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

Russia and the West have swapped Spiritual and Cultural Roles

Powerful insights from a Danish theologian and journalist on the spiritual collapse of the post-Christian West and the resurgence of Orthodox Christian Russia, with its renewed love of God, its "poetic and cultured people", and its "fantastic energy, a moral energy":

"The situation in the West is the complete opposite [from that in Russia]. We celebrate death and have surrendered to the satanic view of man in a self-righteous rage and rant against God... We favour euthanasia, abortion on demand, homosexual rights and same-sex marriage while our cities are submerged in Islam and growing segregation."

Russia and the West have swapped Spiritual and Cultural Roles

Interview with Iben Thranholm
Russia Insider � September 7, 2015

The subject of this interview is a Danish journalist and theologian who hosted a series of five programmes, entitled �From Russia with Love� on Danish national public service radio, Radio24syv, with the sub-heading �An Unbiased Look at Putin's Russia.�

Thranholm on a recent trip to Russia

Inspired by Emperor Constantine, she believes Christianity in the West can be rejuvenated by looking to the East. Iben is aware of the sheer enormity of this task. �Such, alas, is the depth to which Western hatred for Christianity has sunk,� says the theologian, who does not hesitate to defend President Putin, on whom the Western media delights in heaping derision and scorn.

�The Pussy Riot case opened the door to Russia for me,� she explains.   

�I understood that Russia is a country that refuses to compromise on Christian values. Russia is not just a country or a nation, Russia is a spiritual concept, a state of mind. Criticism of President Putin was not the crime for which the activists were tried and convicted. Their crime was the invasion of the Christ-The-Saviour Cathedral, the holiest of places, and engaging in a blasphemous act in front of the iconostases.

�They are familiar with the bitter fruit of atheism and have no appetite for the bleak and barren wasteland it produced.�

"In the West, freedom of speech is widely deployed for the purpose of desecrating religion, but Russia does not permit crossing the line into blasphemy. That really fascinated me, and so I travelled to Moscow to learn more and this eventually resulted in a series of radio programmes trying to help Danes move beyond the tedious and unhelpful caricature-like clich�s and provide them with a nuanced view of Russia.�

Russia: Tens of thousands in Cross Procession in Honor of the 700th Anniversary of St. Sergius of Radonezh

Q�What was your impression of Russia?    

�I experienced a fantastic energy, a moral energy similar to America in the '50s with the old moral values. I met helpful, poetic and cultured people with a spirit of self-sacrifice I have not seen before. The atmosphere in Moscow is completely different from that of any capital in Europe, and unlike here in the West, I feel much more spiritually free in the East.   

"While the West is deriding and disowning Christianity and Europe revels in self-loathing, Russians are returning to Christianity in a modern and contemporary context. Bear in mind that Christianity was suppressed under Communism, which was atheistic. Russians are familiar with the bitter fruit of atheism and have no appetite for the bleak and barren wasteland it produced.

�The young, the hip, the wise and the wealthy, express their Christianity as a completely natural and straightforward thing...�

"The interesting thing is, that in Russia, Christianity is associated with being modern and progressive. It is the spirit of the young, the hip, the wise and the wealthy, who express their Christianity as a completely natural and straightforward way of life. Christianity is simply fashionable, but not in the superficial Western pop manner. Christianity�s roots grow deep in the soil of Russian life, and they look with amazement at how we guard, or rather, disregard, our spiritual heritage.

"Not only that: They discern in our obsession with political correctness, and the social liberal opinion policing of the general media and academia, a new manifestation of the terror of totalitarianism they counted themselves blessed to escape after 75 terrible years.

"After the Cold War, East and West swapped roles spiritually, culturally and morally. Cultural Marxism now holds unrestrained sway in the West."

Q�But Communism and Social Democracy are probably not the same?

�Let me put it a different way. During the rule of Communism, Russia found itself in the grip of a culture of death, but she is returning to life, in the sense of Christian culture with a strong awareness of the historical roots and continuity.�  

"The situation in the West is the complete opposite. We celebrate death and have surrendered to the satanic view of man in a self-righteous rage and rant against God. We can divorce with ease on-line. We prioritise work and career above family responsibilities especially raising children. We favour euthanasia, abortion on demand, homosexual rights and same-sex marriage while our cities are submerged in Islam and growing segregation."

�Russians perceive activists like Pussy Riot as latter-day Bolsheviks�

"Russia has chosen a completely different direction, and it is one of the reasons that many Russians perceive activists like Pussy Riot as latter-day Bolsheviks. They invade and desecrate the sanctity of the church, a holy place. The West celebrates this as progress and prosperity. Russians are reminded that the spirit of communism is still alive. It merely assumes new forms and takes up residence in the West, where liberals and progressives love and adore Pussy Riot.

"Today, the spirit of communism shows itself in western worship of human rights, freedom of speech and the elite�s utopian notions of so-called open societies. We are headed for the very wasteland that the Russians were relieved to leave behind. Patriarch Kirill has warned the West: 'Do not take the path we took. We tried it and it leads to destruction!'"   

Q�Recently the Russian military held an exercise based on the scenario of an attack on northern Norway, Aaland, Gotland and Bornholm. Do we just turn the other cheek?

�Well, that's not the true way to look at it. The Russians hold such an exercise because of the geopolitical pressure that NATO creates by deploying hostile military forces along the Ukrainian border and in the old Warsaw Pact countries.

"Russian foreign policy has long been demonized. Russia is compelled to respond to a situation it did not create, which is not the same as aggression. Why should Russia accept being cut off from access to the sea, from Saint Petersburg to Vladivostok? Such a thing is unthinkable.

"With bald-faced hypocrisy, the West makes it look like Russia is our new enemy. The truth is exactly the opposite. The West is its own worst enemy."

Tennessee Promotes Islam: 7th-graders made to recite Muslim statement of faith

The Maury County School District in Tennessee skips whole chapters on the Rise of Christianity and Judaism, but spends three weeks on Islam, and expressly instructs students to write and recite the Shahada, the Islamic profession of faith, by which one becomes a Muslim. 

Parents are rightfully outraged at this blatant attempt at indoctrinating their children into the tenets of Islam. The preferential treatment of Islam in public education may also open Tennessee to lawsuits for violating the U.S. Constitution's "establishment clause."

This is hardly a new phenomenon. A landmark 2013 article in Breitbart News surveyed other instances of Islamic proselytization being forced upon public school students:

Public schools in Florida are teaching that Muhammad is �God�s messenger.� In Indiana, a Muslim family went from classroom to classroom in a public school, handing out material proselytizing for Islam. Texas public school students were made to wear burqas...

Tennessee has somehow become a real hotbed for this type of stealth jihad. From the same article:  

In August 2013, a Tennessee elementary school banned pork to avoid offending Muslims. Children are drawing the five pillars of Islam in Tennessee public schools. The Nashville, Tennessee public school system is teaching dangerous lies in an Islamic lesson plan written by Islamic dissemblers and rife with grammatical errors and poor English... 

This isn�t public education. This is dawah. And it is happening all over, but patriots are fighting back: in September 2013, an Ohio mom got an Islamic proselytizing video removed from her child�s seventh-grade history class. In November 2013, hundreds of parents protested against pro-Islam indoctrination contained in a public school textbook.

Judging from the below article ("they discuss Christianity a little bit during the Middle Ages"), Orthodox Christianity is likely not being addressed at all, which only allows the perpetuation of misperceptions about Russia, Greece, and Slavic nations, as well as of Middle Eastern and African Christians. This in spite of the fact that Orthodox Christians comprise the second largest Christian confession, with over 230 million believers worldwide.

Significantly, all Orthodox, Coptic and Oriental Christians have had epochal confrontations with Islam's 14-century-long jihad, many of them suffering mass martyrdoms, or, as the modern world terms it, genocide. But you can be certain that is not going to be addressed in the TN Core approved curriculum, certainly not while the anti-Christian regime in Washington and the American mainstream media try to foment public hatred of Christian Russia.

Christian parents, be aware of what your children are being taught! Make your voice heard! Public confrontation of such tactics is often successful in forcing government officials to back down and remove Islamic propaganda from school curricula. 

7th-graders in Tennessee made to recite 'Allah is the only God' in public school 
by Thomas D. Williams, PhD, Breitbart News, September 10, 2015:

Middle school parents in Tennessee are up in arms on learning that their children were instructed to recite and write, �Allah is the only god,� as part of a world history project.

In the Maury County School District, students were assigned a Five Pillars of Islam project that included the translation of the pillar of �Shahada� as being, �There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is his prophet.�

Joy Ellis, the mother of a seventh-grader at Spring Hill Middle School, said that Christian children should not be instructed to write the Shahada.

�This is a seventh grade state standard, and will be on the TCAP,� Ellis said. �I didn�t have a problem with the history of Islam being taught, but to go so far as to make my child write the Shahada, is unacceptable.�

Another mother of a seventh-grade girl, Brandee Porterfield, complained to officials at Spring Hill Middle School because of its overemphasis on Islam to the exclusion of Christianity and Judaism.

Porterfield said she has no objections to her daughter learning details of the Islamic religion, but she objects to the fact that the history unit didn�t devote similar time to Christianity or Judaism.

�It really did bother me that they skipped the whole chapter on the rise of Christianity and they spent three weeks just studying Islam,� she said.

Porterfield and other parents were also concerned with the school�s decision to have children write and recite the Islamic creed.

�But what really did bother me,� Porterfield said, �was that they did this assignment where they wrote out the Five Pillars of Islam, including having the children learn and write the Shahada, which is the Islamic conversion creed.�

�I spoke with the teacher and the principal,� she said. �They are not going to learn any other religion, doctrines or creeds and they are not going back over this chapter. Even though they discuss Christianity a little bit during the Middle Ages, they are not ever going to have this basis for Judaism or Christianity later.�

Porterfield said the class skipped Christianity because it�s not required by the state�s standards. Those standards, TN Core, are very similar to the national Common Core standards, though in May Gov. Bill Haslam signed a bill eliminating Common Core.

In Tennessee, 85 percent of the residents identify as Christian, according to a comprehensive U.S. Religious Landscape Survey conducted by the Pew Center in 2008. Only one percent of state residents identify as Muslim.

Jan Hanvey, Maury County Public Schools� middle school supervisor, said that most of the three-week unit discussed things like government, culture, geography, and economics, rather than theology. She also said that the chapters on Christianity and Judaism are scheduled to be taught at the end of the year with the �Age of Exploration� unit.

Maury County Director of Schools, Chris Marczak, defended the curriculum in a statement, saying that the school system is in no way endorsing Islam over other religions or trying to �indoctrinate� students.

�It is our job as a public school system to educate our students on world history in order to be ready to compete in a global society, not to endorse one religion over another or indoctrinate,� Marczak said.

Porterfield, however, finds Marczak�s assurances unconvincing.

�They are not going over anything else. So for the students to have to memorize this prayer, it does seem like it is indoctrination,� she said.

A meeting between parents and school teachers and administrators has been scheduled for Sept. 17 to allow Porterfield and other concerned Springhill parents to voice their concerns about the state�s history curriculum.

The New Dark Age: U.S. and West Victimize Christians Fleeing ISIS

The "Christian" West reveals its hatred of Christianity by openly persecuting Eastern Christian refugees and aiding those who murder and terrorize them. We have entered a new Dark Age in all but name. We are living in the Age of Tribulation.


U.S. and West Victimize Christians Fleeing ISIS

by Raymond Ibrahim, Gatestone Institute, September 6, 2015

Iraqi Christians demonstrate by the Otay Detention Facility, San Diego, California

Not only does the West facilitate the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, but in the West as well.

According to a recent NPR report, the U.S. supported �moderate� coalition fighting both Bashar Assad and the Islamic State in Syria �has extremists in its own ranks who have mistreated Christians and forced them out of their homes��just as IS has done.

Christian minorities forced out of their homes who manage to reach Western nations�including the United States�sometimes encounter more trouble.

Despite having family members to sponsor them, a group of 20 Christians who fled the Islamic State in Iraq have been imprisoned indefinitely at the Otay Detention Facility in San Diego, even though they have local family members and Christian leaders who vouch for them (the primary way that the majority of detained foreign nationals are released is to the supervision of American citizens vouching for them).

Activists say that the men and women in detention have been held indefinitely for too long, including by the U.S. government�s own standards. Some have been imprisoned for over seven months with no hearing date set for their release.

Mark Arabo, a spokesman for the Chaldean community in San Diego said �they are being held without a real reason�. They�ve escaped hell [IS]. Let�s allow them to reunite with their families.�

The detainees include a woman who pleaded to see her sickly mother.  The mother died before being reunited with her daughter who escaped the clutches of IS.  �She had been begging to be let out� of the U.S. detention center and see her dying mother, said a priest aware of her case.

Discussing the ongoing plight of these Iraqi Christians,  San Diego�s East County Magazine concludes:  �Why the federal government has failed to take steps to expedite such reunification in cases where family and religious leaders are willing to vouch for and help those seeking asylum here, then, remains an unfathomable mystery.�

Such �unfathomable mysteries� are reminiscent of the U.S. State Dept.�s habit of inviting Muslim representatives but denying visas to Christian representatives. Since the start of 2015, 4,205 Muslims have been admitted into the U.S. from Iraq but only 727 Christians.  For every one Christian the U.S. grants asylum, it grants asylum to five or six Muslims�even though Christians, as persecuted �infidel� minorities, are in much greater need of sanctuary, not to mention more assimilating to American culture than Muslims.

As Faith McDonnell, director of religious liberty at the Institute on Religion & Democracy, put it:

This [detainment of Iraqi Christians in San Diego] follows the disturbing pattern that we have seen from the State Department of ignoring the particular targeting of Christians by ISIS while giving preferential treatment for asylum to other groups with expedited processing�like Somalis, Iraqis, and Syrians, some of whom could very well be members of jihadist movements.

The same is happening in the United Kingdom.  Church leaders accuse David Cameron of �turning his back� on Christians facing genocide in Syria and Iraq by failing to grant them refuge in the UK�even though thousands of Muslims have been allowed entry.

Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, signed a petition calling on the UK government to �welcome Christian refugees and give them priority as asylum seekers,� emphasizing that �Syrian and Iraqi Christians are being butchered, tortured and enslaved.�

Similarly, Lord Weidenfeld, 95, who fled Nazi-occupied Austria in 1938 with the help of British Quakers, said:

Why is it that the Poles and the Czechs are taking in Christian families and yet the British government stands idly by? 

This mood of indifference is reminiscent of the worst phases of appeasement, and may have catastrophic consequences. Europe must awake and the Conservative British Government should be leading from the front. 

Most European governments, especially those that are Christian explicitly or implicitly, are failing in their duty to look after their fellow Christians in their hour of need.

This is not necessarily true of central and east European nations.  Along with countries like Poland and Czechoslovakia, Slovakia recently went so far as to say it will only accept Christians when it takes in Syrian refugees under an EU relocation scheme.  The Slavic nation argues that �Muslims would not be accepted because they would not feel at home,� including because there are no mosques in Slovakia.

Meanwhile, many of those Christians who are granted asylum in Western countries arrive there only to be further persecuted by Muslim asylum seekers�demonstrating, once again, who does and who doesn�t deserve asylum; who does and who doesn�t assimilate in Western culture.

Most recently in Sweden, two small families of Christian asylum seekers from Syria were harassed and abused by approximately 80 Muslim asylum seekers also from Syria.

The Christians and Muslims�described by one Swedish newspaper as �fundamentalist Islamists��resided in the same asylum house.  Among other humiliations, the Muslims ordered the Christians not to wear their crosses around their necks and not to use communal areas when in use by Muslims.

After continuous harassment and threats, the Christian refugees who had managed to escape the Islamic State left the Swedish asylum house �fearing for their own safety.� A spokesman for the government migration agency responsible for the center they had been staying in said:

They dared not stay. The atmosphere became too intimidating. And they got no help� They chose themselves to organize new address and moved away without our participation because they felt a discomfort.

Western nations are not merely ignoring Muslim persecution of Christians in the Middle East, they are actively supporting it by sponsoring �moderate� rebels who in reality are as �radical� and anti-Western as the Islamic State. And when these persecuted Christian minorities manage to flee the Islamic State and come to the West for asylum, they are imprisoned again. All the while, Muslims�in the Mideast and in the West�are being empowered and welcomed in the West with open arms.

Christians Debate: Is it OK to 'Act Muslim' to Save Their Lives

The very asking of this question serves to underscore the fact that we are living in a new Age of Martyrdom. 

The Martyrdom of Bishop Teodor of Vrsac, Serbia.

Before exploring the contemporary debate, we might be wise to take a look back at a previous age of martyrdom to see how the Church survived a very similar trial.

The question of Christians committing apostasy in order to save their lives, and how to deal with those who did so, was experienced on a widespread scale in the middle of the 3rd century when, under Roman Emperor Decius (249-251), a fierce new outbreak of persecution against the Church was launched.

From Fr. Alexander Schmemann, The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy:

One of the primary reasons for the decline in Christian intensity had undoubtedly been the lull in the persecutions. From the death of Marcus Aurelius (185) until the middle of the third century, the Church lived in relative security... 

The persecution that suddenly burst upon the Church in the year 249 seemed a terrible and unexpected trial and exposed in full clarity how far many, many Christians had departed from the original intensity of faith and way of life... 

[Emperor Decius] gave first priority to the restoration of state worship, and this inevitably led to conflict with Christianity. Except for Nero, Decius was the first representative of Roman power to take the initiative in these persecutions as opposed to the system of private accusation followed by test. In a special edict he ordered all his subjects to prove their loyalty to the national gods by making the sacrifice. 

The Church again responded with the blood of martyrs, including not only Origen... but Bishop Flavian of Rome, Babylas of Antioch, and Alexander of Jerusalem. But what startled the Church was the mass apostasy. 

�Fear struck them,� wrote Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria, �and many of the more influential Christians gave in immediately, some giving way to fear, others, as civil servants, to the requirements of their positions, still others drawn along with the crowd. Some were pale and trembling, as if it were not they who were making sacrifices to the idols but they themselves who were being brought to sacrifice; and therefore the crowd mocked them.� 

 The same picture appears in the letters of Cyprian of Carthage: �There were some who did not even wait to be summoned to climb onto the Capitol, or to be questioned to renounce their faith. They ran to the Forum themselves, they hastened to their [spiritual] deaths, as if they had wished it for a long time. And � O ultimate crime! � parents brought their children with them, so that they might lose in their childhood what they had received on the threshold of their lives.� 

The persecution passed liked a whirlwind and quickly abated, but it left the Church in ruins. The question arose as to how to deal with those who had lapsed, who now rushed back for forgiveness and reconciliation. While the Church had recognized a �second repentance� at the beginning of the century, now the question was posed anew and more acutely.

In the earlier time, lapsed Christians had been the exception, so that a second repentance was also an exception, but now it was a mass occurrence. When we remember what the witness of martyrs meant to the Church � that it was the witness of the Church to itself, the proof of Christ�s strength which lived in it � then it becomes clear why the problem of the lapsed caused a lengthy dissension, the last in the series of �temptations of the Church� that marked the late second and early third centuries. 

Against this background of dissension the figure of the great African bishop, St. Cyprian of Carthage, stands out clearly. Like Tertullian, he represented the �pure� Christianity that characterized the brief but magnificent history of the African Church... 

In the spring of 251 Cyprian returned to Carthage and summoned a synod, which decided the problem by relaxing the discipline of repentance. It divided the lapsed into two categories, depending on the degree of apostasy, and established two forms by which they might again be accepted into the Church. Some could be received only on their deathbeds, while others could rejoin after more or less prolonged periods of repentance.

The heart-rending spectacle of mass apostasy of Christians during the persecution of Decius nearly rent the Church herself in two, so intense was the clash of Novatian and the rigorists, who held that only the pure (cathari) could constitute the true Church, versus the Confessors, joined by Cyprian of Carthage who, appealed for unity. From Fr. Alexander Schmemann's text again:

Formally, Novatian was right when he invoked tradition in his protest against accepting the lapsed. Cyprian himself had been a typical rigorist before the persecution of Decius. But the teaching of the Church is not a logical system and is not constructed in syllogisms. 

Novatian, who was true to logic, was torn from the life of the Church, while Cyprian, outwardly self-contradictory, could still boldly state that he had introduced nothing new with the question of the lapsed Christians, for he had taken his doctrine from the life of the Church. 

In fact, nothing had changed in the nature of the Church or its sanctity, but it had become more deeply conscious of the dichotomy between old and new in its earthly life. Novatian and his followers, for the sake of their principles, were left outside the Church; such is the logic behind every schism. They withdrew in proud scorn for the sullied Church of the lapsed. But in the pastoral heart of Cyprian and his truly catholic way of thinking, this Church of the lapsed remained the same holy bride of Christ, which has no room for sin but exists to save sinners.

Cyprian�s life ended in the glory of a martyr�s death... 

The Christian Church ultimately was strengthened by the horrific trial of not only the persecutions under Decius, but by the depth of Her compassion as She re-embraced those who had committed apostasy. The Church's final and greatest trial under the Roman Empire would reveal Her inner strength. Fr. Schmemann writes:

With the end of the [third] century came increasing persecutions. The empire was falling, its whole structure rocked under the terrible attacks of Germanic tribes from the north and the Goths and Persians from the east. In these troubled years, when it was natural to seek scapegoats for so many misfortunes, it was not difficult to inflame hatred against the Christians. Edict followed edict, and throughout the empire new names of martyrs were added to the martyrology of the Church. 

The persecutions probably never reached such intensity as under Diocletian (303), just on the eve of the conversion of Constantine. The largest roster of names of martyrs comes to us from this period. It was as if the Church were revealing, for the last time before its victory, all the strength, beauty, and inspiration of the courageous suffering by which it had survived the first centuries � the strength of its witness to the kingdom of Christ, by which alone it ultimately conquered.

For an excellent discussion of a variant form of Christian apostasy under the Ottoman Muslims, see Confessors or Apostates? The Crypto-Christian Dilemma, by Mother Nectaria McLees (Road to Emmaus, # 31). From Mother Nectaria's introductory paragraph:

Although many Christians under the Turkish yoke did apostasize and embrace Islam, there were also thousands of conscious martyrs, and millions of other Christian victims, killed randomly without time to reflect or the opportunity to make a choice.1  But what are we to think of those who � either lacking the courage to �resist unto death,� or being responsible for families, parishes, or communities that, after their protector�s martyrdom, might fall victim to slavery, concubinage, and forced conversion to Islam � took a third path, declaring themselves Muslim while continuing to secretly practice Christianity?

One must certainly consider the experience of the Russian Catacomb Church during the Soviet regime. During the seventy year period which saw tens of millions of Christians martyred, a hidden, secret remnant persevered, always knowing that there might one night come the dreaded "knock at the door," heralding the end of their sanctuary and their moment to shine as confessors and witnesses for Jesus Christ.

Millions of Christians today, mostly in the Islamic world, live under such a real and deadly threat, and we must look to them, and to the confessors and martyrs of every age, as our models.

Archimandrite Daniel Byantoro, a convert to Orthodox Christianity from Islam and the founder of the Indonesian Orthodox Mission, confronts the possibility of martyrdom every day in Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population. Outbreaks of Muslim persecution against Christians is a constant danger there, prompting Fr Daniel to note:

If there is no possible way to escape (even if we have been trying to be good and obey the laws of society), if we become known as a believer, if they stigmatize us as unbelievers as heretics or whatever, then it is obvious there is no other way � if martyrdom comes, then we have to accept it. If you cannot escape being a martyr, do it! Go for it! I teach this in church, and I say, even to myself, that there is no other way.

� �Orthodoxy in Indonesia,� Road To Emmaus, #6, Summer 2001.

Ultimately, the new wave of persecution is coming here to North America. In fact, it is already here, as we Christians are being forced to choose between "getting along" in the world, or resisting the ever more strident efforts to force us to support evil, anti-human and depraved practices, whether it is public funding for abortion through our tax dollars, or a Christian baker compelled by law to create a wedding cake for a homosexual couple.

Hieromonk Seraphim Rose of Platina taught a radical, martyric ethos as the only way to prepare for our own approaching trials. He repeatedly stressed the witness of persecuted believers in Russia to help make it real for his listeners, as in this example:

Once Fr. Dimitri [Dudko] was asked about how much better off religion was in the free world than in Russia, and he answered: "Yes, they have freedom and many churches, but theirs is a spirituality with comfort. We in Russia have a different path, a path of suffering that can produce real fruit."   [...]

We should remember this phrase when we look at our own feeble Orthodoxy in the free world: [If] ours is a spirituality with comfort, we will not have the spiritual fruits that will be exhibited by those without all these comforts, who deeply suffer and struggle for Christ. In this sense we should take our tone from the suffering Church in Russia [...] Our eyes must be on heaven above, the goal we strive for, not on the problems and disasters of earth below. 

Orthodox Christians Facing the 1980s, Lecture given by Father Seraphim Rose at the St. Herman Summer Pilgrimage, Platina, CA, August 9, 1979.)

  

The debate between Christians over saving their lives under increasing Muslim persecution may seem distant from us in our comfortable lives. Yet we are daily confronted with the same choice, whether to honor God, take up our cross and follow Christ, or not. 

Even if the temporal stakes may not seem as extreme as those confronting our Middle Eastern, African, and Asian Christian brothers and sisters, the eternal value of each and every decision we make is just as weighty, just as eternal. God help us be true and faithful to Jesus Christ, for I fear the devil may reap a much greater harvest among us here in the comfortable West than he ever will among our persecuted brethren in the Islamic world.

Christians Debate: Is it OK to 'Act Muslim' to Save Their Lives
by Thomas D. Williams, PhD, Breitbart News � August 26, 2015

A debate is raging among African and Arab theologians regarding how far Christians can go in good conscience to hide their faith and pretend to be Muslims in order to save their lives at the hands of Islamist extremists.

It often happens that during jihadist raids, militants will try to ascertain quickly whether persons they are attacking are Christians or Muslims by asking them questions about Islam or having them recite the Muslim creed in Arabic.

For example, during the 2013 terror attack at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, al Shabaab gunmen paused for a moment to announce in English: �Muslims, get out of here!

An Indian man stepped forward, but when the gunmen asked him, �What is the name of Muhammad�s mother?� he couldn�t answer, and so they shot him.

Another of those trying to escape was a student named Joshua Hakim, who covered up the Christian name on his voter card as he showed it to the gunmen. Hakim was allowed to go.

Other terror attacks by radical Islamists have followed a similar pattern. Those who could show they were Muslim�by reciting a prayer in Arabic or answering questions about Islam�were allowed to go free. Those who couldn�t were killed.

As a result, some Christians have started sharing tips on how to �act Muslim� and so avoid being killed by attackers. These tips�shared by word of mouth or even on the internet�include activities such as learning to recite the shahada�Islam�s central creed�in Arabic.

Christian theologians, however, are divided on whether such a practice amounts to a denial of Christ or �apostasy.�

One Kenyan pastor, David Oginde, the head of the 45,000-member Christ is the Answer Ministries, says that such pretending to be Muslim is unworthy behavior for a Christian. �A true Christian must be ready to live and to die for the faith,� he said.

Others disagree. Two professors at St. Paul�s University, an Anglican institution in Nairobi, have said that the answer isn�t that clear-cut. Reciting the shahada doesn�t amount to denying Christ, says Samuel Githinji, a theology lecturer.

�Christians are obligated to save their lives and others� lives as much as possible,� Githinji said. �Denying the faith is more subtle than the mere voicing of certain words.�

Christian persecution from the Islamic State and other jihadist groups has provided ample opportunities for Christians to show their mettle.

One of the twenty-�one Egyptian men beheaded on a Libyan beach last February, Mathew Ayairga, was asked the question, �Do you reject Christ?� Though Ayairga was not even a Christian up until then, he chose to identify with the other Egyptians and their Christian faith. His reply to his captors was, �Their God is my God!� and he was killed with the rest.

The question of what constitutes apostasy and how Christians should act in situations of persecution is as old as Christianity itself. During the most severe Roman persecutions, notably those of Emperors Nero, Decius, Valerian. and Diocletian, apostasy was fairly common, since holding to one�s faith meant the loss of property, position, citizens� rights, and even one�s life.

Even in those early centuries, Christians debated over what compromises were licit and which could never be engaged in. When persecutions slowed, the Church had to address the question of how Christians who had apostatized should be dealt with.

George Sabra, president of Near East School of Theology in Lebanon, says Christians should rely on the guidance of the Holy Spirit in such situations. Sabra says that Christians should not say the shahada, but if they do, they should be treated with compassion.

�To be a Christian is not about learning tactics for survival,� he said. �But denying Christ is not an unforgivable sin. We may not despair of God�s love and mercy. Even Peter, the head of the disciples, was a denier of Christ.�

NYT�s Artistic Display of Religious Hypocrisy: Runs Offensive Virgin Mary Painting Once Again

So called "art" which presents offensive depictions of Christ and His Most Pure Mother, the Holy Theotokos (Greek: "Birthgiver of God"), is part of the Western cultural persecution of Christianity, one waged "more by sneer than by spear," as I heard Fr. Thomas Hopko (of beloved memory) put it in a talk.

via Jihad Watch � May 30, 2015

The hypocrisy is stark and absolute: �Under Times standards, we do not normally publish images or other material deliberately intended to offend religious sensibilities� � unless it offends a group that is not committing mass murder and threatening more over such images. This is, as I wrote yesterday, still more mainstream media canonization of the assassin� veto. The mainstream media is signaling that terrorism works: threaten to kill us, and we will do what you want. That will only bring more terrorism.

�NYT�s Artistic Display of Religious Hypocrisy: Runs Offensive Virgin Mary Painting Once Again,� 

by Clay Waters, Newsbusters, May 29, 2015:

The New York Times� hypocrisy regarding displays of �offensive� religious imagery runs unabated, as shown in a Scott Reyburn article in Friday�s Arts section on the sale of Chris Ofili�s controversial painting �The Holy Virgin Mary,� which shows the Virgin Mary clotted with elephant dung against a porn-collage background � and accompanied by a photograph of the offensive work.

Yet when the paper refused to reprint a cartoon of Muhammad that appeared in the Paris satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that resulted in the January 2015 massacre of 12 magazine staffers, it offered this smug, cowardly justification:

Under Times standards, we do not normally publish images or other material deliberately intended to offend religious sensibilities. After careful consideration, Times editors decided that describing the cartoons in question would give readers sufficient information to understand today�s story.

Not fear of violent reprisal, but fear of �causing offense.� So why does Ofili�s dung-clotted Virgin Mary get a pass?�

_____

Because no one will kill you over it.

Greek Media: "Orthodoxy for the USA is like a Red Flag to a Bull"

Some who follow the media closely are positive that the anti-Church campaign in Greece is financed by the USA.

Pravoslavie � May 26, 2015

Thousands in Greece venerate the relics of St Barbara.
The USA hates the veneration of saints and hates the Orthodox
Church, and therefore is promoting depravity and godlessness
in Greece, Russia, and other traditionally Orthodox nations.

(Athens, May 22, 2015)  An anti-Church campaign is continuing in Greece. It flared up after the holy relics of Great Martyr Barbara had been brought to the country. Some who follow the media closely are positive that the campaign is financed by the USA.

�For the USA, Orthodoxy is like a red flag to a bull� This is because Orthodox peoples are friendly towards Russia. That is why in Greece in every way � through media and Non-Governmental Organizations controlled by the USA � godlessness is being promoted and the faith ridiculed. The huge influx of the faithful to the relics of St. Barbara has startled the West and caused the intensification of this propaganda,� experts of the Defencenet.gr Greek portal are convinced, reports AgionOros.

It should be noted that St. Barbara�s relics, which are permanently kept at the San Marco Basilica of Venice, were brought to Greece, and this caused a wave of negative publications in the liberal media. The event has already been called �unprecedented�.

�When we received the saint�s relics we could not imagine this enormous wave of pilgrimages to the shrine. Masses of people during the course of eight days� The fact that pilgrims are willing to queue for hours in order to venerate the precious relics of Greatmartyr Barbara arouses a bottomless depth of amazement and respect,� said Metropolitan Clement of Methoni.

In his turn, Metropolitan Anthimos of Thessaloniki has commented on the anti-Church campaign in the Greek liberal media: �Some individuals are speaking with shallow, deceitful, unfounded fabrications, thus trying to create conditions for weakening of the Orthodox Church�.

In Metropolitan Anthimos� view, the actions of the enemies of the Church intended for its division are hopeless: �Yes, our opinions on national interests often differ, but when representatives of Local Orthodox Churches gather together, they (whether they are Greeks, Russians, Ukrainians, other European citizens or Americans) find common language and bear witness to the Truth�.

In his speech the metropolitan responded to the critique of some Church�s enemies who are judging the clergy for wearing sumptuous church vestments: �All year round we wear a black cassock. However, according to St. Basil the Great, for the Divine Liturgy we must dress in the best ecclesiastical vestments that we have. All of us � bishops, priests, deacons, monks � wear black garments all the time as a reminder of the Passion of our Savior on the Cross. Some priests of the older generation even do not take off their cassocks at night and sleep in them. But when at the Liturgy we take the Body of Christ in our hands, shouldn�t we really clothe ourselves in other, better vestments?�

The True Religion of the West

"The idea of a strong and robust nation that holds to traditional Christian values is an idea that Western Europe finds repugnant in the extreme. Why? Because such a nation would be an ideological rival and that is something that the current order can�t tolerate."

by Niko Pafras, Pravoslavie � May 5, 2015

I�m not a professional journalist or an expert in international affairs. Fortunately, one doesn�t need to be either to see what is going on in the popular western media these days. 

Living in America I am bombarded on a daily basis with the �expert� opinions on the Ukrainian crisis by a horde of analysts on the nightly news. The recurring theme in these interviews, regardless of political affiliation or news network, is the outrage felt by western leaders at the supposed �aggression� shown by Russia towards Ukraine. 

Conveniently, the aggression of President Poroshenko towards his fellow citizens in eastern Ukraine vis-a-vis the openly neo-Nazi Azov battalion and its ilk, goes almost entirely unreported. Be that as it may, one must ask, what precisely is it in the psyche of western leaders and pundits that makes them foam at the mouth with outrage at the crisis in Ukraine but turn a blind eye when it comes to similar incidents that are conducted by western countries or their allies?

For example, on July 20th, 1974, NATO member Turkey under the leadership of then Prime Minister B�lent Ecevit launched the invasion of Cyprus known as �Operation Attila�. What reason did Mr. Ecevit give for this naked aggression and violation of international norms? The prevention of �Enosis�, which is Union with the Greek mainland, and the protection of the Turkish minority from alleged pogroms by Greeks whose population, at the time, made up approximately 77% of the Island. The result of the invasion was the bifurcation of Cyprus into the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus and the so-called TRNC or Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus who is only recognized by Turkey. 

On paper, the TRNC is considered by Turkey to be a separate state but in reality, the TRNC is a de facto part of Turkey. In other words, an annexation. Now one would expect, all things being equal, that similar outrage was shown towards Turkey for its illegal invasion and subsequent occupation of northern Cyprus. 

Unfortunately, we live in a world where things are not equal. The Western response? Negligible at best. There was no American castigation of Turkey or heavy sanctions. No military build-up of American forces on the Turkish border or heaping of opprobrium by the western media. And interestingly, there were no Hitler-Ecevit comparisons made on a daily basis like there have ubiquitously been throughout the western press since the reunification of Crimea with Russia. No, on the contrary, Turkey cemented its ties with America and Europe and continues to receive billions of dollars worth of military aid through the Truman doctrine.

Unlike the violent invasion of Cyprus by Turkey, which claimed the lives of thousands, Crimea was received into Russia by a free and fair referendum in which an overwhelming majority of Crimean residents chose unification with Russia. The American response to the Turkish invasion was silence. Yet, when it comes to the people of Crimea exercising their democratic rights and their right to self-determination, which America holds as universal right, the response is outrage, sanctions and threats.

How do we explain this response or rather, lack thereof? Interests. Plain and simple. 

Turkey is a NATO member whose strategic location is vital for NATO (read American) operations in the Middle East, the Caucasus and the black sea region. The Turkish invasion and the American response have led me to only one reasonable conclusion. American outrage for the annexation of Crimea isn�t real. Its entirely manufactured for political purposes in order to continue their grand project of eastward NATO expansion despite the promises Russia was given in the 90�s that no such expansion would occur. 

Considering all of this, I couldn�t help but think about America�s own founding documents. Specifically, the declaration of Independence which states in its first paragraph �When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.� I guess the right to self-determination isn�t universal after all.

But the larger theme here is the western opposition to Orthodox countries who hold traditional Christian values. In many ways the Orthodox world is a thorn in the flesh. It frustrates the west because the Orthodox world, in large measure, never experienced anything like the so-called �Enlightenment� which started the process of secularization and de-Christianization of the west in the 18th century. 

The idea of a strong and robust nation that holds to traditional Christian values is an idea that Western Europe finds repugnant in the extreme. Why? Because such a nation would be an ideological rival and that is something that the current order can�t tolerate. 

Western nations have been globalizing their secular values by branding them as �human rights� and using human rights organizations as a cudgel to browbeat, into submission, those nations who hold to traditional values. 

But of course, this only applies to those traditional countries that do not tow the line of the western agenda. If you are a country like Turkey, a country that has manifold human rights abuses, you get a free pass because you have acquiesced to the program of western hegemony. This is why America and Western Europe are mostly silent on the issue of human rights violations by countries like Saudi Arabia and Turkey. But for Orthodox countries like Russia and Serbia, no such pass is given and chastisement abounds. As a friend of mine said, enlightenment liberalism is the true religion of the west and those who refuse to convert can expect no quarter.

State Dept bans Iraqi Catholic nun from entering U.S.

Sister Diana wants to tell Americans about ISIS persecution of Christians in Iraq, but the State Department won�t let her in.  Obama and company don�t want Americans to hear it. 

With Malice Toward Nun

National Review Online via Creeping Sharia � May 3, 2015

by Nina Shea

Sister Diana Momeka

See also this followup article by Nina Shea: The State Department Responds to NR�s Report on Sister Diana Momeka

Why is the United States barring a persecuted Iraqi Catholic nun � an internationally respected and leading representative of the Nineveh Christians who have been killed and deported by ISIS � from coming to Washington to testify about this catastrophe?

Earlier this week, we learned that every member of an Iraqi delegation of minority groups, including representatives of the Yazidi and Turkmen Shia religious communities, has been granted visas to come for official meetings in Washington � save one. The single delegate whose visitor visa was denied happens to be the group�s only Christian from Iraq.

Sister Diana Momeka of the Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine of Siena was informed on Tuesday by the U.S. consulate in Erbil that her non-immigrant-visa application has been rejected. The reason given in the denial letter, a copy of which I have obtained, is:

You were not able to demonstrate that your intended activities in the United States would be consistent with the classification of the visa.

She told me in a phone conversation that, to her face, consular officer Christopher Patch told her she was denied because she is an �IDP� or Internally Displaced Person. �That really hurt,� she said. Essentially, the State Department was calling her a deceiver.

The State Department officials made the determination that the Catholic nun could be falsely asserting that she intends to visit Washington when secretly she could be intending to stay. That would constitute illegal immigration, and that, of course, is strictly forbidden. Once here, she could also be at risk for claiming political asylum, and the U.S. seems determined to deny ISIS�s Christian victims that status.

In reality, Sister Diana wanted to visit for one week in mid-May. She has meetings set up with the Senate and House foreign-relations committees, the State Department, USAID, and various NGOs. In support of her application, Sister Diana had multiple documents vouching for her and the temporary nature of her visit. She submitted a letter from her prioress, Sister Maria Hana. It attested that the nun has been gainfully employed since last February with the Babel College of Philosophy and Theology in Erbil, Kurdistan, and is contracted to teach there in the 2015�16 academic year.

She, along with the town�s 50,000 other, mostly Christian, residents, fled for their lives from ISIS during the second week of August.

She also submitted an invitation from her sponsors, two highly respected Washington-area institutions, the Institute for Global Engagement and former congressman Frank Wolf�s (R., Va.) 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative. For good measure, she also had a letter of endorsement for her visit from Representative Anna Eshoo (D., Calif.).

The State Department wasn�t buying. It either thought that they were all in on a scheme by the nun or that Sister Diana was plotting to deceive her well-placed friends and supporters, as well as the U.S. government.

Until ISIS stormed into Qaraqosh last August, Sister Diana had a distinguished academic career and had been teaching an intensive course on spiritual direction at St. Ephrem Seminary, as well as English and peacemaking courses. She, along with the town�s 50,000 other, mostly Christian, residents, fled for their lives from ISIS during the second week of August. Since then, the 30-something religious woman has served as a spokesperson for this community, as well as for the over 100,000 other Christians driven into Kurdistan under the ISIS �convert or die� policy. Through this, she has become internationally known as a charismatic and articulate advocate for religious freedom and human rights. Mr. Wolf, who met her in Kurdistan a few months ago, explained, �We had hoped to facilitate her trip to the States so that she could speak with great candor, as is her custom, to policymakers. Perhaps just as significantly, we viewed her as a critical voice to awaken the church in the West to the suffering of Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq.�

But in the eyes of the U.S. consulate, she is just another Christian IDP. (Last October a delegation of IDP Yazidis were given U.S. visas to come to Washington to speak.)

Adding insult to injury: In its 2015 Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, issued this week, the State Department pledged that �every overseas post and domestic bureau will seek opportunities to engage religious leaders,� as part of its pursuit of countering �violent extremism.� Opportunities to engage with everyone, that is, except Catholic nuns in Iraq � all of whom are now IDPs.

Former Clinton Employee and Muslim Brotherhood Spokesperson Gets Life In Prison

With the Clinton Foundation scandals coming to a boiling point, it's easy to overlook Hillary Clinton's connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. This is an important story. Read and share. 

Related: Washington Times � Huma Abedin�s private emails, Muslim Brotherhood and the Hillary Clinton Emailgate Scandal, by Frank J. Gafney, Jr.

Former Clinton Employee and Muslim Brotherhood Spokesperson Gets Life In Prison
Posted at Creeping Sharia � April 17, 2015

Original reporting by gmbwatch on April 14, 2015

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is reporting that Gehad El-Haddad, described as �spokesperson of the Muslim Brotherhood�, was sentenced to life imprisonment in a 2103 case known as �the media trial�. According to a report on the Brotherhood�s website:

April 13, 2015 On April 11, 2015, Gehad El-Haddad, spokesperson of the Muslim Brotherhood, was sentenced to life imprisonment in case 317 for the year 2013 known as �the media trial�. Fourteen defendants received death sentences while thirty seven including Gehad were sentenced to life in prison. Among the convicted are 15 journalists and spokespersons...

 In August 2013, the GMBDW reported on the arrest of Gehad El-Haddad by Egyptian security forces. At the time, we noted that although we were the first and only Western source known to have reported on El-Haddad�s employment by the Clinton Foundation, mainstream media reports mentioning this employment failed to credit the GMBDW.

Gehad El-Haddad, the the son of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader Essam El-Haddad, was a Senior Adviser on Foreign Affairs to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood �s Freedom and Justice Party, a position he held since May 2011. His resume also says that he was is a Senior Adviser & Media Spokesperson for the Muslim Brotherhood as well as a Steering Committee Member of the Brotherhood�s Renaissance (Nahda) Project. Mr Haddad was also the Media Strategist & Official Spokesperson for the presidential campaign of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. 

Gehad El-Haddad�s resume reports that he was the City Director for the William J. Clinton Foundation from August 2007 � August 2012. Among his duties at the Foundation were representing the Foundation�s Clinton Climate Initiative in Egypt, setting up the foundation�s office in Egypt and managed official registration, and identifying and developing program-based projects & delivery work plans.

Christian Genocide in the Middle East and Public Apathy in America: Looking Back on 2014 and Before

The question of lack of American care and response to genocide against Christians in the Middle East and Africa has been raised on this blog, as well as elsewhere. Timothy Furnish recently shared this excerpt from a piece by blogger Matt Walsh in which, as Tim puts it, Walsh "nails this -- NAILS it":

I�m sure there would be outrage of epic proportions if over 100 black Christians in Georgia were gunned down for their faith like they were in Africa just a few weeks ago. I�m sure that if black American Christians were persecuted, we would care. If Chinese Americans or Korean Americans or Arab Americans or any other kind of American Christians were killed for their beliefs, there would be marches in the street and candle light vigils outside their homes. But for the ones dying and suffering in silence far away from our borders? We have concern, yes. But do we have that deep, seething, righteous anger at the pit of our souls? Do we cry out for justice? Do we shed tears? Do we? It doesn�t seem like it, and I don�t know why.

In an early 2014 article by Michael Brendan Dougherty titled, 'The World�s Most Ancient Christian Communities are being Destroyed � and No One Cares', I was struck in particular by this brief quote, which also seems to "nail it":

�The victims are �too Christian� to excite the Left, and �too foreign� to excite the Right.� �French philosopher Regis Debray

I might amend Debray's observation to read that the Christian victims are "too Eastern" to excite American Protestant/Evangelical Christians to action.

It is precisely the deeply traditional, liturgical, Eastern form of Christianity which has been preserved in the Orthodox, Coptic, Assyrian and Chaldean communions which is under renewed attack by the forces of Islam, and which is simultaneously, for the most part, ignored by American Christians who, as a general rule, are so iconoclastic nowadays as to regard Eastern Christians as being somehow sub-Christian or even non-Christian altogether.  If you wish to explore my reasoning on this point, I invite you to read my article, 'Islam's Hatred of Holy Icons � and what that means for Persecuted Eastern Christians' from July 2013.

In any case, the apathy of Americans in general, and American Christians in particular, is part of the deeper meta-narrative revealing itself in our new era of Mass Christian Martyrdom. Dr. Kyrou's outstanding article below is a welcome historical analysis and stirring challenge to us all, and comprises part of this blog's coverage of the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, and the Glorification of the Armenian Martyrs as Saints taking place this very day.


Christian Genocide in the Middle East and Public Apathy in America: Looking Back on 2014 and Before

by Dr. Alexandros K. Kyrou - January 14, 2015

Source: Hellenic American Leadership Council via Pravoslavie

One of the last diplomats to leave Smyrna after the Turks set the great Anatolian port city ablaze in September 1922 was the United States� Consul General, George Horton. Reflecting on the carnage and depravity of the Turkish forces tasked by Mustafa Kemal to destroy Smyrna�s Greeks and every physical semblance of their three-millennial presence in the magnificent city on the western littoral of Asia Minor, Horton wrote that �one of the keenest impressions which I brought away from Smyrna was a feeling of shame that I belonged to the human race.� The shame that Horton expressed stemmed from his shock and disgust, both as a witness to the Turks� genocidal frenzy and as a diplomat aware that several Western governments, including his own, had contributed to the horrors that took place in Smyrna.

'The Smyrna Catastrophe', by Vasilis Bottas

One of the chief reasons that Turkey escaped responsibility for its crimes against humanity was the complicity, albeit indirect, of several of the Western powers in those crimes. 

During the First World War, the Allies condemned the Turkish nationalist leadership that controlled the Ottoman Empire for its acts of genocide. However, once the war ended, various Western Allied powers (most notably France, Italy, and the United States), in pursuit of commercial concessions from the Turks, entered into diplomatic understandings with the Turkish nationalists, pushed aside and buried the issue of genocide, and even provided military aid and support to Kemal�s regime, thereby enabling the founder of the Turkish Republic to complete by 1923 the bloody �nation-building� project begun by his colleagues in the Ottoman Empire in 1915.

The Burning of Christian Smyrna by the Muslim Turks, as seen by the US and Western ships in the harbor. 

Despite the duplicitous postwar actions of several Western governments, popular sentiment in those same societies was deeply sympathetic to the plight of Christians in the Ottoman Middle East. A remarkable variety of international relief and aid efforts emerged throughout the West, especially in the United States, in response to the humanitarian crisis produced by Turkey�s policy of annihilating its large Christian population. The extermination and expulsions of Christians�Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks alike�in Turkey were widely reported in the United States, producing strident calls by several prominent diplomats, politicians, influential religious leaders, scholars, and the press to respond decisively to the crisis as a moral imperative and a Christian duty. Two years before the US even entered the war, Americans had answered this call to action by organizing the highly publicized, nationwide charity that would become known eventually as Near East Relief, which channeled millions of dollars in aid to Christian survivors of the genocide.

In sharp contrast to the American public�s outrage over the Muslim Turks� extermination of Christians a century ago, the most recent genocide of Christians in the Middle East by fanatical Muslims, under the moniker of ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) has witnessed a very different response in American society�apathy.

In the year 2014, ISIS launched a reign of terror against Arab and Armenian Christian populations reminiscent of Turkey�s genocide a century earlier. As Islamic State forces advanced across the northern arc of the historic Fertile Crescent (the territory stretching across northeastern Syria and northwestern Iraq), ancient Eastern Christian communities were decimated. An undetermined number of Christians, many several thousands, were killed or enslaved by the Islamic State�s forces in 2014. In order to escape this fate, almost 250,000 Christians fled the areas occupied by the Islamic State. The Islamic State�s cleansing of the Christian populations under its control recalls and reiterates the project of nationalist Turkey, one in which nationalist Islamic forces functioned to create a homogeneous Muslim society in the territory under their control.

Tragically enough, the erasure of Christians in Iraq and Syria in 2014 is only the most recent episode in the wave of violence and persecutions against Christians that has been underway since the fateful United States invasion of Iraq in 2003 catalyzed the state failures and Islamist extremist mobilizations that are producing anarchy in the Near East. During the last decade of bloodshed and chaos in Iraq, and more recently in Syria, perhaps as many as 100,000 Christians have been killed and more than 1.5 million have been made refugees. As a result, Christianity now faces the possibility of extinction in the lands of its origin.

The American government�s response to this humanitarian catastrophe has been characterized by overt indifference. The Bush administration dealt with the embarrassing fact that its Iraqi misadventure had unleashed the destruction of the country�s ancient and large Christian population by ignoring and suppressing that fact. Simultaneously, the Bush government, either deliberately or through sheer folly, implemented occupation policies that undermined the security and prospects for survival of Christian communities in Iraq.

The Obama administration has continued and compounded the fecklessness of its predecessor administration. Most recently, in an effort to erase the humiliation produced by his reckless comment made in late July, that the White House had no policy to deal with the Islamic State, President Obama rushed to launch a policy initiative in early August. In a televised national address, President Obama announced that he had ordered military action against the Islamic State, rationalizing the move to limited air war in Iraq and Syria by invoking the US� moral obligation to protect Iraq�s Yezidi religious minority from genocide at the hands of the Islamic State. The privations of the Yezidis certainly justified a response and aid, but the genocide and plight of the much larger Christian communities of Iraq, brutalized for more than a decade by the region�s m�lange of Islamist extremist groups and actively and passively persecuted by the Baghdad government, were largely ignored in President Obama�s speech.

The US government�s indifference to the genocide of Christians in the Middle East is shocking, but, unfortunately, not surprising. The demonstrated disregard for the suffering of Christians in the Middle East by the administrations of Presidents Bush and Obama is entirely consistent with a double standard established by the moralizing hypocrisy of Woodrow Wilson in the midst of the first genocide of the twentieth century. In fact, American administrations have been willing not only to turn a blind eye to genocide against Christians in the Middle East; they have gone beyond that, by consistently supporting, at least since the 1980s, Turkey�s genocide denial efforts.

Yet, where is the public outrage? Although the US government has remained consistent in its indifference and duplicity on this subject, the attitude of the American public has undergone significant change. A century ago, the Turks� genocide against Armenians and other Christians provoked public outrage and led to large-scale humanitarian relief efforts in the United States of America. A century ago, America�s civil society leaders, public intellectuals, and media mavens actively promoted awareness of the Turks� crimes against humanity, and led popular initiatives to rescue Christians from death and suffering. The invocation in the public sphere of Christian duty and moral imperatives was sufficient to produce societal concern and action. In contrast, today, as the Islamic State completes the destruction of the historic Christian centers that Kemal�s forces did not reach, the American public�s response is one of apathy. The apathy is reflected in the measurable lack of public awareness campaigns and in the absence of activism when it comes to coverage about and support for the Christian victims of Islamist violence.

The cultural and intellectual currents, as well as official policies, that have aimed to expunge religion, in general, and Christianity, in particular, from the American public sphere have been corrosive for any commitment to respect for faith and, especially, for assigning value to the survival of Christianity in human civilization. Signs of America�s emerging a-religious culture has also been instrumental in explaining public misperceptions about the Middle East as home only to Muslims and Jews, thereby rendering reporting on Christians in the Middle East largely incomprehensible or meaningless. In a word, the cumulative social and cultural changes attendant to the specific drivers and modes of secularization in America go a long way to explaining the reasons for American public apathy towards the annihilation of the Mideast�s Christians. Indeed, the knowledge, principles, and the very language��Christian duty,� for example�that produced widespread outrage and drove humanitarian relief in response to genocide against Christians a century earlier have no place in today�s public dialogue, and for some, are viewed as vestiges of an exclusivist American identity that must be terminated.

The domestic politics of faith and US foreign policy concerns regarding religion have contributed to a worrying cynicism in how Washington policymakers engage on the issue of the Middle East�s disappearing Christians. This past August, President Obama introduced the Yezidis�a group unknown to Americans, indistinguishable victims, free from any association with Christianity�to justify limited military action against the Islamic State. Given current American political sensitivities towards Islam and social changes generating ambivalence and hostility towards Christianity, the President (much as with his predecessor) made no clarion call for action to protect today�s Middle East Christians�a group whose experiences in the Ottoman Empire were marked by the same options�pay a poll tax, convert, flee, or be killed�that face the Yazidis and the Christians suffering in the ISIS footprint.

This year, 2015, will be a year of centennial remembrance and commemoration of the Christian�the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek�genocide. It will also be a year of genocide denial, already planned and launched by the Turkish state, as well as by Turkey�s apologists in the US government, American media, and academia. In recognition of this tragic centennial, as well as the unfolding genocide in the Middle East in our time, this blog will return to these issues in several postings throughout 2015.                 

Dr. Alexandros K. Kyrou is Professor of History at Salem State University, where he teaches on the Balkans, Byzantium, and the Ottoman Empire.