November 19, 2020
Symposium: Act in Time
Protecting Imperiled Christians
In most conferences on Persecuted Christians, we speak about infractions against the God given right of freedom to worship as well as freedom of conscience, that is, to live openly and freely one’s faith. These unjust restrictions are unfortunately on the rise.
They exist in overly secular countries, where it is considered “discrimination”, and in some places, people are no longer allowed to express a principled and reasonable approach to moral issues.
It is also true in socialist countries, such as some places in South and Central America. It is also true in communist countries such as China and Southeast Asia. This is certainly and unfortunately true in Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and others.
I would like to focus my brief remarks on the Islamic world, where Christians and Jews have left because they found no safe harbor, no protection, no respect for their “otherness”, and no respect of their status as citizens.
This sad story is old, and rather depressing. What happened over 100 years ago, namely the Armenian, Syriac, Assyrian, and Lebanese Christian genocide at the lands of those responsible in the Ottoman Empire, is even more distressing. In other words, Christians have suffered at the hands of Muslim rulers from the Mamluks to the Mongols, to the Ottomans, and recently at the hands of non-government militias such as, Al Qaeda, Al Shabab, ISIS, Boko Haram, and many others.
However, on a more positive note, I want to focus on what also happened around 100 years ago which could be seen as an antidote, a sign of hope in the Christian Muslim conflict. This was the establishment of Modern Day Lebanon. In 1920 the Maronite Patriarch, Elias Howayek, led a delegation to Versailles, France, along with the Muslim Mulfti, to urge the allied countries to recognize “Greater Lebanon”. The boundaries proposed for this modern state intentionally included Shiite, Sunni, Christian and Druze areas, and the nation would live a conviviality, which years later, Pope John Paul II would remark, even in the midst of civil war 1975-1990, that Lebanon is “more than a country, a message for the world”.
The 74-year-old Maronite Patriarch made that dangerous trek to Versailles saying he was not a political man; he was armed only with his love for his homeland and the Rosary. This hope for a different world still abides in the hearts of Christians and Muslims living today in Lebanon and throughout the Middle East. They are armed only with the love of their homeland, their faith in God, and their reliance (Christians and Muslims) on the Blessed Virgin Mary.
I thus ask my Muslim brothers who govern in Saudi Arabia and in Iran, you are engaged in a fratricidal rivalry over hegemony in the region, and all the people of the Middle East suffer from this. Will the Middle East continue to suffer because of your rivalry? I also ask my Muslim brothers who govern in Turkey, you are intent on reclaiming the triumphal memory of the Ottoman Empire. Do you not see how this affects the minority populations, especially Christians in your midst? And I ask all Muslims of good will everywhere, is this dream of Lebanon, common to Muslims and Christians alike, which is also the dream of Christians throughout the Middle East to remain in their homelands, is this a shared dream? Does it meet with compassion in your hearts or are you determined to govern only Muslim people and all others are not welcome?
Whatever the answers may be, we Christians will continue to stay in our homelands, whether we are wanted or not. It seems to be the story of our lives ever since Mary and Joseph were told in Bethlehem that there is no room at the inn. There seems to be no room for us today in the Islamic world.
Nonetheless, it will be to the great loss of the Islamic world if Christians are absent. The ancient Christian communities have offered to their societies, before the advent of Islam, hospitals, nursing care facilities, schools, and a variety of charitable efforts. Christians have been known for these great services not only intended for themselves, but for non-Christian as well. It will be a sad day if the Islamic world continues to support policies that tell Christians they are no longer welcome in their own homelands. We can only pray that the good example of Lebanon will somehow, with the help of the Virgin Mary, prevail in the Islamic world.
✝ Gregory John Mansour
Bishop of the Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn