Global Day of Prayer for Peace in Iraq Set for Aug. 6

Rome, August 01, 2014 (Zenit.org)

“Please stop, I ask you with all my heart, it’s time to stop. Stop, please.” Inspired by these words of Pope Francis (June 27, 2014), the international pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need, united with His Beatitude Louis Rafael Sako, the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch of Iraq, appeals to all persons of good will to join in a Global Day of Prayer for Peace to be held on August 6, 2014—the Feast of the Transfiguration.

The feast of Transfiguration marks the moment when Jesus, on Mount Tabor, appears to three of his disciples in a state of glory, shortly before His ultimate trial on Calvary. This feast holds out a sign of hope for humanity: it is a source of courage when obstacles appear impossible to surmount; a sign that light is stronger than darkness; and testimony that death can turn into life.

Meant to be observed in churches and homes across the country, this Global Day of Prayer in the midst of so much suffering in Iraq—particularly for the ancient Christian community of Mosul—tells the world at large that US Christians have not forgotten and abandoned their suffering brothers and sisters.

Patriarch Sako has personally composed this Prayer for Peace:

ord,
The plight of our country
is deep and the suffering of Christians
is severe and frightening.
Therefore, we ask you Lord
to spare our lives, and to grant us patience, 
and courage to continue our witness of Christian values
with trust and hope.
Lord, peace is the foundation of life;
Grant us the peace and stability that will enable us
to live with each other without fear and anxiety,
and with dignity and joy.

Glory be to you forever.

† Louis Raphael I Sako

To join the ACN candle vigil for the faithful in Iraq, please click here.

The Patriarch said: “Let us unite our voices and hearts before the Lord of peace. May the light of Tabor fill the hearts of all suffering people with consolation and hope. May the message of Tabor, through our prayers, inspire the leaders of Iraq to sacrifice personal interests for the common good and welfare.”

Aid to the Church in Need is an international Catholic charity under the guidance of the Holy See, providing assistance to the suffering and persecuted Church in more than 140 countries. www.churchinneed.org (USA); www.acnuk.org (UK); www.aidtochurch.org (AUS); www.acnireland.org (IRL); www.acn-aed-ca.org (CAN)

Raymond Ibrahim: Death for Preaching Christ in ‘Liberated’ Libya

h/t - Jihad Watch

Four foreign Christians—including one who holds American-Swedish citizenship—were arrested days ago in Libya.  According to the Guardian, their crime is arousing “suspicion of being missionaries and distributing Christian literature, a charge that could carry the death penalty.”

Apparently the four Christians had “contracted a local printer to produce pamphlets explaining Christianity.”  Proselytizing to Muslims—that is, preaching to them another religion—was banned even under the late Col. Muammar Gaddafi.

Libyans—strongly supported by U.S. President Obama in the name of “freedom”—got rid of Gaddafi but kept the distinctly anti-freedom law.

Discussing this case, Libyan security official Hussein Bin Hmeid, trying to justify the Islamic ban on free speech, observes: “Proselytizing is forbidden in Libya. We are a 100% Muslim country and this kind of action affects our national security.”  Indeed, Muslim governments—most notably Iran’s—constantly suppress any talk of Christianity, claiming it threatens “our national security.”

Such is the tribal mentality of Islam which everywhere seems to declare: If you’re not one of us, you must be an enemy trying to subvert our way of life.

Is the flip side of this prevalent mentality also true—that if Muslims are not one of us, they must be trying to subvert our way of life?

Nor should the arrested Christians expect much sympathy from more “moderate” Libyans.  According to Benghazi lawyer and “human rights activist” Bilal Bettamer, Christians should not offend Muslims by trying to share their faith: “It is disrespectful. If we had Christianity we could have dialogue, but you can’t just spread Christianity.  The maximum penalty is the death penalty. It’s a dangerous thing to do.”

Indeed, like “blasphemy”—whether in the guise of Muhammad cartoons or movies—proselytizing to Muslims is one of the many forms of free speech to be specifically banned by Islamic Sharia.  According to Muslim tradition, this ban goes back to the second “righteous” caliph, the 7^th century Omar.  After conquering a group of Christians, he stipulated any number of humiliating conditions for them to live by, including: “Not to produce a cross or [Christian] book in the markets of the Muslims….  Not to display any signs of polytheism, nor make our religion appealing, nor call or proselytize anyone to it.”

As Muslims continue turning to Islam—all to Western praise and encouragement—expect the things of Islam to continue returning in big ways.

The Guardian report adds: “Libya, a conservative Muslim country, has no known Christian minority, and churches, the preserve of foreign residents, have seen few of the attacks seen in Egypt and Tunisia, where there have been church burnings.”

The Guardian reporter may have wanted to point out that, less than two months ago, on Sunday, December 30, an explosion rocked a Coptic Christian church near the western city of Misrata, in the very place where U.S. backed rebels hold a major checkpoint. The explosion killed two people and wounded two others.

And even though it is true that there are few church attacks in Libya, that is simply because there are few churches to attack in the first place—not because of some Libyan “tolerance” to churches.  After all, one never hears of church attacks in Saudi Arabia. Yet that is not because Saudis are “tolerant,” but rather because they have nipped the church problem in the bud by not allowing a single church to exist on Saudi soil.  Hence, no churches for Muslim mobs to attack, bomb or burn.  Conversely, where there is a large Christian population, such as in Nigeria, which is roughly half Christian, Muslims are bombing churches on practically a weekly  basis.

Finally, there is the rewriting of history that is foisted by Muslims everywhere, not to mention ignorant Westerners, as exemplified in this report.  All of those quoted—including the writer—seem to think that Libya was born a Muslim country.   Hence, in the words of Libyan “human rights” activist Bilal Bettamer, “you can’t just spread Christianity.”

What, then, do we do with real history?  The fact is, although Libya is today practically entirely Muslim, it certainly wasn’t always so. In fact, before the 7^th century Islamic invasions, Libya was predominantly Christian.  The fact that Libya’s immediate neighbors to the west and east, Algeria and Egypt, were backbones of early Christianity—giving the world giants of theology like St. Augustine and St. Athanasius, to name but a few—certainly suggests that Libya was primarily a Christian nation, excluding some Berber tribes.

Yet Islam came and killed and converted them all to itself.  And now, to keep them in line, it will kill any who try to proclaim a different message, especially the message of their conquered forefathers.

 

Islam or death: Egypt’s Christians Targeted by New Terror Group

Clergymen gather to wait for the arrival of Egypt’s Coptic Christian Pope Tawadros II, at the historic al-Muharraq Monastery, a centuries-old site some 180 miles (300 kilometers) south of Cairo in the province of Assiut, Egypt, Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013. Egypt’s Coptic Christian pope sharply criticized the country’s Islamist leadership in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, saying the new constitution is discriminatory and Christians should not be treated as a minority. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra) (AP2013)



A group of Christian priests from a local Coptic church in Egypt were told to convert to Islam or face death, according to an Arabic news site.

The incident, which comes in the midst of continued persecution and pressure on Egypt’s Christian community, took place this week in the town of Safaga, near the Red Sea, the El Balad site reported.

According to El Balad, the threats are from a new group in Egypt, Jihad al-Kufr, whose name translates to Jihad against non-believers or non-Muslims. The group targets non-Muslims, and reportedly pressures them to convert to Islam.

“It’s not the first time. This is happening every day,” said Adel Guindy, president of Coptic Solidarity and a member of Egypt’s Coptic community who travels between Paris and Cairo. “This one incident caught the attention of the news agencies, but there are worse things happening to the Christians every day in Egypt,” he said.

Christians have felt increasingly at risk since the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, which resulted in the rise of President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood movement.
“It has definitely worsened under the revolution. Once the worst part of the society surfaced -- the Islamists -- the Copts are paying a heavy price. The West doesn’t really feel our pain. It’s a war of attrition,” Guindy said.

Copts are the largest Christian community in the Middle East, and the most prominent religious minority in the region. Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s 85 million people.

Egypt’s new constitution has come under scrutiny by many for including elements of Sharia, or Islamic law, while simultaneously legitimizing the marginalization of the country’s religious minorities by denying them legal protection. It also granted increased powers to Morsi, who self-declared sweeping powers in a Nov. 22 power grab that prompted heavy international criticism.

The new constitution was ratified after its second referendum in late December, winning more than 70 percent of the vote. Moderate Egyptians took to the streets to protest the rushed ratification, but the demonstrations were quickly quashed.

Some believe members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic extremists, emboldened by the constitution’s passage, have stepped up attacks against Egyptian Christians.

“There was a relative amount of freedom (for Christians) before Egypt’s revolution, and many were hoping for more freedoms, and now things are unfortunately much worse and much more difficult,” said Jason DeMars, founder of Present Truth Ministries, a Christian advocacy group that tracks religious persecution around the world.

“It’s what they’ve always wanted to do, but Mubarak held some of that back because of the support he got from the United States and other Western countries,” DeMars said. “People were paying attention, but now the extremists are seeing this as an opportunity to crack down on the community there.”

Extremists over the weekend set fire to a Christian Church in the Province of Fayoum, the second such assault against the town’s Coptic population in a month. The attackers ripped down the church’s cross and hurled rocks at church members, injuring four people including the priest, according to a report by Morning Star News.

There have also been several reported cases of rape and harassment of Coptic women. Two women in traditional Islamic headdress cut off the hair of two Christian women on the subway in Cairo in December, the Egypt Independent reported. It was the third such incident in two months.

And last week, an Egyptian court forced two Coptic Christian boys, ages 10 and 9, to face trial for “insulting the Koran,” according to reports. The boys were arrested after playing in a pile of trash, which authorities claimed included pages of the Koran.

Egypt's Coptic Christian leader, Pope Tawadros II, spoke openly this month when he dismissed the new constitution as discriminatory.

"We are a part of the soil of this nation and an extension of the pharaohs and their age before Christ,” he told the Associated Press. “Yes, we are a minority in the numerical sense, but we are not a minority when it comes to value, history, interaction and love for our nation."

 

Help Rebuild St. Nicholas

(from the Greek Orthodox Diocese of America)

On September 11, 2001 the barbaric attack not only destroyed the majestic Twin Towers but also the tiny yet historic St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, located south of the second tower of the World Trade Center. In the aftermath of its destruction, very little survived: two icons, one of St. Dionysios of Zakynthos and the other of the Zoodochos Pege, along with a few liturgical items, a book, and some candles.

Within days, Archbishop Demetrios of America traveled personally to Ground Zero, setting foot on the site where the Church of St. Nicholas stood, in order to conduct a memorial service for the victims of those who perished in the attacks and to offer prayers for the families in mourning.

Support the rebuilding of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. Please make a secure online donation through our partner JustGive.org by clicking on the link below. All donations will be used for the rebuilding of the Church and are tax deductible.


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Christian Priest Murdered in Baghdad

Please pray for Fr. Adel and his family, another victim/martyr of the Mohammedan Jihad

BAGHDAD (AP) - An Assyrian Orthodox priest was killed in a drive-by shooting Saturday in Baghdad, police and an assistant said, the latest attack against Iraq's Christian minority.
The priest, Youssef Adel, was shot by gunmen who drove up in a car and opened fire as he was opening the gate of his house near the St. Peter and Paul church where he presided, an assistant said.

Christians have frequently been caught up in the violence or been targeted in this predominantly Muslim country.

The body of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, one of Iraq's most senior Chaldean Catholic clerics, was found on March 13, about two weeks after he was seized by gunmen in the volatile northwestern city of Mosul.

Adel's assistant, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns, said the attack occurred about 11:30 a.m. and the gunmen fled the area in a car after the shooting.

He said the priest was in his early 40s and was married but had no children.

Adel was an engineer but became a priest about six years ago. He previously served in a church in the predominantly Sunni area of Dora in southern Baghdad but moved to the central primarily Shiite district of Karradah after a series of attacks in the former insurgent stronghold.

The assistant said Adel was a compassionate man who preached about love and peace and was heavily involved in helping orphans and widows in his church....

Chaldean Archbishop Kidnapped in Northern Iraq

Please pray for the safe return of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho and for those families that lost loved ones in this dastardly, vile and heinous attack.


Chaldean Archbishop Kidnapped in Northern Iraq
http://noburqua.blogspot.com/2008/02/iraqi-archbishop-kidnapped-in-mosul.html
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/191510.php
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/02/29/archbishop_reported_kidnapped_in_mosul/6366/ http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2007/08/iraq-and-genocide-of-assyrian.html