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

The Migrant Crisis: Compassion and Common Sense

"The big picture is that we may be witnessing the beginning of the end of Europe. Historians and journalists have been writing about the coming Islamization of Europe for some time now, but as years pass, the timeline keeps moving up... Now, with the new flood of migrants, another revision may be in order."

by William Kilpatrick, Crisis Magazine � September 17, 2015

(Photo credit: REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis)

Other than the large numbers involved, one of the most striking features of Europe�s migrant crisis is the level of discourse surrounding it. There is an emotionalism about the subject which doesn�t seem quite appropriate to the gravity of the situation. Momentous issues are being decided on the basis of what Peter Hitchens calls �an emotional spasm.�

That�s not to say the plight of refugees shouldn�t call up emotions. The problem comes when news analysts, government officials, and church representatives present the situation as a Dickensian dilemma which leaves one with no choice other than to side with Scrooge or with Tiny Tim.

The clinching argument for many was the image of a drowned Syrian child that went viral. There should, of course, be no doubt about what to do if you spot a drowning boy in the water, or if a hungry person shows up at the door. But the photo tells us absolutely nothing about what sort of immigration policies governments should adopt. It could be argued that if European immigration policy were less liberal, and its welfare allowances less generous, fewer people would risk their lives to get there.

And what about the images we don�t see�images of the European victims of ill-considered immigration programs? Right now I�m looking at a photo of an 87-year-old Dutch man lying in a hospital bed, his face beaten black and blue. He and his 86-year-old wife, both of them Holocaust survivors, were attacked in their apartment by two men of Moroccan descent who threw them on the floor, kicked them repeatedly, and shouted: �Dirty Jews! From now on, your property is ours.� The husband and wife, who had been living independently, are now confined to wheelchairs at a rehabilitation center.

Such photos aren�t featured on the evening news. Nor are the photos of bruised and bloodied rape victims in Sweden�which, thanks to Muslim immigration, is now the rape capital of the Northern Hemisphere. In Rotherham, England, Pakistani gangs raped 1,400 teenaged girls over a fifteen-year period�but you would have to do some searching before you�d find any stories about the plight of the victims. That�s because the story doesn�t fit the standard narrative about peaceful Muslims seeking a better life and good schools for their children.

There are many such people, of course. But, as is now clear, the great majority within the current wave of migrant-refugees are young, single men. The media still favors close-ups of Madonna-like women with children, but the wide-angle lens presents quite a different view.

The big picture is that we may be witnessing the beginning of the end of Europe. Historians and journalists have been writing about the coming Islamization of Europe for some time now, but as years pass, the timeline keeps moving up. The original forecasts predicted the Muslim takeover of the continent would happen sometime within this century; next, the day of reckoning was moved up to the mid-century mark; and then, as the picture became clearer, to circa 2030. Now, with the new flood of migrants, another revision may be in order. Michel Houellenbecq�s new novel, Submission, forecasts the election of a Muslim president in France in 2022.

Though the media tends to treat the immigration crisis as something from out of the blue, it has been building for years. When combined with high birth rates for Muslims and collapsing birth rates for native Europeans, it spells a massive transformation of European culture. Some would say that the transformation is intentional. In their 2009 book, Modern Day Trojan Horse: The Islamic Doctrine of Immigration, Sam Solomon and Elias Al Maqdisi point out that, historically, Muslims have used migration as a tool of conquest. In a 1974 speech at the United Nations, former Algerian president Houari Boumedienne predicted:

One day, millions of men will leave the Southern Hemisphere to go to the Northern Hemisphere.� And they will not go there as friends. Because they will go there to conquer it.

In light of the threat to European civilization, it is strange that so many commentators see the crisis mainly as an opportunity for welcoming the Other, overcoming irrational fears, and proving one�s compassion. Unfortunately, Catholic leaders seem to have joined this one-sided chorus of voices. Take, for example, comments by Fr. Matthew Gardzinski, who is in charge of the migrants� section for the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples. In an interview with Catholic News Agency, Fr. Gardzinski expresses a rather rosy view of migrants. �While one country loses the persons who migrate,� he notes, �the receiving country gains their ideas and creativity.� He seems, however, to have a less sanguine view of Europeans. According to the article, he is concerned about �xenophobic, restrictive, or fearful attitudes.� What stands behind the fear? �Is it really something objective,� he asks, �or is it something more subjective, because I feel threatened, or challenged?�

�Is it really something objective?� Fr. Gardzinski might try asking the rape victims in Rotherham or Sweden. His concern, however, is not with existential realities, but with psychological states. He sees Europe�s migration crisis as being more in the nature of an identity crisis��the challenge to build your own identity� along multicultural lines. Presumably, that�s to be done by overcoming one�s irrational fears (�Islamophobia� in the lingo of psychology). The point he misses is, that this is not a crisis of identity for Europe, it�s a crisis of survival�a crisis that could very well result in the end of Christianity on the continent.

Many Catholic leaders have cast the refugee situation as a case of compassion versus intolerance. It�s much more complicated than that. But just as it�s difficult to ignore the image of the drowned boy, it�s difficult to argue with reminders that the Holy Family were refugees in Egypt, that the Jews were admonished to love the foreigner �because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt,� and that Christ told his disciples that in welcoming a stranger they were welcoming him.

But what if there are 44 million strangers in the land? That�s the estimated number of Muslims living in Europe (including Russia) as of 2010. Some of them are well-integrated into European society, but many others are not. They live in �no-go� zones; their women wear burqas; they speak Arabic, or Farsi, or Turkish; and their first allegiance is not to Germany or France, but to the ummah (the global Muslim community). Though they may have lived in Europe for years, they are still, in effect, strangers. Many seem unacquainted with Western standards of right and wrong�like the Muslim man in the UK who, after raping a thirteen-year-old girl, was spared a prison sentence when he explained to the judge that he didn�t know it was illegal.

Peter Hitchens recently observed that many of Europe�s �most influential people are set on committing a sentimental national suicide.� European and American elites seem to think that the only question at issue in the current crisis is �Will Europeans be compassionate?� But other crucial questions need to be asked, such as �Will Europe survive as Europe?�

Another question to ask is this: �Will Christianity in Europe survive the combination of Muslim immigration and European na�vet�?� It�s true that the Church has a duty to remind Christians of their obligation to help the needy, but is there a Christian duty to collaborate in the destruction of Christianity? To ask whether European Christianity can survive might seem to be an overly alarmist question. Yet it was a question that was ever present to Europeans in past centuries�particularly those who lived on the southern and eastern borders.

It�s no coincidence that Eastern Europeans are more resistant to Islamic immigration than those living in the West. Poles, Slovaks, and Hungarians have a long history of struggle with Muslim invaders. It�s estimated, for example, that Muslims enslaved a million persons from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries.

If that seems like ancient history, consider that it was only twenty-five years ago that the East Europeans broke free of Communist rule. Having recently been enslaved by one totalitarian ideology, they are not anxious to repeat the experience with another oppressive system. As the Poles and Hungarians understand, caliphs and commissars can be equally unpleasant. Their recent subjugation by Communist overlords has no doubt refreshed their memories of earlier invaders.

One wonders what it will take to remind the Catholic Church of its own centuries-long struggle with Islam. The modern Church was quick to understand the totalitarian nature of communism. Catholic clergy, academics, and journalists were, on the whole, much more astute about the Communist menace than their secular counterparts. Yet they have been painfully slow in awakening to the dangers inherent in Islam. Let�s hope that will soon change.

_______

William Kilpatrick taught for many years at Boston College. He is the author of several books about cultural and religious issues, including Psychological Seduction; Why Johnny Can�t Tell Right From Wrong; and Christianity, Islam and Atheism: The Struggle for the Soul of the West. His articles have appeared in numerous publications, including Catholic World Report, National Catholic Register, Aleteia, Saint Austin Review, Investor�s Business Daily, and First Things. His work is supported in part by the Shillman Foundation. For more on his work and writings, visit his website, turningpointproject.com

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.�

SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE: Muslim 'Breaking of the Crosses' in Syracuse NY

Muslims cut down, paint over 10,000 crosses to convert former Roman Catholic church to mosque. Plan approved by Syracuse Landmark Preservation Board.

This is surely another sign of our times, a sign of the impending apocalypse. The breaking of crosses and conversion of churches into mosques is widespread in Europe, but not yet so much in America.

The Final Mass at Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Syracuse NY (February 2010).

For Christians, it is a reminder of the warning of our Lord Jesus Christ: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8).

The number of crosses covered over � 10,000 � is a deeply symbolic, Biblical number, and was no doubt chosen by the Holy Trinity Church founders based on Revelation 5:11, where the seer John beholds the myriads of angels around the throne of God:

Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands...

This scene comes immediately after "the Lamb who was slain" (who is, of course, Jesus Christ) takes the scroll with the deepest mysteries of God, sealed front and back with seven seals, and is immediately praised:

Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying:

�You are worthy to take the scroll,
And to open its seals;
For You were slain,
And have redeemed us to God by Your blood
Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,
And have made us kings and priests to our God;
And we shall reign on the earth.� (Rev. 5:8-10)

Following this ecstatic worship of the Lamb by the four living creatures, the twenty-four elders, and the prayers of the saints, the "ten-thousand times ten-thousand" worship Him too:

... saying with a loud voice: 

�Worthy is the Lamb who was slain
To receive power and riches and wisdom,
And strength and honor and glory and blessing!� 

And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying: 

�Blessing and honor and glory and power
Be to Him who sits on the throne,
And to the Lamb, forever and ever!� 

Then the four living creatures said, �Amen!� And the twenty-four elders fell down and worshiped Him who lives forever and ever. (Rev. 5:12-14)

The whole point of chapter 5 of the Apocalypse is to show that the Lamb � Jesus Christ � is equal with God the Father, that He is worshipped just as the Father is, by all the hosts of heaven, all the saints, and by "every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth."

Such is the significance of the 10,000 crosses, and the name of the former parish, Holy Trinity. It was one of the most visible, richly symbolic representations of the Christian presence in Syracuse, and in New York State and the United States by extension.

Though it is certainly a temporal tragedy that such a symbolic church would be desecrated, let the significance of this serve to enkindle our zeal. The collapse of institutional Christianity is happening all around us, but Christ promised us that "Even the gates of hell shall not prevail against His Church."

During the desecration of Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church, Syracuse NY.

Desecration accomplished: the former home of Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church
is now a functioning mosque. Lord have mercy.

As for observant Muslims, this will be seen as a victory over Christianity, and a powerful sign of Islam's new global resurgence, of Islam's eventual domination over the United States and the Western world, and especially, as an eschatological sign of the end times, when, Muslims believe,

Isa (the Muslim Jesus) will return and "fight the people for the cause of Islam. He will break the cross, kill the swine and abolish jizya� and establish the rule of Allah throughout the world (Hadith from Sunan Abu Dawud, Book of Battles, 37:4310).

Orthodox Christians! Let these dire signs rouse us to fervent faith and love for the Lord and His Church! As Blessed Hieromonk Seraphim of Platina wrote:

"Now one cannot be a half-hearted Christian, but only entirely or not at all."

Syracuse: Muslims cut down, paint over 10,000 crosses to convert church to mosque
Creeping Sharia � August 17, 2015 (Comments in italics below in original post.)

Holy Trinity Church of Syracuse, before the "breaking of the crosses..."

For background on this story, see also:

• Muslim Refugees Take Over Former Catholic Church in Syracuse, New York
• At Holy Trinity's final Mass, a bishop prays, a protest is made, and the pews are packed

ISIS destroys Christian symbols in the Middle East. Boko Haram attacks churches and churchgoers in Africa. In the west, the process is more refined� for now. 

via From church to mosque: Syracuse Islamic group cuts crosses, tries to connect to neighborhood | syracuse.com.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. � Two gray church spires grow out of a bumpy plain of city rooftops along Park Street. The skyline is the same as it has been for the better part of a century until you look closer at Holy Trinity Church: There are slim copper crescents where, for 100 years, there had been crosses. 

The six crosses were removed and replaced at the end of June. Four of them were massive: 600 pounds of concrete each, and more than 4 feet tall. The step was the last, and most visible, in the building�s change from church to mosque.

The transformation has been a series of careful choices aimed at balancing the forces of two religions in a neighborhood that is shifting. The North Side, once full of Italian and German immigrants, is increasingly home to new Americans who are refugees from countries where Islam is the dominant religion. 

Even as the crosses were cut from the church spires on the outside, and 10,000 crosses were painted over on the inside, the new owners of 501 Park St. tried to leave what they could, and reuse what they couldn�t. 

The wood from the pews has been repurposed to fix the floor, which is where Muslims sit to pray. Painters worked to make the minbar, the pulpit where the imam stands, blend in with the stonework. The name of the mosque is Masjid Isa Ibn Maryam, which translates to Mosque of Jesus Son of Mary.

Is this the history we want to leave for future generations? It will be and it will get much worse if Muslim immigration is not halted and/or reversed very soon. More below the fold.

The cost to buy and transform the church was great: $300,000 and counting, said Yusuf Soule, the volunteer director of the North Side Learning Center, which bought the property and is overseeing the mosque construction.

Yusuf Soule, director of the North Side Learning Center, with the desecrated church in the background.

But the physical work and fundraising has been the easy part of the transformation.  

Soule stood inside the mosque, his nearly 7-foot frame diminished by the vastness of the space. The 50-foot ceilings seem higher than they were when there were church pews and an altar inside the building. Painters, paid and volunteer, were up on ladders for weeks, painting over some 10,000 crosses, Soule said. 

The crosses were turned into other designs, or, in some cases, covered over by gray paint so they blended into the walls. 

Covering those 10,000 crosses was a small feat when compared with what it took to remove the crosses from the church spires. That took months of back and forth with the city�s Landmark Preservation Board, submitting and resubmitting plans for removing the crosses and storing them onsite, which the board required. 

On June 29, Paul Waelder rode a crane to the top of the church. Along with workers from Giarrosso Sheet Metal, Waelder spent two days 200 feet in the air, working first with concrete saws to remove the crosses. Then his son, David Waelder, an artist and metal worker, hammered the domes and crescents into place. The crescents are smaller, less than a foot, on top of thin metal spires. They cover up the lightning rods that were part of the crosses and had to be left to protect the building. 

Paul Waelder said the high-profile job came with two stipulations: no talking to the press and no pictures or video of the cross removal. 

Waelder understood. �They had a bull�s eye on their backs,� he said. �They are doing good things over there.�

So good they didn�t allow Waelder to talk to the press or allow anyone to take pictures of the crosses being taken down. Did they not want to catch Muslims cheering? 

Watching the crosses come down off of Holy Trinity was hard for the people who found their spiritual home there, week after week, year after year. 

Anne Angiolillo raised her 10 children spending every Sunday in the pews of Holy Trinity. She opposed taking down the crosses, and cried inside when it was done, she said. 

Angiolillo moved from the neighborhood last year, but when she goes back and looks to the sky now, it seems empty. �They�re missing,� she said. �They really were a landmark.� 

Even now, Soule was reluctant to have pictures taken of the massive crosses. After they were removed from the building, they were carefully wrapped in plastic and cloth. They look a bit like mummies. The two copper crosses, less than 100 pounds each, were easier to remove. They are not wrapped. 

The city allowed Soule�s group to take the crosses down, but it also required them to keep the crosses at 501 Park St. Soule said the hope is that the crosses can be kept in a way that lets the public see them. But the final plan hasn�t been worked out.

Why would the city allow them to take down the crosses then keep them on site? Don�t hold your breath waiting for a plan.

Read it all to notice the inherent Islamophilia in the Muslims-good, Americans-bad puff piece by Marnie Eisenstadt.

Our previous coverage of the church-now-mosque and previous Eisenstadt Islamophilia here.

Christians in the Middle East: Martyred by Muslims in their Homeland, Disdained by Christians in America

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 sums up the problem in a memorable manner:

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

Quite so. I might amend Debray's observation to read that the Christian victims are "too Eastern" to excite American Protestant/Evangelical Christians to action. Though, as an Orthodox Christian myself, I am tempted to charge that the Christian victims of Islamic jihad are actually "too Christian" altogether.

Rod Dreher recently offered some reflections on this phenomenon following an encounter he had with a Bible-believer, which I hope American Baptists, Evangelicals and assorted others of the 33,000-or-so Protestant denominations (World Christian Encyclopedia by Barrett, Kurian, Johnson; Oxford Univ Press, 2nd edition, 2001) will ponder:

Over the weekend, I got into a brief Twitter exchange with a pastor of a nondenominational �Bible church� (as if all churches aren�t Bible churches) in Texas who said that I am not a Christian, because Orthodox and Catholics are not Christian. I pointed out to him that Christianity did not begin with the Reformation, but then decided to block the guy on Twitter, because the last thing I wanted to do was get into an exchange with a guy like that. 

An hour later, I was standing in our Orthodox vespers service, thinking about that guy and smiling. There we were, praying in a church that can trace itself in an unbroken line back to the apostles. We chanted Psalms and read passages aloud from the Old Testament. We sang hymns commemorating the Council of Nicaea (325), and its victory over the Arian heresy, which denied the divinity of Jesus. As in every vespers service, we sang the hymn �O Joyful Light,� which is the oldest surviving hymn from antiquity, having been composed in the late third or early fourth century; tradition says it was written by a bishop on his way to martyrdom. He didn�t write it for a praise band. 

And I thought about all the Christians of the Middle East being exiled and martyred today for their faith in Jesus Christ. These Christians are almost entirely Orthodox, Eastern Rite Catholic, or members of one of the Nestorian churches. Whatever their communion, their ancestors were worshiping Jesus Christ as God when the ancestors of nearly all of us northern Europeans were praying to pagan gods. 

And yet, to this fundamentalist Protestant in Texas, these people are not Christian.

Rod's musings on the Orthodox Vespers service hit some of the myriad highlights as to why Orthodoxy deserves to recognized as authentic Christianity. While there are some Nestorian groups to be sure, it is illuminating to consider two recent articles by Dr. Anton Vrame of the Greek Archdiocese on the Assyrians and the Armenians, as well as an affirming "Amen" to the canonization by the Coptic Orthodox Church of the 21 Coptic Christian Martyrs of Libya, written by Fr. Lawrence Farley, as hopeful signs. Out of the darkness of Islamic persecution of Christians is shining the light of true Christian faith, showing there is far more uniting many of the Eastern Christian communions than the often circumstantial historical anomalies which have separated us for centuries.


Perhaps Rod Dreher's Bible-believing Twitter correspondent would concede the points raised by Rod in his reflection above (though perhaps not, as he seemed to be possessed of a priori certainty that we Orthodox are "not Christian"). But somehow I suspect the fundamentalist's objections to us may focus more on such "non-Biblical" practices as the veneration of icons, church ecclesiology and hierarchy, calling priests "Father" (and bishops "Master!"), our veneration of the Virgin Mary and the saints, and so forth.

Though Rod makes several more essential points (read the whole post, by all means), he ultimately declined to take up the gauntlet in his post ("I have no interest in engaging in theological disputation here, and won�t.").

I have addressed some of these issues in an article of mine from 2013, and feel it is well worth re-posting here in its entirety, especially as it points out several fundamental theological deviations of Western Christians, and how that cripples their response to Muslim persecution of Orthodox, Copts and others today, actually predisposing them to implicitly side with the Muslim persecutors on theological grounds, and turn a blind eye to the plight of Eastern Christians.

_______

Islam's Hatred of Holy Icons � and what that means for Persecuted Eastern Christians

Orthodox Church Iconostasis in the West Bank desecrated by Muslims

Introduction

One of the great sorrows � after the church attacks, murders, abductions, rapes and forced conversions � caused by Islamic persecution of Christians, whether in our own day or in centuries past, must be the defilement of holy icons by Muslims. Indeed, it is highly probable that the iconoclast heresy which rocked Christianity in the seventh and eighth centuries was triggered or accelerated by the brutal and sudden rise of Islam after the death of Muhammad in 632A.D.

Islam and Iconoclasm

Islamic 'icon' of Muhammad
and archangel Gabriel.

Islam is strongly set against images of any kind, although one may encounter in rare Islamic books depictions of Muhammad and his earliest companions, or Muhammad being visited by the spirit-being supposed to be the archangel Gabriel. But when it comes to Christian images of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, or the saints, Islam is the "icon smasher" extraordinaire. ("Icon smasher" is a literal translation of "iconoclast.")

In all the Christian lands conquered by Muslims from the seventh century onwards, when churches were not completely destroyed, they were converted into mosques and the holy images painted over, or, if they were panel icons, simply hacked into pieces and/or burned.

Islam's innate hatred of Christianity's holy images helps account for the recent push to re-convert all the Hagia Sophia churches of Turkey into mosques, including and especially the great Hagia Sophia of Constantinople (Istanbul) built by Justinian in 537A.D. In converting the Great Church into a museum, the original frescoes and mosaics began to be restored, revealing once again the holy images of Christ, His Most Pure Mother, and the Saints. This is a serious affront to the Islamic mind, thus with the re-Islamicization of Turkey, we see special emphasis on once again covering (or perhaps destroying) all Christian images, most perfectly accomplished in converting all the Hagia Sophia churches into mosques.

Protestantism and Iconoclasm

There is no small irony in the fact that Protestant Christians also tend to be iconoclastic, rejecting the holy images which the Christian Church had created, embraced and sanctified from the first century onwards. Though perhaps a justifiable reaction against Roman Catholic use of statues, the Protestant rejection of holy icons is in fact a theological error which limits and impoverishes Protestant theology and its grasp of the Incarnation, as well as its actual worship. 

(Orthodoxy does not accept the use of statues in its churches as they are too realistic, too much of this world. Icons, in contrast, are deliberately "other-worldly," and are often called "windows into heaven." Even when they depict historical events in the life of the Savior or the Saints, these events are "transfigured" with the uncreated light from beyond this world.)

Venerating an Icon

Orthodox converts from Protestantism are familiar with this issue, and are quick in grasping the essentials of proper icon use. �Worship is due to God alone,� the Church Fathers consistently affirm, whereas our veneration of an icon is imputed not to the wood and paint, but to the prototype in heaven. 

The Eastern Christian practice of making the sign of the Cross and bowing to kiss (venerate) icons is an essential physical aspect of Christian worship. Orthodox and Coptic Christians preserve intact the timeless certainty that worship to God must be performed by the entire person. Not with the mind alone, but with the body also do we show our love, adoration and worship of the Holy Trinity. 

Thus not only icons (which are visual and tactile), but incense (smell), prostrations and bows, and theologically rich hymnography (aural) according to the ancient rule of �Lex orandi, lex credendi� (St Vincent of Lerins) characterize traditional Christian worship.  

The pinnacle of Orthodox Christian worship is of course the receiving of the Holy Eucharist, the very Body and Blood of Christ, which sanctifies our entire being through the apparently mundane sense of taste. Thus the psalmist exclaims,

Taste and see that the Lord is good! �(Psalm 33:8, LXX)

And the Lord Jesus Christ teaches us,

Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. �(John 6:53-57)

The Greek word used for "eat" in these verses means literally to "gnaw" or "chew." No mere memorial or symbol here! Christ means that we are to literally eat His flesh and drink His blood.

Thus all the senses, �All one�s strength,� as well as the mind and heart are to be fully engaged in worshipping the God of All. This is the first and greatest commandment:

�You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.� �(Deuteronomy 6:5, Matthew 22:37)

It was St John of Damascus in the eighth century who not merely defended the use of icons, but convincingly showed their necessity for Christian praxis, piety and worship. Because God the Word became Man and took on human form (literally becoming "enfleshed," which is what "incarnation" means), therefore He may be depicted in human form, as may His Most Holy Mother, the saints, and events in the life of Christ and His Church. The veneration of holy icons is thus a necessary and true aspect of authentic, timeless Christian worship.

This is so pure and simple a truth, that a child can grasp it. "Unless ye turn and become as little children..."  And children in the Orthodox Church naturally love and venerate the holy icons.

Just as the average home typically has many family photographs, so the Christian home should have holy images of the Family of God, the Church. Just as images are used in the secular world to teach, instruct, and depict historical events and heroes, so in the Church the holy icons present the Mystery of Faith in visual manner, yet, as stated above, in an other-worldly perspective, shining with an inner, transfigured light.

Tragically, by rejecting and denigrating Orthodox Christian iconography, Protestants are unwittingly siding with Islam, and implicitly denying the full meaning of the Incarnation.

The Islamification of the Bible

Protestantism commits a similar error in what Fr Stephen Freeman terms its "Islamification of Christianity." Protestantism has morphed the Bible into a sort of Christian Koran, as if God sent down the literal words of the Bible in direct revelation.

It is not the words of God which have been revealed to us. Rather it is Jesus Christ Himself, the Incarnate Logos, the Living Word of God, who is the most full and perfect revelation of God, "the image" � literally, in Greek, "icon" � "of the invisible God," as the Apostle Paul writes in Colossians 1:15.

All of sacred scripture testifies to Him, and was written by numerous different people, the Old Testament over a couple of thousand years, the New Testament over only a few decades after the Crucified, Risen and Glorified Christ ascended to the right hand of the Father.

NEWS FLASH: The Bible did not come down out of heaven fully formed.

In the same way, the Gospel is not properly a "book," nor is it even "four books." St Paul speaks of the gospel in his letters, which were written well before the four gospels were written or known to the Church at large. (It is thought likely that Mark wrote his gospel � generally accepted to be the first of the four � around 70AD, nearly twenty years after 1 Thessalonians, the earliest of Paul's letters, written ca. 50-51AD. However, some scholars suggest that when Paul writes of "my gospel" in Romans 2:16, that he may be referring to the Gospel according to Luke, who traveled with Paul on his later missionary journeys, likely compiling and composing his Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles during this time.)

The Gospel is the saving good news of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Word of God, in the flesh, bringing salvation and new life to mankind, enabling us to become "children of God" through Him (1 John 3:1), even to the point of becoming "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4).  In the theological language of the Church, this is termed theosis, or divinization. As St Athanasius of Alexandria boldly put it: "God became man so that man might become god."

The four gospels are thus the God-inspired accounts embraced by the Church within her Canon of Faith which properly testify to the Truth of The Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Living Word brings us the words of eternal life (John 6:68, 17:8), and it is the Word made flesh Himself  Who brings everything to us. Nothing is sent through an intermediary. Furthermore, by uniting us to Himself, he transforms us in an ontological manner. If we abide in Him, we are no longer of this world, just as He is not of this world (John 17:6, 14-18).

Jesus Christ is "the Way, the Truth and the Life" (John 14:6).  He is "the Light that was to come into the world" (John 1:9, 8:12), not the Bible. The Logos did not become incarnate to bring us a book � although we certainly rely on this Holy Book for the record of His life-giving words. And truly, all scripture is inspired by God and "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16-17). However, we must recall that when St Paul speaks of "the scriptures," he is referring to what we call the Old Testament. The New Testament did not yet exist.

The Scriptures are indeed God-inspired, and the Scriptures come from out of the womb of the Church. It is the Church which formed the New Testament, led and inspired by the Holy Spirit. This is part of the great synergia between God and Man. Thus we are not merely "People of the Book" (as Islam condescendingly calls Christians and Jews), but rather members of the Church, members of the theanthropic Body of Christ. And the Church is the Bride of Christ, the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Paul even calls the Church "the Pillar and Ground of the Truth" (1 Timothy 3:15).

The Logos became incarnate to bring Himself  to us, to unite us to Himself, and to usher us into Eternal Life in unending communion with the Holy Trinity, as Jesus prayed to His Father:

...That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. �(John 17:21-23)

Islam distorts the meaning of the word "Gospel," positing that Jesus delivered the Injil (the Koranic term for the Gospel) as a book of God's words to his disciples (in a manner similar to how Muhammad supposedly delivered the Koran).

(Interestingly, Islam teaches that Jesus' disciples subsequently distorted his message in the Injil, which is why Allah sent Muhammad to correct everything, which is eerily similar to what Protestants teach happened between 100A.D. and the Reformation, that true Christianity disappeared, only to be recovered by the Protestant Reformation.  This is an alarming parallel indeed...)

Therefore, muddled Protestant theology, cut off from the sources of traditional Christianity, can be seen to be Islamified both in its distorted view of the Bible and the Gospel, as well as in its rejection of the holy icons.

Eastern Christians are 'True' Christians

The sad result is that Western Protestant Christians, though well-intentioned and sincere in so many ways in their faith, tend to have a very difficult time seeing Eastern Christians as "true" Christians. (I am deliberately leaving aside here any discussion of Chalcedonian vs. non-Chalcedonian communions...)

I remember ten years ago or so, being very saddened at meeting a young woman who was zealous to do missionary work in Russia because, as she put it, "All they have over there is the Orthodox Church."

Another young woman returning from a mission trip to Romania expressed her confusion to me as to why the impoverished Romanians she had met were so zealous to donate what little resources they had for the building and beautification of Orthodox churches there. She wanted desperately to liberate them from what she saw as false piety, and help them "know Jesus." I know she meant well, and is very faithful in her own way, but the Lord's lesson of the Widow's Mites was lost on her, and the Jesus she wanted to introduce the Romanians to was the American Jesus, the one who hates the holy icons, beauty, "high church" services, and everything Orthodox.

This unfortunate ignorance is a persistent affliction blinding American Protestants to the fullness of the Christian Faith and to their own destiny and calling in Christ. The Lord loves His Bride, the Orthodox Church, which is why He calls her to suffer for His sake, and why He is blessing the Russian Church to flourish in our own time, in accordance with the mysterious prophecy of St Seraphim of Sarov.

The Effect of Iconoclasm on Eastern Christians

With this background, I would like to express my concern that the innate rejection of Holy Orthodoxy and Eastern Christianity by Protestants may be a major factor in suppressing outcry in the United States against Muslim persecution of Christians in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Tunisia, Eritrea, Nigeria, Sudan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, and throughout the Islamic world.

In extreme cases, Protestants even condemn Eastern Christians (and Roman Catholics) as idolators because of their use of holy images, and therefore may secretly consider them as deserving of the "scourge of Islam" being visited upon them.  (As an historical aside, from the time of St Sophronius of Jerusalem in 637A.D., who called Christians to repent over their sins which had brought the Muslim attackers upon them, Eastern Christians have retained this sense of the rise of Islam as being allowed by God as a chastisement.)

With a double irony, the false "Prosperity Gospel" so popular in the United States actually fosters a sense within Evangelical circles that material prosperity (and lack of being persecuted) is proof of validation by God. This too is an Islamification of Christianity, being analogous to how the early Muslims interpreted Muhammad's battlefield successes, and after his death their own rapid expansion, as proof of God's favor and the truth of their religion. The Prosperity Gospel can ultimately lead to a condescending attitude towards Eastern Christians, and as with Protestant iconoclasm, suppresses U.S. support for Christians suffering under Muslim persecution.  In any case, Jesus clearly told us we would be persecuted if we follow Him, and he never promised earthly prosperity or glory.

We are seeing signs now that this unintentional suppression of concern and intervention for Eastern Christians suffering under Muslim persecution is beginning to change, as excellent organizations like International Christian Concern, Morning Star News, and others, offer broad reporting and support inclusive of Orthodox, Coptic, Assyrian, Chaldean and Catholic Christians. Important texts like Raymond Ibrahim's new book, Crucified Again - Exposing Islam's New War On Christians,  Mark Durie's The Third Choice, and others, help convey the causes, breadth and continuity of Islamic persecution of all Christians, and foster an informed concern especially for Eastern Christians in their fourteen-century long endurance of Islamic jihad and domination.

We may even hope that God may work through this wave of Islamic persecution of Eastern Christians to awaken and draw many souls into the fold of the timeless, unchanging Orthodox Christian Faith.

Islam rapidly forcing out Christianity in the UK

"The population census has shown that Islam may become the dominant religion in the country as early as in ten years."

Related: Westminster Abbey praises Allah, acknowledges Muhammad, in heretical prayers

Pravoslavie � April 28, 2015

Muslim Conquest of the UK: Friday Prayers in London

(London, April 25, 2014) 
Islam is rapidly forcing out Christianity in the UK, reports Sedmitza.ru. As Christian churches in the United Kingdom are quickly losing parishioners, the Muslim community is growing with unprecedented speed. And though the society sometimes sees a threat in Islam, British Muslims lay claim to an active role in the country's life.

Analysis of results of the population census has shown that Islam may become the dominant religion in the country as early as in ten years. Over the last decade the number of British Muslims has doubled, and the name "Muhammad" has become the most popular name in London.

The average age of a British Muslim is about 26 years old. The Muslim population in the UK is extremely young; it is full of energy, life and dynamics. Great Britain is an innovator in many areas. It will become the first non-Muslim country to introduce financial bonds, available for purchase by Muslim investors.

The English Law Society has recently issued a manual on will making according to sharia laws since there is a great demand for such documents. A new analysis of the latest census, carried out by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), has shown that the Church of England is losing its importance half as fast again as it was supposed earlier. Increase of the average age of parishioners means that the official religion of Great Britain has lost over four million of its followers since 2001.

England's Death Spiral: Empty churches with aging congregations.

"The decline that churches in Great Britain have been experiencing for a long time, has now apparently reached its critical point. 95% of the people do not go to the church on Sundays. Christian services are attended by a minority of the population," comments the chief executive of the British Humanist Association Andrew Copson. These figures have prompted the British prime-minister David Cameron to attempt to support the fundamentals of the Church of England institution. He has called upon Christians to be more ardent in preaching their faith and noted "the healing power of the Church". There is a tradition among Christian communities all over Great Britain to perform a "Passion Play" on Great Friday before Easter.

Suffering (passions) and death of Christ in the crucifixion are glorified in this play. One of such performances took place on the Trafalgar Square in London this year, but in Oxford the performance was cancelled: the official responsible for considering applications thought that the "Passion Play" was an erotic performance.

This once again proves that even individuals invested with power are not always aware of what Christians all over the world in fact celebrate.

After Fresh Tragedy, Syrian Christian Leader Warns: 'We Could Disappear'

"We read in the Bible that [the Devil] is the father of lies, the master of money, and the lord of blood and death. We see all three in this war...  I think perhaps ultimately this is a Satanic work, because it�s almost impossible to understand otherwise." �Archbishop Jean-Cl�ment Jeanbart, head of the Melkite Greek Catholic Archparchy of Aleppo

By John L. Allen Jr.

CruxNow.com � April 28, 2015

One of the many dozens of Orthodox churches destroyed in Syria
by ISIS and its affiliates. (Photo: OrthodoxyToday)

While most of the world celebrated Easter 2015 with church services and family get-togethers, Christians in the Syrian city of Aleppo spent the holiday digging through rubble to locate the bodies of 15 people who died after a ferocious round of rocket bombs rained down on a Christian neighborhood.

It was merely the latest assault on Christians in the city, which has seen some of the most intense fighting between jihadists and Syrian forces.

Archbishop Jean-Cl�ment Jeanbart, head of the Melkite Greek Catholic Archparchy of Aleppo, was on the scene immediately afterwards. Among the lost was an entire Melkite Greek family of four, crushed to death when a section of their apartment building collapsed. One of Jeanbart�s grim responsibilities was to find a suitable spot for their burial, since the cemetery used by his Church for centuries is now a battle zone ringed by snipers.

It was hardly the 72-year-old prelate�s first taste of tragedy.

In October 2012, his own priest secretary and prot�g�, the Rev. Imad Daher, was nearly killed when a bomb exploded near the archbishop�s residence. Daher had to be helicoptered to Beirut for the first of seven surgeries, which, among other things, cost him one of his eyes.

Not long ago, Jeanbart himself was driving to Beirut when an armed band shot out the tires of his car and forced it from the road, perhaps with the aim of either killing or kidnapping him. (Abducting Christian clergy has become a cottage industry.) Jeanbart and his driver escaped when a military convoy happened to pass by, prompting the assailants to flee.

Prior to the war, Christians were 10 percent of Syria�s population, but faced with such carnage, scores have fled. The roots of the faith in the country reach back to the age of the apostles, but today Jeanbart warns ominously, �We could disappear.�

Despite it all, Jeanbart vows he will �never stop fighting� to keep the Church alive. (The Melkite Greek church is an Eastern Catholic Church in full communion with the Holy See.)

Jeanbart sat down for an exclusive interview with Crux on April 25 during a tour of the United States sponsored by Aid to the Church in Need, a Catholic group supporting persecuted Christians. Among other topics, he discussed calls for an international military response to ISIS, charges that Christian clergy in Syria are too close to the Assad regime, and the role played by Pope Francis on the Syrian conflict.

The following are excerpts from that conversation.

* * *

Crux: How many Christians are left in Aleppo?

Archbishop Jean-Cl�ment Jeanbart of Aleppo, Syria

Jeanbart: Before the war we were around 170,000. We don�t have reliable statistics today, but we may be around 100,000, maybe less. Most [who have left] aren�t very far away, in the southern part of the country or in Lebanon. On the other hand, some have gone to Europe, Canada, the United States, Australia, Sweden, and so on. We worry about these people, because we�re not sure they�ll ever come back.

After what happened on Easter, people don�t know what to do. They�re afraid we�ll have the same scenario as Mosul. (Mosul is an Iraqi city under ISIS domination where virtually all Christians have been driven out, and where militants destroyed Christian gravesites over Easter in an effort to eradicate remaining symbols of the faith.)

How are you helping people to hold on?

We provide a monthly stipend to around 475 families, with the idea being to pay them roughly half of what their salary used to be, since for the last two years there�s been no work. We offer food baskets, we pay scholarships to allow children to go to school, we provide some money for heating costs, we offer health care and we also offer shelter to those who need it.

Has the Melkite Greek Church had any priests kidnapped?

So far, just one. We have no news about him, and no means of communication [with his kidnappers].

Let�s say you were kidnapped and somebody wanted $100,000 to get you back. Would you want your Church to pay?

I hope it won�t happen, because I�m helping thousands of people. It�s not that I�m something special, but � the truth is that $100,000 would represent very little compared to what I�m offering my people. If it came to that, it would be a good bargain! But I am not sure if paying ransom is a good idea.

Where does the money you raise come from?

I�ve been a bishop for 20 years, and I�d never asked anyone for donations. Two years ago, when I saw what was happening, I wrote to a number of friends around the world, and they answered. There are also organizations such as Aid to the Church in Need that have helped, including some in the United States such as the Knights of Columbus.

My aim is more than emergency relief, because for the most part that�s coming. Caritas and the Red Cross are helping, we�re helping, and in a way basic needs are being satisfied. What�s most important is that afterwards, we can do something to help people reestablish themselves and to be able to stay.

This is my program, which we call �Built to Stay,� and it�s what I�m persuaded I have to do. I have to give Christians hope and confidence that their future could be good in this country.

Why is the Christian presence in Syria so important?

I feel responsible for the survival of a Church founded by the apostles themselves. The first Christians in Syria were baptized the day of the Pentecost in Jerusalem, by Peter and the other apostles. � They spread all over the region and founded the Church. The Lord gave me this responsibility in Syria, and I cannot simply accept that during my mandate, the Christians disappear. I�ll never stop fighting so they can hold on.

Do you believe there�s no alternative to an international military force to dislodge ISIS?

As far as Syria is concerned, there is an alternative. Nations such as the United States could pressure Turkey to stop allowing mercenaries to pass through its airports and borders. The same applies to Jordan. The army of Syria would be able to handle things very quickly if these terrorists are not fed money, weapons, fighters, and logistical support.

You don�t see a need for boots on the ground?

It is not needed. I would like an international coalition committed to stopping the war, but they don�t need to come in. They just need to stop feeding the insurrection and terrorism.

What about Iraq?

I would say the situation is different, because the country�s structures have been destroyed and they�re rebuilding their army and national unity. They may need more help.

Over the years, Christian clergy in Syria have been accused of being too close to the Assad regime. What�s the truth?

We are not pro-Assad. We�re in favor of a government that�s open to all denominations. We�re in favor of a secular government. It may be led by Assad or someone else, but that�s what we want.

Personally, I would say that Bashar al-Assad is a good man. I don�t want to pass judgment beyond that, but I�ve met him a couple of times and all my colleagues, my fellow bishops and the priests and nuns, appreciate him. That doesn�t mean he�s an angel.

Is the realistic choice not between Assad and democracy, but Assad and ISIS?

In a sense, yes. If we have to choose between ISIS and Assad, we choose Assad. If the choice were between a real democratic opposition and Assad, we�d wait and see. We�d leave our faithful free to do what they like.

It seems sometimes that all the countries of the world are against Assad, but we feel we don�t have any other alternative. Honest to God, this is the situation. I think [Assad] wants to reform. Let him prove his good intentions, and let�s give him the chance to see what he will do.

What�s your view of the role Pope Francis has played regarding the Syria conflict?

The first time I ever heard a [Syrian] government official saying a word of thanks to the Catholic Church was when our foreign minister, who�s the second most important figure in Syria, declared thanks for the Holy Father�s position against [Western] strikes on Syria in 2013.

For Syria, a Muslim country, to recognize that the only one in the world who stood with us and stopped it was very important. All Syrians will never forget it, and for us it will always be a source of pride. What would have happened would have destroyed all of Syria, like what happened in Iraq, what happened in Libya, and what�s happening now in Yemen.

Spiritually, how do you make sense of what�s happening in your country?

Reading the Gospel and trying to see things that way, I think about how the Devil manifests himself and his actions. We read in the Bible that he is the father of lies, the master of money, and the lord of blood and death. We see all three in this war: It�s a blend of money, lies, and blood. Of course I know there are strategic dimensions to it, but sometimes I think perhaps ultimately this is a Satanic work, because it�s almost impossible to understand otherwise.

Last fall, there was a Synod of Bishops on the family that triggered massive debates over matters such as Communion for the divorced and remarried and outreach to gays and lesbians, and this fall, another synod will likely take up the same issues. Does it frustrate you that the life-and-death challenges facing Christians in countries such as Syria often don�t seem to attract the same attention?

Yes, indeed. Of course the bishops have to talk about the topics they�ve been given, but the suffering and death of so many people in our country, and the huge sacrifices they are making to remain faithful to the Lord, seems to be forgotten. What I see, both in the Church and society in general, is that they�re discussing everything else, but they ignore the execution of our people.