Archbishops From Middle East Charge Discrimination Against Christians

"Since October 2014, 906 Muslim refugees from Syria were granted U.S. visas, while only 28 of Syria�s estimated 700,000 Christian refugees were provided with visas."

This further supports Raymond Ibrahim's important article, Obama Throws Christian Refugees to Lions.

by Warren Mass, The New American � September 16, 2015

Two archbishops from the Middle East have complained that the United States unfairly discriminates against Christians from their region when they apply for U.S. visas.

Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil, Iraq, and Melkite Archbishop Jean-Cl�ment Jeanbart of Aleppo, Syria, aired their grievances at an August 4 press conference at the 2015 Knights of Columbus Convention in Philadelphia.

The archbishops cited federal data indicating that, since October 2014, 906 Muslim refugees from Syria were granted U.S. visas, while only 28 of Syria�s estimated 700,000 Christian refugees were provided with visas. They said that even considering that Christians account for just 10 percent of the population of Syria, the number of visas granted to Christians seems widely disproportional.

Although the U.S. government does not track the religious affiliation of immigrants, Christianity Today nevertheless reported that the bishops gathered their information �from official U.S. government sources.� 

Archbishop Warda stated during the press conference:

Our people are asking these questions: how come we apply for the American visa and are denied? 

This is a clear case of persecution. 

They�re being denied visas while others who have participated (in the violence) or at least were silent can go [to America].

The Catholic News Agency reported that Archbishops Warda and Jeanbart would like to see their flocks stay and help rebuild the Christian populations in the Middle East, where Christians have lived since the first decades after Jesus' death. However, they realize they cannot ask people to remain in places where they are endangered by the terrorism and violence.

�We would like our people to stay, we would like [that], but emigration is a personal decision; we cannot encourage [it], but we cannot stop it,� Warda said.

The Catholic News Service report noted:

Iraq alone has seen a massive emigration of Christians. The Christian population has plummeted to 300,000, down from about 1.5 million before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of the country. 

The report reinforces what former Representative Ron Paul noted recently: �The reason so many are fleeing places like Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq is that US and European interventionist foreign policy has left these countries destabilized with no hopes of economic recovery.�

If the turmoil in Iraq and Syria aggravated by our interventionism were not so bad, the question of whom to grant or not grant immigration visas to would be a moot point.  These Middle Eastern people of both Christian and Muslim beliefs would most likely prefer to remain in their homelands.

Related:

• Obama and Co. Middle East Policies Aiding Genocide of Christians
• Obama-backed Syrian Rebels �Ethnic Cleansing� Christians
• Christian Martyrdom Doubled in 2013, Persecution Growing

Obama Throws Christian Refugees to Lions

The anti-Constantine's support for Muslim genocide against Christians is undeniable. 

by Raymond Ibrahim, Gatestone Institute � September 25, 2015

Members of California�s Iraqi Christian community and their supporters protest the months-long detention of Iraqi Christian asylum-seekers at the Otay Mesa detention center.

The fate of those Iraqi Christians who had fled from the Islamic State only to be incarcerated in the United States has finally been decided by the Obama administration: they are to be thrown back to the lions, where they will likely be persecuted if not slaughtered like so many Iraqi Christians before them.

Fifteen of the 27 Iraqi Christians that have been held at a detention center in Otay Mesa, California, for approximately six months, are set to be deported in the coming weeks. Some have already been deported and others are being charged with immigration fraud.

Many of the Iraqi Christian community in San Diego�including U.S. citizen family members vouching for the refugees�had hopes that they would eventually be released.  Mark Arabo, a spokesman for the Chaldean community, had argued that �They�ve escaped hell [IS]. Let�s allow them to reunite with their families.�  One of the detained women had begged to see her ailing mother before she died.  The mother died before they could reunite, and now the daughter is to be deported, possibly back to the hell of the Islamic State.

Why are Christian minorities, who are the most to suffer from the chaos engulfing the Middle East, the least wanted in the United States?

The answer is that the Obama administration defines refugees as people �persecuted by their government.�  In other words, the only �real� refugees are those made so due to the actions of Bashar Assad.  As for those who are being raped, slaughtered, and enslaved based on their religious identity by so-called �rebel� forces fighting Assad�including the Islamic State�their status as refugees is evidently considered dubious at best.

As Abraham H. Miller argues in �No room in America for Christian refugees�:  �What difference does it make which army imperils the lives of innocent Christians?  Christians are still be[ing] slaughtered for being Christian, and their government is incapable of protecting them. Does some group have to come along�as Jewish groups did during the Holocaust�and sardonically guarantee that these are real human beings?�

In fact, from the start of Western meddling in the Mideast in the context of the �Arab Spring,� Christians were demonized for being supportive of secular strongmen like Assad.   In a June 4, 2012 article discussing the turmoil in Egypt and Syria, the Independent�s Robert Fisk scoffed at how the Egyptian presidential candidate �Ahmed Shafiq, the Mubarak loyalist, [and rival to the Muslim Brotherhood�s Morsi] has the support of the Christian Copts, and Assad has the support of the Syrian Christians. The Christians support the dictators. Not much of a line, is it?�

More than three years later, the Western-supported �Arab Spring� proved an abysmal failure and the same Christian minorities that Fisk took to task were, as expected, persecuted in ways unprecedented in the modern era.

Even without defining refugees as people �persecuted by their government,� the Obama administration never seems to miss an opportunity to display its bias for Muslims against Christians.  The U.S. State Dept. is in the habit of inviting scores of Muslim representatives but denying visas to solitary Christian representatives.  While habitually ignoring the slaughter of Nigerian Christians at the hands of Boko Haram, the administration called for the �human rights� of the jihadi murderers.  And when persecuted Copts planned on joining the anti-Muslim Brotherhood revolution, Obama said no.  Then there is the fact that every Arab nation the Obama administration has meddled in�especially Libya and Syria�has seen a dramatic nosedive in the human rights of Christian minorities.

The Obama administration�s bias is evident even regarding to the Iraqi Christians� illegal crossing of the U.S.-Mexico border, the occasion on which they were arrested. WND correctly observes: �At the same time the Obama administration [is] deporting Christians, it has over the years allowed in hundreds of Muslim migrants from Africa and the Middle East who crossed the Southern border the same way the Chaldeans did.�

Meanwhile, as the Obama administration nitpicks at the definition of refugee and uses it against severely persecuted Christian minorities, it turns out that four out of five migrants�or 80 percent�are not even from Syria.

And while Christian minorities pose little threat to the United States�indeed, they actually bring benefits to U.S. security�Muslims all around the U.S. are supporting the Islamic State and Muslim clerics are relying on the refugee influx to conquer Western nations, in the Islamic tradition of Hijra, or jihad by emigration.

As Koran 4:100 puts it: �And whoever emigrates for the cause of Allah will find on the earth many locations and abundance. And whoever leaves his home as an emigrant to Allah and His Messenger and then death overtakes him�his reward has already become incumbent upon Allah.�

In Islamic usage, the �cause of Allah� is synonymous with jihad to empower and enforce Allah�s laws on earth, or Sharia.  In this context, immigrating into Western lands is a win-win for Muslims: if they die in the process somehow, paradise is theirs; if they don�t, the �locations and abundance� of the West are theirs.

All the while, true Christian refugees, fleeing the same hostile Muslim forces being allowed to enter Europe and America by the thousands, are thrown back to the lions by the Obama administration.

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.

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.�

What is an Assyrian Christian?

Here is a very helpful summary of the history of the Assyrian Christian community. Additional suggested reading (with links) provided by the author. Thanks to Presvytera D. for sharing.

by Anton C. Vrame, Ph.D.

Director, Department of Religious Education

Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America

Concelebration of Chaldean and Assyrian churches at St Zaia Church, Baghdad, 2011.

With the horrific stories still coming out of the Middle East about the sufferings of the Christian community there, and the news about Assyrian Christians, some of you might be asking questions about their identity. Again, there is much more to say about this and the history of the Middle East can get complicated (and most of us are not well schooled about the history in that part of the world), but this gives a general picture. 

Christianity was established and was blossoming in Mesopotamia (in general, today�s Iraq, Syria, and southern Turkey) by the mid-second century AD. The Persians conquered the territory, thus separating this Christian community from the other parts of the Roman (Byzantine) Empire. Under pressure from the Persian rulers and to avoid suspicion about their loyalties, the Church there was forced to separate itself from the Church associated with the Byzantine Empire. The Assyrians became an independent Christian community, with its own head called a Catholicos and Patriarch.

The Assyrian Churches "do recognize the Christology of the Fourth Ecumenical Council (Chalcedon, 451)."

As a result Assyrian Christianity developed independently from the rest of the Church. The Assyrians accepted the theology of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius and their teachings about Christ. The Assyrians were not present for the Third Ecumenical Council (at Ephesus) that condemned Nestorianism. After the Council many followers of Nestorius were expelled from the Byzantine Empire and were sent into Persia. As a result, some people still refer to the Assyrian Church as a �Nestorian Church� although the Church itself asks not to be called this. To this day, the Assyrian Churches still only formally recognize the first two Ecumenical Councils but through dialogue with other Christians they have concluded that they do recognize the Christology of the Fourth Ecumenical Council (Chalcedon, 451).

The church flourished for many centuries, even after the Muslim conquests in the 7^th century. It sent missionaries to China and India. The Church, though, was almost totally destroyed by the 14^th century. In the sixteenth century, a group of Assyrians united with the Roman Catholic Church under the name of Chaldean Catholic Church. Thus, to this day, there are two distinct groups of Assyrian Christians: the Assyrian Christian Church of the East (http://news.assyrianchurch.org/) and the Chaldean Catholic Church (http://www.chaldeansonline.org/church.html).

Jumping ahead, the Assyrian Christian community was nearly wiped out during the First World War by the Turkish government. [See this landmark article by Archimandrite Nektarios Serfes, The Orthodox Christian Holocaust, which documents the Armenian and Assyrian Genocides.]

Those who escaped persecution moved to Iraq, which was under control of the British after the War (remember that the borders of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and most of the Middle East were established after World War I). Eventually, the Assyrian Christian Church established itself in the United States and its global headquarters in the suburbs of Chicago. 

In 1994, the Assyrian Church and the Roman Catholic Church signed agreements on issues of theology, establishing an international consultation. This also led to better relations between the Assyrian Church and the Chaldean Church.

The Assyrian Church has its own liturgy, usually celebrated in Syriac, following the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, a rite that traces its origins to the third century.  According to Fr. Ron Roberson�s, �Officially the church adheres to extreme Antiochian christological terminology, according to which in Christ there are two natures and two qnoma (a Syriac term with no Greek equivalent that refers to an individual but never personalized concrete nature) in one person.� The Assyrian Church is not in communion with any other Christian Church.

For more information about the Christian communities in the Middle East

Philip Jenkins book, The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia is excellent.

Ron Roberson, Guide to the Christian East, (http://www.cnewa.org/default.aspx?ID=1&pagetypeID=9&sitecode=HQ&pageno=1). Fr. Roberson works for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and studies Eastern Christianity for the Conference.

And a new book Gerard Russel, Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms: Journeys into the Disappearing Religions of the Middle East. Getting good reviews. I just received my copy, but this text looks at various religious communities, not just Christian, in the region.

For the agreed statements between Oriental and Eastern Orthodox Churches, see, Restoring the Unity in Faith: The Orthodox-Oriental Theological Dialogue (Holy Cross Press, 2007).

New Martyr Fr. Ragheed Ganni and his Three Sub-Deacons (�2007)

"The Chaldean Church immediately mourned for them as martyrs. Benedict XVI prayed for them from Rome. Father Ragheed was one of the most limpid and courageous witnesses of the Christian life in a country among the most afflicted."

My sincere thanks to Curt for sharing with me about Fr. Ragheed's witness for Christ. He was not merely martyred for his faith, but he was a profound struggler and a courageous confessor, battling despair and fear within himself, and strengthening the faith of his flock by choosing to suffer with them and encouraging them with true pastoral love. You can immediately sense his powerful faith in the Risen Christ and the Eucharist. His is a powerful example for us of Christ-like love and self-sacrifice.

See also:

• Memorial Facebook Page for Fr. Ragheed Ganni
• The Chaldean Church mourns Fr. Ragheed Ganni and his martyrs
• The Martyr of Mosul, by Patrick J. Buchanan
• Why I begged for help from a Martyred Iraqi Priest

The Last Mass of Father Ragheed, a Martyr of the Chaldean Church

They killed him in Mosul, together with three of his subdeacons. In a tormented Iraq, he was a man and a Christian of limpid and courageous faith. Here is a portrait of him, written by someone who knew him well.

by Sandro Magister

Chiesa Express Online

ROMA, June 5, 2007 � They killed him on the Sunday after Pentecost, after he had celebrated Mass in his parish church, dedicated to the Holy Spirit, in Mosul. 

They killed Father Ragheed Ganni, a Chaldean Catholic priest, together with three subdeacons who were with him � Basman Yousef Daud, Wahid Hanna Isho, and Gassan Isam Bidawed. The assailants led Bidawed�s wife away, and struck down the four men in cold blood. Then they placed vehicles loaded with explosives around their corpses, so that no one would dare to approach them. It was late in the evening before the police in Mosul were able to defuse the explosives and collect the bodies. 

The Chaldean Church immediately mourned for them as martyrs. Benedict XVI prayed for them from Rome. Father Ragheed was one of the most limpid and courageous witnesses of the Christian life in a country among the most afflicted. 

He was born in Mosul 35 years ago. After graduating from the local university with an engineering degree in 1993, from 1996 to 2003 he studied theology in Rome at the Angelicum, the Pontifical Saint Thomas Aquinas University, pursuing a license in ecumenical theology. Apart from Arabic, he spoke fluent Italian, French, and English. He was a correspondent for the international agency �Asia News,� of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions. 

The day after his martyrdom, �Asia News� published this portrait of him:

"Christ challenges evil with his infinite love, he keeps us united and through the Eucharist he gifts us life, which the terrorists are trying to take away". 

"Without Sunday, without the Eucharist the Christians in Iraq cannot survive": that was how Fr Ragheed spoke of his community�s hope, a community that was used to facing death on a daily basis, that same death that yesterday afternoon faced him, on his way home from saying mass. 

After having fed his faithful with the Body and Blood of Christ, he gave his own blood, his own life for Iraq, for the future of his Church. 

This young priest had willingly, knowingly chosen to remain by the side of his parishioners from Holy Spirit parish in Mosul, judged the most dangerous city after Baghdad. His reasoning was simple: without him, without its pastor, his flock would have been lost. In the barbarity of suicide attacks and bombings, one thing at least was clear, and gave him the strength to resist: "Christ�, Ragheed would say, �challenges evil with his infinite love, he keeps us united and through the Eucharist he gifts us life, which the terrorists are trying to take away". 

He died yesterday, massacred by blind violence. Killed on his way home from Church, where his people, despite their decreasing numbers, bowed by fear and desperation, continued to come.

"It is our duty not to give in to despair: God will listen to our prayers for peace in Iraq."

"The young people�, Ragheed told us just days ago, �organized surveillance after the recent attacks against the parish, the kidnappings, the threats to religious; priests celebrate mass amidst the bombed out ruins; mothers worry as they see their children face danger to attend catechism with enthusiasm; the elderly come to entrust their fleeing families to God�s protection, they alone remain in their country where they have their roots and built their homes, refusing to flee. Exile for them is unimaginable". 

Ragheed was one of them, a strong father figure who wanted to protect his children: "It is our duty not to give in to despair: God will listen to our prayers for peace in Iraq."

In 2003, after finishing his studies in Rome, he decided to return to his country: "that is where I belong, that is my place". He also returned to help in the rebuilding of his nation, the rebuilding of a "free society". He spoke of an Iraq full of hope with a captivating smile: "Saddam has fallen, we have elected a government, we have voted for a Constitution!" He organized theology courses for the lay faithful of Mosul; he worked with the young; he consoled disadvantaged families; this month he was engrossed in helping a small child with serious eye problems undergo surgery in Rome. 

His testimony is that of an enthusiastic faith. The target of a series of threats stretching back to 2004, he witnessed the pain of relatives and the loss of friends, and yet he carried on to the very end remembering that there was meaning to be found in that suffering, that carnage, that anarchy of violence: it was to be offered up. 

After an attack on his parish, on Palm Sunday last April 1st he said: "We empathise with Christ, who entered Jerusalem in full knowledge that the consequence of His love for mankind was the cross. Thus while bullets smashed our church windows, we offered up our suffering as a sign of love for Christ". 

In the midst of the daily difficulties he himself marvelled at a growing awareness of "the great value of Sunday, the day we met the Risen Lord, the day of unity and of love between his community..."

"Each day we wait for the decisive attack�, he said just weeks ago, �but we will not stop celebrating mass; we will do it underground, where we are safer. I am encouraged in this decision by the strength of my parishioners. This is war, real war, but we hope to carry our cross to the very end with the help of Divine Grace". 

And in the midst of the daily difficulties he himself marvelled at a growing awareness of "the great value of Sunday, the day we met the Risen Lord, the day of unity and of love between his community, of support and help". 

Then the bombings multiplied; the kidnappings of priests in Baghdad and Mosul became more frequent; Sunnis began to demand taxes from Christians to remain in their homes, or face their requisition by militants. Water and electricity grew scarce, telephoning and communicating became difficult. Ragheed began to grow tired, his enthusiasm weakened, to the point where in his last e-mail to AsiaNews, May 28 last, he admitted: "We are on the verge of collapse." And he told of a bomb exploding in the Holy Spirit Church, on the feast of Pentecost May 27; of the "war" which broke out a week before, 7 car bombings, 10 explosions in swift succession, the three day curfew, "prisoners in our own home", of not being able to celebrate the feast of the Ascension, 20 May. 

"I am certain about one thing, one single fact that is always true: that the Holy Spirit will enlighten people so that they may work for the good of humanity, in this world so full of evil". 

He pondered the path his country had taken: "In a sectarian and confessional Iraq, will there be any space for Christians? We have no support, no group who fights for our cause; we are abandoned in the midst of this disaster. Iraq has already been divided; it will never be the same. What is the future of our Church?". 

But then the strength of his faith endured, a tired but solid faith: "I may be wrong, but I am certain about one thing, one single fact that is always true: that the Holy Spirit will enlighten people so that they may work for the good of humanity, in this world so full of evil". 

Dearest Ragheed, together with a heart which cries in pain, you leave us your hope and your certainty. By taking you, they aimed to wipe out the hope of Iraq�s Christians. Instead, your martyrdom nourishes and gives new life to your community, to the Iraqi Church and the Church throughout the world. Thank you, Ragheed! 

CBS 60 Minutes: Iraq's Christians persecuted by ISIS

More than 125,000 of Iraq's Christians have been forced to flee the homeland they have lived in for nearly 2,000 years because of ISIS violence and threats.

CBS News, 60 Minutes, Lara Logan reporting

March 22, 2015

The following script is from "Iraq's Christians" which aired on March 22, 2015. Lara Logan is the correspondent. Max McClellan, Jeff Newton and Richard Butler, producers.

Video plus '60 Minutes Overtime' segment available.

There are few places on earth where Christianity is as old as it is in Iraq. Christians there trace their history to the first century apostles. But today, their existence has been threatened by the terrorist group that calls itself Islamic State. More than 125,000 Christians -- men, women and children -- have been forced from their homes over the last 10 months.

The Islamic State -- or ISIS -- stormed into Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, last summer and took control. From there, it pushed into the neighboring villages and towns across this region, known as the Nineveh Plains, a vast area that's been home to Christians since the first century after Christ. Much of what took almost 2,000 years to build has been lost in a matter of months.

Monastery of St. Matthew, overlooking the Nineveh Plains

On the side of a mountain, overlooking the Nineveh Plains of ancient Mesopotamia, is the Monastery of St. Matthew. It's one of the oldest on earth.

The voices of its monks have echoed here since the fourth century, uttering prayers that have not changed.

Lara Logan: You do the service in Aramaic?

Father Joseph Ibrahim: Yes.

Lara Logan: Which was the language of Jesus.

Father Joseph Ibrahim: Yes.

Lara Logan: Are you among the last people on earth to speak this language?

Father Joseph Ibrahim: We think so because we kept this language through the language of prayers.

Prayers through centuries of persecution. Father Joseph Ibrahim is one of only seven monks left here. He told us the monastery was founded in 363, and has survived the Persian and Ottoman empires, Mongol invaders and Kurdish conquests. Today, it's threatened by the Islamic State, whose fighters advanced towards St. Matthew's gates shortly after taking Mosul last summer. Kurdish soldiers pushed them back to this village where their flag still flies only four miles from the monastery.

Lara Logan: What are you most afraid of?

Father Joseph Ibrahim: Unknown future.

Lara Logan: The unknown future?

Father Joseph Ibrahim: Yes.

Lara Logan: What do you think is going to happen?

Father Joseph Ibrahim: We don't know exactly but we are expecting the worse.

"They take everything from us, but they cannot take the God from our hearts, they cannot."

The road from St. Matthew's brings you to the front line, just six miles from the outskirts of Mosul. Every town and village between here and the occupied city is in the hands of the Islamic State. And now, we're told, for the first time in nearly 2,000 years, there are no Christians left inside Mosul.

Archbishop Nicodemus Sharaf: They take everything from us, but they cannot take the God from our hearts, they cannot.

Nicodemus Sharaf is the Archbishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Mosul, one of about 10,000 Christians who fled the city. We found him living as a refugee in the Kurdish capital, Erbil. He said ISIS fighters were already inside Mosul when he escaped.

Archbishop Nicodemus Sharaf: I didn't have any time to take anything. I was told I had five minutes to go. Just I took five books that are very old.

Among them, this Aramaic manuscript. He told us it was written 500 years ago and said he left behind hundreds more older than this one - Christian relics that may never be recovered.

Archbishop Nicodemus Sharaf: I think they burn all the books. And we have books from the first century of the Christianity.

Lara Logan: You had from the first century..

Archbishop Nicodemus Sharaf: Yes, of the Christianity. When I remember this, I cannot ...(crying) from the beginning the Christianity, this is the first time we cannot pray in our churches.

As it seeks to erase Christianity from the landscape, the Islamic state allows no Christian symbols. It just released these photographs which show the desecration of the church at what is believed to be the monastery of Mar Gorgis, just north of Mosul.

And nothing is sacred. ISIS blew up this mosque just over a month after taking here -- it's a site holy to both Christians and Muslims because the Old Testament prophet Jonah was said to be buried inside.

Just like the Nazis marked the property of Jews, Christian homes in Mosul have been marked with this red symbol. It's the Arabic letter N - for Nasara - an early Islamic term for Christians. When ISIS puts it on your home, you either convert to Islam, pay an extortion tax or face the sword.

Issah Al Qurain is one of tens of thousands who had to make that choice. He was at home with his family in the Christian village where he'd lived all his life, when ISIS fighters came looking for him. He told us the fighters first took all his money - then his wife and children.

Lara Logan: They were telling you convert, convert, convert?

Issah Al Qurain (translated): Yes, convert. In the beginning, I refused. I told them I was Christian and I had my religion and they had their religion. But they told me, if you don't convert, we will kill you and take your wife and children.

He agreed and was taken to Mosul to convert where he was reunited with his family. Soon, ISIS fighters were asking about his young daughter, and he told us that frightened him more than anything.

Issah Al Qurain (translated): They said to me that in Islam, the Sharia says, girls that are 10 years old should get married. As soon as they left, my wife and I shut the door. We looked at each other and she started to cry and pray. We were so scared they were going to take our daughter from us.

They escaped in the back of a taxi. Issah says they talked their way through three ISIS checkpoints and traveled for over four hours on back roads to Erbil where, like Archbishop Sharaf, they now live as refugees.

Some 30,000 Christians were living in Erbil before this crisis, most of them Chaldean Catholics, who follow their own ancient traditions but recognize the authority of the pope. Bashar Warda is the archbishop of this diocese. He says his congregation has swelled by more than 60,000 refugees...as Kurdistan, the semi-autonomous region in the north of Iraq, has become a safe haven for Christians fleeing the Islamic state.

Archbishop Bashar Warda talks with Lara Logan

Lara Logan: This is one of the oldest Christian communities in the world? Thousands of years old.

Archbishop Bashar Warda: Two thousand, almost.

Lara Logan: And when you look at it today, where is that Christian community here?

Archbishop Bashar Warda: Disappearing. It's dying.

Archbishop Warda said Christians in Iraq ironically felt safer under Saddam Hussein. Democracy brought a new wave of persecution and prompted a mass exodus of Christians. When the U.S. withdrew completely in 2011, Archbishop Warda says the situation became even worse because Iraq's new leaders were incapable of governing without help.

Archbishop Bashar Warda: I think American support was needed, needed forcefully. You cannot leave the country like this and tell them, "Well, we've liberated you. We cannot do the job for you and we are walking away. This is your country, rule it."

Lara Logan: So, in your view walking away in 2011 was just as damaging to Iraq as 2003 when the U.S. invaded?

Archbishop Bashar Warda: Yes. It's not blaming, but that's the reality. This is not what you came for in 2003. The 4,000 sacrifices of the American soldiers was not meant to come to this day.

Christianity in Iraq was born in the towns and villages of the Nineveh Plains, like this one, called Tel Isqof, which lies less than 20 miles north of Mosul.

Christians have lived here and walked these streets for over a thousand years. But today, there's no one - they're all gone. Driven out by fear. And one of the most striking things you notice is the silence.

Every road was deserted. Houses and possessions abandoned. Others destroyed. Tel Isqof had always been a refuge for Iraq's Christians, until last August when ISIS moved in and 7,000 Christians fled. Three weeks later, Kurdish soldiers pushed the terrorists out.

But Father Rony Hana says ISIS instilled such fear here that his people won't come back. He worries, too, but returns for a few hours every morning to check on his church, which he said ISIS fighters used as their base. He told us one of them called him on his cell phone to ask how to operate the church generator.

Lara Logan: They really did, they asked you that? And you told them?

"I guided them to where it was located around the corner from here," he told us, "and explained how to turn it on. The last thing I said was to please take care of the church and they just hung up."

The cleansing of Iraq's Christians from this land is something Archbishop Sharaf believes ought to be generating a much louder cry of outrage from his Muslim friends and neighbors.

Archbishop Nicodemus Sharaf: Speak up. Of course, there is good people of the Islam people. There is not all Muslim people they are bad. I believe. But there is the good people? Where is their voice? Nothing. Few. Few.

Lara Logan: With everything that has happened here to the Christians, what has been lost?

Archbishop Nicodemus Sharaf: They lost our dignity here. I'm sorry to say that. We don't have dignity in our country, in our land.

Most everyone we met welcomed U.S.-led airstrikes here, but they also said it is not nearly enough. Taking back Mosul - a city of about 1.5 million people -- is widely understood to be a difficult prospect. Archbishop Warda believes the Iraqi army can't do it alone and as long as the city remains in the hands of ISIS - who he refers to as Da'esh, its Arabic name -- no Christians will be going home.

Archbishop Bashar Warda: For me, Da'esh is a cancer. It's a disease. So sometimes you take some hard measures, unfortunate measures to deal and to treat this cancer.

Lara Logan: So you want to see a major military offensive to retake Mosul?

Archbishop Bashar Warda: Yea, to get Iraq to its normal situation.

Lara Logan: And by getting Iraq to its normal situation, you mean restoring the border between Iraq and Syria?

Archbishop Bashar Warda: Yes.

Lara Logan: Getting rid of Da'esh, the Islamic State?

Archbishop Bashar Warda: Exactly.

Lara Logan: Defeating them militarily?

Archbishop Bashar Warda: Please God.

The Christian community hastily set up militias to guard their deserted villages and homes along the frontline, and they're getting a little help. We were surprised to come across American Brett Felton, a Christian veteran of the Iraq war, who traveled -- on his own -- from Detroit to train Christian volunteers. And this man, Khamis, who said he came from Australia, driven to defend the land where he was born.

Lara Logan: What do you think the Islamic State intends to do with the Christians here?

Khamis: To wipe them out. To be nothing. No place left that bears the name of Christian or Christianity.

Christians in the frontier town of al Qosh live in the shadow of the Islamic State. Under constant threat, the militiamen keep watch as they celebrate their faith ... and carry out traditions that are as old as Christianity on the Nineveh Plains.

CBS 60 Minutes to air special report on Iraq's Christians this Sunday, March 22

This sounds like it will be a significant contribution to our understanding of the situation in Iraq and Syria. Lara Logan will be interviewing two archbishops, one of the last monks from an abandoned 1,600 year old monastery, and other refugees in her on the ground reporting from Iraq.

Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil says waging war against ISIS fighters is the only way to save the Christian Church in Iraq. Calling ISIS a "cancer" he says, "So sometimes you take some hard measures, unfortunate measures, to deal and treat this cancer." 

Archbishop Nicodemus Sharaf of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Mosul... says Christianity is indomitable. "They take everything from us, but they cannot take the God from our hearts, they cannot."

Scroll down for preview of story from CBS News. I could not get the embed function to work properly for the video preview, so click here to view the video promo.

Bishop: Make War on ISIS

An Iraqi bishop says waging war against ISIS fighters is the only way to save the Christian Church in Iraq

CBS News, March 19, 2015

The leader of one of Christianity's oldest communities reluctantly says that waging war against ISIS - killing their fighters - is the only way to stop the radical Islamists from destroying Christianity in Iraq. Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil speaks to Lara Logan for her report on the plight of thousands of Christians forced to flee ancestral homes from ISIS. Her story will be broadcast on 60 Minutes Sunday, March 22 AT 7 p.m. ET/PT.

The situation with ISIS in Northern Iraq is a dire one for Christians, says Archbishop Warda. "For me, Daesh is a cancer," says the Chaldean Catholic prelate referring to ISIS by its Arabic name. "So sometimes you take some hard measures, unfortunate measures, to deal and treat this cancer," he says. The bishop has seen his flock expand by about 60,000 people in recent months because of an influx of Christian refugees who fled Mosul and the surrounding villages on the Nineveh Plains when ISIS stormed the area last summer. Should the military defeat them, asks Logan. "Please God," replies the archbishop.

Logan speaks to an Iraqi refugee who was given a choice by ISIS to convert to Islam or be killed. He agreed to convert - and his entire family was forced to do the same. But about a month later, ISIS members came to their door and advised them that under their interpretation of Islamic law, 10-year-old girls, like their daughter, should be married. "As soon as they left, my wife and I shut the door. We looked at each other and she started to cry -- and pray." They managed to escape to Erbil by taxi, swearing that they were Muslims at each ISIS checkpoint.

Erbil, in Iraq's Kurdish-controlled North, the capital of what's referred to as Kurdistan, offers a sanctuary for many fleeing Christians. There, the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters offer a bulwark against ISIS. In all, it is believed some 200,000 Christians have been displaced by ISIS. Logan finds an entire Christian village empty.

Father Yusuuf Ibrahim was one of the last monks in a 1,600-year-old monastery, where prayers and services were still said in Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus. He fled to Erbil; he is not optimistic about the future of Christians in the area. "We don't know exactly but we are expecting the worse," he tells Logan. Just a few miles from the monastery is the frontline, where the flag of ISIS can be seen flying in the distance. Every town and village between that frontline and Mosul is in the Islamic State's hands, Logan reports. And now, she adds, "for the first time in nearly 2,000 years, it is believed that the city of Mosul has no Christians left in it."

Nicodemus Sharaf is the archbishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Mosul. He just made it out of the city with five ancient texts, but had to leave behind hundreds more, many precious relics of early Christianity. "I think they burn all the books. And we have books from the first century of the Christianity," he says, beginning to cry and telling Logan it's the first time since the birth of Christianity in Iraq that Christians can't pray in their churches. But the archbishop says Christianity is indomitable. "They take everything from us, but they cannot take the God from our hearts, they cannot."

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