:( Via Canon Andrew White: For the first time in 1,400 years, there will be no Christmas celebrations in Nineveh this year. Nineveh province, home to Iraqs largest remaining Christian community and largest non-Muslim minority, and a site of great biblical significance. This northern province, whose area is over three times larger than that of Lebanon, is now part of the Islamic States caliphate, and its Christians and churches are no longer tolerated. What has become of Ninevehs Christians? What will be their fate? These should be pressing concerns for America, especially its 247 million Christians.Yet the mainstream media rarely cover this story - a New York Times reporter in a recent e-mail says its of limited interest, explaining that most of our readers have only vague notions of who they are anyway and why their issues are relevant to the > United States. A better explanation would be that the Times and other > establishment elites are reluctant to focus on the goals, rather than just > the tactics, of Islamist extremist ideology. A main goal is total > Islamization - and it is on the verge of being realized in Iraq. Iraqs > Christians, who in recent years have clustered in their ancestral Nineveh > homeland to escape persecution in Baghdad and Basra, are important culturally > and politically. With authentic roots in the earliest years of the faith, > they constitute one of the largest remaining native Christian communities in > Christianitys cradle. It was these communities that first structured the > sacred liturgy, developed religious music (leading to Gregorian chant), > brought to the West monasticism for men and women, and otherwise provided > great treasures of Christian patrimony. Introducing modern hospitals, > schools, and literacy programs to Iraq, they are a bridge between East and > West. They are also a constituency for peace in the fierce Sunni-Shia > conflicts, and none of them have become suicide bombers. Now, they are > human-rights victims in an epic religious cleansing, which is a crime against > not only them but all humanity. Their numbers having declined from 1.4 > million to between 250,000 and 350,000 over the last decade, these remnants > of Iraqs ancient church community have been facing a genocidal threat. The > Islamic State stormed unimpeded through Mosul, Qaraqosh, and the smaller > towns of Nineveh province last summer, marking Christian homes with the > letter N for Nazarene and giving residents an ultimatum: renounce Jesus > Christ and convert to Islam, or die. The 200,000 Christian faithful in > Nineveh, many of whom still pray in Aramaic, refused. For that, they had to > flee en masse one August day with little more than the shirts on their backs. > Some, including children, were slaughtered, and some may have been enslaved. > The survivors are now part of the lengthening roster of Iraqs internally > displaced persons (IDPs), the antiseptic international term for those whove > lost everything except the right to remain in their own country. Bypassing > the U.N.-run camps in Iraqi Kurdistan (which now serve 1.5 million Muslims), > most of Ninevehs Christians have sought shelter in church-run camps that are > unheated and dirty. Visiting Mar Yousef (Saint Joseph) camp near Erbil last > month, my Hudson colleague Lela Gilbert found plenty of despair among its > residents: Faten, an English teacher, at 26 seems defeated. Like many, she > has had to run from jihadists - twice, a few years ago from Baghdad and last > summer from Qaraqosh. An elderly woman starts to tell her story but breaks > down weeping, as does a bishop. > Three months since their abrupt exile, all still seem traumatized. Dominican > prioress Sister Maria Hanna writes of the bewilderment in a November 7 > e-mail: What hurts most is the fact that there is no positive scenario or > any promising sign for [a] better future. Immigration is so extensive and > every day we ask: Until when and what is next? What is certain, they > wont be able to go home any time soon. Mosul, Ninevehs capital and Iraqs > second-largest city, became overwhelmingly a Sunni Muslim city in recent > decades. After the jihadists arrived, hundreds of thousands of moderate > Sunnis fled, joining the Christian, Yazidi, and Shia minorities. Many who > stayed evidently sympathize with IS. Some are Salafis who embrace ISs sharia > rule and its Wahhabi education (They are reportedly being taught from Saudi > textbooks.) Some, including Saddam Hussains former officers, share ISs > hatred for Shia rule. Others have simply adapted. Retaking Mosul, then, would > not be a matter of routing a few thousand IS invaders. . Some popularity for > IS, reinforced by theocratic totalitarianism, suggests that the Islamic State > is entrenched there. Liberating Mosul could make the battle for Kobani, now > in its fourth month, look like a cakewalk. Moreover, Mosuls Christians may > have nothing to return to. They may do so only to find, like the exiled > Christians of Baghdads Dora neighborhood in 2008, others now occupying their > homes. Even regaining church property could be difficult. IS zealots have set > out to destroy Christian manuscripts, artifacts, churches, and every trace of > Ninevehs Christian civilization. Mosuls heavy stone-walled Chaldean > Immaculate Conception Church, dating from the tenth century, has been turned > into a womens detention center; the seventeenth-century St. Gregorys > monastery, into a prison; 30 churches have been stripped of their crosses, > perhaps to become mosques, and, on November 24, the Chaldean Sisters Sacred > Heart Monastery, converted into an IS logistics center, was blown up. Most of > Ninevehs Christian IDPs lived in Qaraqosh and smaller, mostly Christian, > rural villages. Their problem is purely security. These towns sit on the > Nineveh Plain, a natural battlefield. Many are already ransacked and > abandoned by IS. But they are the jihadists 7-Elevens: always open - to > attack, and defenseless. Some Christians are > forming < christianpost/…/christians-join-new-militia…/#!> > defense militias, but so far they number only 500 to 1,000 men. Calls for > international protection seem just as hopeless - no army is signing up to > protect the Nineveh towns. Army Lieutenant General James Terry, who leads the > U.S. campaign in Iraq and Syria, estimates > that the larger region wont be freed of IS for at least three years. These > Christian communities survived the Romans, Arabs, Mongols, Tartars, Ottomans, > and Baathists by migrating within the region. Today, their options there are > few, as war and wars refugees engulf Iraqs neighbors. Tradition holds that > the Apostle Thomas first brought Christianity to Nineveh. Just ahead of IS, > Syriac Orthodox bishops spirited away relics of the doubting saint from Mar > Thoma, an eighth-century Mosul church. They are now safe, in Sweden. Since > 2003, with Islamist terror targeting them, a million Iraqi Christians have > likewise found refuge in the West. Half of Ninevehs persecuted Christians > now want to follow, reports Aid to the Church in Need. Experience shows that > this immigration would be permanent. Offering the only hope that these > Christians might remain in the region until the jihadists are ousted, > numerous Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox charities struggle to provide > 120,000 Christian IDPs (and some Yazidi and Muslims) with basic humanitarian > aid. Some are donating prefab caravans (revealingly dubbed fridges), > winterized tents, and even apartments. Some are building schools in Ankawa, > Erbils Christian enclave, and in Amman, which has 7,000 Iraqi Christian > refugees. While IS has inflicted suffering on all religions, it is close to > achieving its goal of eradicating the entire Christian presence from Iraq. > President Obama, who a year ago famously underestimated the Islamic State as > a JV team, has yet to recognize this Christian minoritys unique plight and > its implications for pluralism in the region. It is up to ordinary Americans > of good will to help them - our prayers and charity are desperately needed. > This year, Ninevehs Christians will celebrate Christmas in Kurdistan and in > neighboring countries - with their families, their distinct cultural > communities, their awesome faith, and little else. They may be the last > generation to offer the ancient Christmas greeting in Jesus own Aramaic > language: Our Lord is born. Glory be His name, and praised be His mother. - > Nina Shea is director of Hudson Institutes Center for Religious Freedom and a board member of our FRRME in the US > co-author > of Persecuted: The Global Assault on > Christians.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 01:30:51 +0000
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