greeks, that they decided to go after the other "races" as well... the Assyrians and Armenians. Just as Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany signaled the beginning of a full-blown genocide of the Jews, the pogroms against the Thracian and Anatolian Greeks signaled the beginning of a full-blown genocide of the Christians under Ottoman rule, Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians.

In October 1914, the Assyrians were the next Christian people to be targeted through displacement, without care for their survival. In 1915, both Armenians and Assyrians were subjected to massacres and death marches to expulsion. In 1916, the Pontic Greeks along the Black Sea coast were targeted. Some Pontians were locked in churches and burned alive.

In June 1918, four months before the end of the Great War, the Chicago Daily Tribune reported that at least 1,000,000 Greek men, women, and children had perished as a result of organized massacres and deportations by "the Turco-Teutons" in Asiatic Turkey. On October 30, 1918, the Armistice of Mudros was signed, officially bringing Ottoman participation in the war to an end, but the massacres, death marches, and labor camp conscriptions continued. A New York Times Article dated December 8, 1918, affirms that:

(...) the Turkish authorities, despite Turkey's defeat, are pursuing a brutal attitude towards the Christian populations of the empire and are inciting the Ottoman people to fanatical outrages against the non-Moslems. (...) Many signs of organizing among the Turks for new massacres of Christians, and particularly Greeks, are noted.

While it's true that denial of this crime is unconscionable, denial has at least kept the memory of the Armenians in the minds, and hopefully the hearts, of the general public. However, where news and diplomatic reports were numerous at the time, today there is usually silence. Silence surrounding the Christian Genocide by the Ottoman and Kemalist regimes between 1913 and 1923 have, until now, rendered the genocide of the Greeks and Assyrians complete. In fact, for the general public, silence over the last 100 years has effectively erased all memory of Pontic Greeks and Assyrians, co-victims of the Armenians, as if they never existed.

Consul General of Greece, George Iliopoulos said at this year's May 19th Pontian Commemoration Ceremony at Bowling Green in NYC, "an atrocity can be forgiven, but should not be forgotten. Remorse is painful and demonstrates spiritual superiority. Forgetting... shows an inability to comprehend and accept history's lessons and demonstrates disrespect for the victims. It is also a form of complicity. We need not allow the world or Turkey to forget."

Senator Leonidas Raptakis joined with other Rhode Island senators to declare May 19th a day of solemn remembrance of the Pontian Genocide, and reminded the gathering at Bowling Green, that "it is vital and proper to those who lost their lives in the Pontian Genocide, and it is paramount that people of all nations look at this horrific event in our world's not-so-distant history as a way to learn a valuable lesson, so that such atrocities are not tolerated and are never committed again."

We could start with a U.S. Resolution that recognizes the genocide, not only of the Armenians, but of the 3 million Christians under Ottoman and Kemalist rule, Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks who were slaughtered by various means between 1913 and 1923, which brought four millennia of Christian presence in Turkey to a cruel and bitter end in a matter of 10 short years.

In 2007 the international Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), consisting of hundreds of genocide scholars, affirmed the Greek, Assyrian, and Armenian Genocides (AINA 2007-12-15), as did Sweden (2010) and the Netherlands (2015). The IAGS Resolution reads as follows:

WHEREAS the denial of genocide is widely recognized as the final stage of genocide,enshrining impunity for the perpetrators of genocide, and demonstrably paving the way for future genocides;

WHEREAS the Ottoman genocide against minority populations during and following the First World War is usually depicted as a genocide against Armenians alone, with little recognition of the qualitatively similar genocides against other Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire;

BE IT RESOLVED that it is the conviction of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Association calls upon the government of Turkey to acknowledge the genocides against these populations, to issue a formal apology, and to take prompt and meaningful steps toward restitution.

For a personal account of the genocide of all three Christian peoples, see Not Even My Name.

Hereditary Martyrs: the Christian Victims of ISIS's Massacres

"At the news that her son was dead, Nana collapsed. Her cries filled the cold, desolate room. Nana's husband, a priest of the Ancient Assyrian Church, had been murdered the year before -- dragged behind his horse by Muslim neighbors. The following year, another family member would be shot by his Muslim servant..."

Read and share this powerful reflection by a descendant of survivors of the Assyrian Genocide.

Hereditary Martyrs: the Christian Victims of ISIS's Massacres

By Juliana Taimoorazy

AINA � May 18, 2015

Woody Allen once joked that sterility is hereditary: If you don't have any children, you won't have grandchildren either. In my family, we pass down a different condition: martyrdom.

My great-grandfather and my great-uncle both were murdered for their religion in 1915. Decades later, my own immediate family had to flee Islamist harassment in Iran. My colleagues' cousins even now are hiding from ISIS in isolated villages and on mountaintops. This is the heritage of all Assyrian Christians.

The butchery last month of Ethiopian Copts in Libya was not some new kind of atrocity. It's the latest incident in 100 years of Islamist religious and ethnic cleansing all across the Middle East.

The first genocide of the 20th century was launched by the Ottomans and the "Young Turks" against Assyrian Christians in Mesopotamia. The next victims were Armenians and Greeks. For nine long years the slaughter went on, ending only in 1923 after claiming 2.5 million victims. The Ottomans "cleansed" Turkey, and much of Iraq, of their Christians. In November 1916, the Atlantic Monthly reported:

"Within six months they [Young Turks] succeeded in doing what the Old Turks were unable to accomplish in six centuries .?.?. Thousands of Nestorians and Syrians [Assyrians] have vanished from the face of the earth."

For many years, my mother stayed silent about the genocide. But one cold night in Tehran, in 1985, as we huddled around the space heater, she finally opened up. She told me how Nana (her grandmother) was awakened in her little clay house by violent knocks. Nana's nephew George burst in. He threw himself down on her sickbed and wept for a solid minute. Then he reared up and whispered the news: "Nana, they killed Uncle Augustus. Those merciless animals cut his body into pieces and made me bring it home in a rice bag -- our ration bag."

"It was not only our family who gave martyrs for our faith in Jesus Christ. There are hundreds of thousands of families like us."

At the news that her son was dead, Nana collapsed. Her cries filled the cold, desolate room. Nana's husband, a priest of the Ancient Assyrian Church, had been murdered the year before -- dragged behind his horse by Muslim neighbors. The following year, another family member would be shot by his Muslim servant.

I breathed very slowly, committing to heart my mother's every word. She ended with this: "Juliana, you need to know stories like this. Someday, you must share them with your children. It was not only our family who gave martyrs for our faith in Jesus Christ. There are hundreds of thousands of families like us."

I wept in silence, and soon I was alone. She left me to reflect on what all this meant. In the cold, quiet room I made a solemn commitment: to spend my life fighting for the most vulnerable, giving witness for the persecuted, whoever they might be.

The victims of ISIS today are the children and grandchildren of those who were hunted in 1915. They too suffer from hereditary martyrdom.

Now 30 years later, I sit in a warm house in America, beside the same gentle woman, my mother. Now I am the one telling recent, appalling stories of religious persecution, but to an incredulous wider world.

The victims of ISIS today are the children and grandchildren of those who were hunted in 1915. They too suffer from hereditary martyrdom.

It would be too easy to despair. To write off that whole region of the world as possessed by a kind of madness, doomed to destroy itself in a cataclysm of religious and ethnic violence.

But Americans are better than that. We care, as a people, about religious freedom -- our nation was founded to ensure it.

We care about fair treatment for vulnerable minorities. And many of us have family members whose fate depends on peace and freedom: There are millions of Middle Eastern Christians in the United States whose cousins are in danger.

American Jews, whose families have suffered history's most appalling persecution, worry for the safety of Jews living in Israel.

We cannot surrender this vital part of the world to the butchers and the fanatics, to the men in black uniforms who terrorize women like Nana and murder their husbands and children.

While we fight the persecutors, we must aid the persecuted. Christian refugees in Iraq, and all the victims of ISIS, need your support -- your prayers, your actions, your gifts.

Juliana Taimoorazy is Founder of the Iraqi Christian Relief Council (victimsofisis.org), and a Philos Project Fellow.

Islamic State bombs Assyrian, Armenian churches in Syria

300 Assyrians captured in February attacks, entire villages emptied of Christians, expected never to return. Islam's endless war and genocide against Christians continues.

AINA, April 29, 2015

St. Odisho Assyrian Church in Tel Tal, Syria, after the ISIS bombing on April 28.

(AINA) � According to reports from Syria and also the Turkish press, ISIS has bombed two churches in Syria, the St. Odisho Assyrian Church in Tel Tal and the St. Rita Tilel Armenian Church in Aleppo. The churches were bombed yesterday.

Located on the Khabur river in the Hasaka province in Syria, Tel Tal is one of the 35 Assyrian villages that was attacked by ISIS on February 23. ISIS captured nearly 300 Assyrians in those attacks and subsequently released 23, all from the village of Tel Goran. The remaining Assyrians are still being held captive.

The entire Assyrian population of these villages, nearly 3,000, has left their homes and are expected never to return. Some have already emigrated to Lebanon. Most are living in Hasaka or Qamishli and are planning to leave Syria.

'Sacrificing and Sacrificed for the Faith' � Martyrdom a Hundred Years Ago and Today

"...The history of the Christians in the Middle East is a story whose roots go back to creation, to the account in the Book of Genesis about the first crime committed in history, Cain�s murder of his brother Abel..."

Here is a striking theological look at Islam's unending war against Christians. It is clear that symbolically, Righteous Abel represents the humble, pious and forgiving Christians, who offer "a more excellent sacrifice" than the degenerate Cain, who represents Islam and Muslims, who "attack true worship and brotherhood." In Metropolitan Siluan's words,

"Cain irremediably attacks both existential dimensions of his life, the vertical and horizontal when he attacks true worship and brotherhood. On the other hand, in his person Abel saves, �offering up and offered by faith,� true worship and sacrifice to God. Furthermore, God accepts Abel�s offering and receives him as a sacrifice."

Related:

• Centennial of the Armenian Genocide � Special Resource Page
• The Orthodox Christian Holocaust: 1894 to the Present
• Second Anniversary of the Kidnapping of Archbishops Paul and John
• Armenian Church canonizes victims of Ottoman genocide

by Metropolitan Siluan of Buenos Aires and All Argentina
Notes on Arab Orthodoxy via Pravmir � April 26, 2015

�By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.� (Hebrews 11:4)

The Christian East continues in the footsteps of its Master, sacrificing and in turn being sacrificed upon the altar of martyrdom, �A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master� (Matthew 10:24). This offering-martyrdom is the cup from which many of our brothers have drank and currently drink, confirming the words of the Lord to James and John on the threshold of His passion, �You will indeed drink My cup� (Matthew 20:23).

It is clear that the history of the Christians in the Middle East is at once painful and glorious. It is painful on account of the great pain and suffering that they experience on earth and glorious on account of the dignity and grace that they receive in heaven. It is a story whose roots go back to creation, to the account in the Book of Genesis about the first crime committed in history, Cain�s murder of his brother Abel (Genesis 4:8). From his point of view, Cain sacrifices on the altar of his degeneracy God and his brother. Thus, Cain irremediably attacks both existential dimensions of his life, the vertical and horizontal when he attacks true worship and brotherhood. 

On the other hand, in his person Abel saves, �offering up and offered by faith�, true worship and sacrifice to God. Furthermore, God accepts Abel�s offering and receives him as a sacrifice. Later, when he recalls this episode, the Apostle Paul highlights Abel�s faith and its impact even until today: �By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.� (Hebrews 11:4)

Today the voice of Abel echoes loudly as the Christians of the East in general and the Middle East in particular commemorate the atrocities perpetrated against their communities at the end of the Ottoman Empire, from 1915 onward. According to historians, a policy of methodical extermination, without precedent in history, was carried out at the hands of the Turks, causing the martyrdom of some five million Christians � Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Armenians and Orthodox: men, women and children. 

Thus this week the Armenian Church and the Syriac Orthodox Church are celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and the Sayfo on April 24 and April 19, respectively. While our Patriarchate has not declared a hundredth anniversary� although doing so would be justified by the more than two million Orthodox martyrs (Syrians, Lebanese and Greeks)� we stand united with all Christians in this expression of faith and memory, as it is the same scenario that is repeating itself and occurring today to the Christians in the Middle East.

For these reasons, our Patriarch His Beatitude John X of Antioch along with his brothers His Beatitude Ephrem II, patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church; His Beatitude Theodoros II, patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church; and His Beatitude Cardinal Bishara Rai, patriarch of the Maronite Church; among others, are participating in the commemorations being held in Armenia to mark the hundredth anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

We are convinced that, without recognition of what happened in 1915 and its traits which continue until today, and without a clear, concrete and genuine commitment on the part of the great and regional powers, to prioritize and adopt the voice of Abel over that of Cain and to work effectively in this direction, it is impossible to prevent the altar of Cain from once more being filled with other sacrifices. No one is convinced by this abomination of humanity or the absence at the global level of political ability and determination to put an end to this disastrous, inhuman escalation that goes against all reason and logic, as well as against basic human rights.

Therefore, today the 22nd of April, the point between both anniversaries, the date on which we remember the two archbishops of Aleppo, His Eminence Archbishop Youhanna (Ibrahim) and His Eminence Paul (Yazigi), who were kidnapped in Syria on April 22, 2013, we struggle so that such atrocities will never happen again because we are seriously worried by the silent and progressive extermination of the Christian presence in the Middle East, an act accompanied by political indifference, hypocracy [sic] and a complicit international silence.

In the light of the Paschal season that we are experiencing, we understand that in all of this the attitude of everyone is critical: �And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God� (John 3:19-21).

Therefore, we raise our prayer for peace and for peaceful and harmonious coexistence between all who have lived in that land for centuries, praying that the Lord will illumine the conscience and actions of all those who can bring a light of His resurrection to this frenzied situation in order to put a stop to it and to restore all for the benefit of humanity above any interest or material benefit.

Churches in Turkey on the Verge of Extinction

"Turkey... has largely succeeded in destroying the entire Christian cultural heritage of Asia Minor."

Related: 

• Qur�an read inside Hagia Sophia for the first time in 85 years
• Ninth Hagia Sophia Church converted into mosque
• Muslim Prayers at Hagia Sophia: A Sign Calling Us to Repent

by Uzay Bulut

Gatestone Institute via Raymond Ibrahim � April 21, 2015

While Eastern Orthodox Christians recently celebrated their Easter holy week, a historic church in Istanbul � the once magnificent Christian city of Constantinople � is witnessing yet another abuse at the hands of its current authorities.

�The historic Istanbul cathedral and museum, Hagia Sophia, witnessed its first Quran recitation under its roof after 85 years Saturday,� reported the state-run Anatolian News Agency of Turkey. �The Religious Affairs Directorate launched the exhibition �Love of Prophet,� as part of commemorations of the birth of Islamic Prophet Muhammad.�

Even though Christians are a tiny minority in Turkey today, Christianity has a long history in Asia Minor, the birthplace of many Christian Apostles and Saints, including Paul of Tarsus, Timothy, Nicholas of Myra, and Polycarp of Smyrna.

All of the first seven Ecumenical Councils were held in what is today Turkey. Two out of the five centers (Patriarchates) of the ancient Pentarchy � Constantinople (Istanbul) and Antioch (Antakya) � are also situated there. Antioch was the place where, for the first time, the followers of Jesus were called �Christians.�

Turkey is also home to the Seven Churches of Asia, where were sent the Revelations to John. During the centuries that followed, countless churches were established throughout the region.

One of them, Hagia Sophia, was once the grandest cathedral in the Christian world � until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans on May 29, 1453, followed by a three days of unbridled pillage.[1]

Hagia Sophia was not exempt. Pillagers made their way to the Hagia Sophia and battered down its doors. Trapped in the church, congregants and refugees became spoils to be divided among the Ottoman invaders.

The historian Steven Runciman writes in The Fall of Constantinople, 1453:

�They slew everyone that they met in the streets, men, women and children without discrimination. The blood ran in rivers down the steep streets from the heights of Petra towards the Golden Horn. But soon the lust for slaughter was assuaged. The soldiers realized that captives and precious objects would bring them greater profit.�[2]

After the fall of the city, the Hagia Sophia Church was converted into a mosque.

A mosque with the name Hagia Sophia (in Greek ???a S?f?a, �Holy Wisdom�) is possible if the church is brought under the control of an Islamic theocracy. It is like having a mosque called �the Armenian Mosque of the Holy Cross�.

In the 1930s, the Turkish government made it into a museum. But turning a church into a museum is also not a trait of a truly democratic state. One of the common features of the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey seems to be their intolerance of churches.

In 2013, Turkey�s Deputy Prime Minister, Bulent Arinc, expressed his hope to see the Hagia Sophia Museum be used as a mosque, and even referred to it as the �Hagia Sophia Mosque.�

�Turkey is not converting churches into mosques because there is a need for more mosques, and Turkey does not have the resources to build them,� wrote Constantine Tzanos. �The message conveyed by those in Turkey who have achieved the conversion of Christian churches into mosques and demand the conversion of Hagia Sofia is that Turkey is an Islamic state and no other religion is tolerated.�

In November 2014, Pope Francis paid the fourth ever visit of a Pope to Turkey. Turkish Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Tanju Bilgic told reporters that during the trip, the issue of an �alliance of civilizations, dialogue between cultures, xenophobia, the fight against racism and political developments in the region� would be on the agenda.

The agenda of Pope Francis should actually have included the churches of Turkey that have been destroyed, damaged or converted into many things, including stables � like the historical Armenian Gregoryan Church in the province of Izmir (Smyrna). �Some citizens put their cows and horses inside the church, while the inhabitants of the neighborhood complain that the church has been turned into a site of drug addicts and alcoholics,� reported the newspaper Milliyet.

Another victim of Turkey�s intolerance of churches, the Agios Theodoros Byzantine Church in Istanbul, was first converted into a mosque during the rule of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II; it was named after Mollah Gurani, the fourth Sheikh-ul-Islam (the authority that governed religious affairs of the Muslims in the Ottoman Empire).

It was reported in March 2014 that the entrance area of the former church-mosque has become a �house,� and its upper story turned into a �flat.� A shanty has been built inside its garden. The priest�s room is now a toilet.

Centuries later, the habits of Ottoman Turks seem not to have changed.

Today, Turkey has less Christians as a percentage of its population than any of its neighbors � less than Syria, Iraq and Iran. The greatest cause of this was the Assyrian, Armenian and Greek slaughters or genocides between 1915 and 1923.

At least 2.5 million indigenous Christians of Asia Minor were killed � either massacred outright, or victims of deportations, slave labor or death marches. Many of them died in concentration camps of diseases or starvation.

Many Greeks who survived the slaughter were driven from their homes in Asia Minor in the 1923 forcible population exchange between Turkey and Greece.

The physical devastation was followed by a cultural devastation. Throughout the history of the Turkish Republic, countless Christian churches and schools have been destroyed or turned into mosques, storehouses and stables, among other things.

The columnist Raffi Bedrosyan reported in the Armenian Weekly that

�There are only 34 churches and 18 schools left in Turkey today, mostly in Istanbul, with about less than 3,000 students in these schools.� [�]

�Recent research pegs the number of Armenian churches in Turkey before 1915 at around 2,300. The number of schools before 1915 is estimated at nearly 700, with 82,000 students. These numbers are only for churches and schools under the jurisdiction of the Istanbul Armenian Patriarchate and the Apostolic Church, and therefore do not include the numerous churches and schools belonging to the Protestant and Catholic Armenian parishes.�

Walter Flick, a scholar with the International Society for Human Rights in Germany, says that the Christian minority in Turkey does not enjoy the same rights as the Muslim majority.

�Turkey has almost 80 million inhabitants,� he said. �There are only around 120,000 Christians, which is less than 1 percent of the population. Christians are certainly seen as second-class citizens. A real citizen is Muslim, and those who aren�t Muslim are seen as suspicious.�

According to a 2014 survey, 89% of the Turkish population said that what defines a nation is belonging to a certain religion. Among the 38 countries that participated in the question of if belonging to a specific religion [Islam] is important in defining the concept of a nation, Turkey, with 89% of its population agreeing, ranked number one in the world. [3]

�In some ways, Ankara�s policies against Turkey�s Christian citizens have added a modern veneer and sophisticated brutality to Ottoman norms and practices,� wrote political scientist Dr. Elizabeth H. Prodromou and historian Dr. Alexandros K. Kyrou. �In the words of an anonymous Church hierarch in Turkey fearful for the life of his flock, Christians in Turkey are an endangered species.�

On April 4, 1949, the signers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Washington D.C. announced: �The Parties to this Treaty reaffirm their faith in the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and their desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments. They are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. They seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area. They are resolved to unite their efforts for collective defence and for the preservation of peace and security.�

Being part of the European Union and NATO requires respecting the Jewish, Christian, Hellenic and secular humanist values that have characterized Western Civilization, and contributed to civil rights, democracy, philosophy and science, from which everyone can benefit.

Sadly, Turkey, a NATO member since 1952 and reportedly a candidate for membership in the European Union, has largely succeeded in destroying the entire Christian cultural heritage of Asia Minor. 

All this is reminiscent of what ISIS and other jihadist armies have been doing in the Middle East. In Turkey, the remaining Christian population, the grandchildren of genocide survivors, are still exposed to discrimination. The old habits of Ottoman Turks do not seem to die.

Uzay Bulut, born a Muslim, is a Turkish journalist based in Ankara.

_______

NOTES:

[1] Runciman, Steven (1965). The Fall of Constantinople, 1453. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[2] Ibid.

[3] In 2014, Professor Ersin Kalaycioglu of Sabanci University and Professor Ali ?Carkoglu of Koc University conducted a survey, �Nationalism in Turkey and ?in the world,� based on interviews with Turkish citizens ?above the age of 18 in 64 cities across Turkey. �So according to [Turkish] citizens in the streets, a Turk is the one who is a Muslim,� said Prof. Carkoglu.

Pictures of Armenian Genocide Centennial Rallies Throughout the World

Photographic coverage of global commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

Visit our special Armenian Genocide Resource Page...

Flags of the victims of the genocide:

Armenian, Assyrian, Greek (L to R)

AINA � April 25, 2015

"We have made a clean sweep of the Armenians and Assyrians of Azerbaijan" -- Those were the words of Djevdet Bey, the governor of Van Province in Ottoman Turkey, who on April 24, 1915 lead 20,000 Turkish soldiers and 10,000 Kurdish irregulars in the opening act of the genocide of Assyrians, Armenians and Greeks.

Between 1915 and 1918 750,000 Assyrians (75%), 500,000 Greeks and 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks and Kurds in a genocide that aimed at and nearly succeeded in destroying the Christian communities in the Ottoman Empire.

One of numerous photos from the huge rally in Chicago...

Today is the centennial anniversary of the genocide. Rallies were held in dozens of cities throughout the world by Assyrians, Armenians and Greeks.

More than two dozen countries have recognized the genocide, but Turkey continues to deny it, claiming that the victims were "casualties of war."

AINA has many more photos here.

See Assyrian Genocide 100 for more coverage of the centennial anniversary of the genocide.

My favorite, the enormous rally in Beirut, Lebanon.