Christians in the Middle East have been ‘abandoned’

The head of the Syriac Catholic Church has asked Pope Francis to call a world summit at the Vatican to address the persecution of Christians in the Middle East.

Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Younan of Antioch and All the East (pictured below) said that the “very survival” of Christians, living “in the cradle of our faith”, is at stake. The patriarch called on the Pope to invite UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State John Kerry and other leading diplomats and church leaders to the proposed summit.

 Speaking in Rome last month, he said the meeting could address the “emptying of the region of its Christian communities” due to violence and intimidation. He felt  “Christians around the world” should be greatly concerned and the Western nations should do more to protect and defend them.

Archbishop Younan, whose Church is in full communion with the Holy See, singled out the Obama administration as doing very little to help Christians fighting for survival in the Middle East. People felt “abandoned, even betrayed, by their brethren in the West” because while there is aid with humanitarian needs, there is little done to enable them to stay safely in their homelands.

He was particularly alarmed about the shrinking of the Catholic community in northern Iraq and north-eastern Syria and feared the culture, identity, heritage and language of the first Christian communities, which are now small religious minorities in the Middle East, will be lost forever. “When you say ‘Muslims have also been targeted by Islamic State (IS) and other similar groups’, it’s true; they’ve been murdered and abused,” he said; “but unlike them … we face the threat to our survival because we’re much smaller.” He urged Western countries to lobby religious leaders in Muslim countries to grant full rights to religious minorities, including Christians.

Earlier this week the patriarch deplored the terrorist attacks by IS on 31 December that targeted Christian-owned restaurants in Qamishli, north-eastern Syria. Twenty people were killed, 13 of them Christian, and more than 40 injured. The Christian population of Qamishli has been reduced by half from 40,000.

As 2015 ended, the persecution of Christians elsewhere was highlighted. In Pakistan, Asia Bibi, who has been imprisoned for six years on blasphemy charges, told her family during their Christmas visit: “Christmas is the celebration of God’s mercy. I forgive my persecutors, those who have falsely accused me, and I await their forgiveness”. In July 2015 the Supreme Court of Pakistan suspended Bibi’s death sentence for the duration of the appeals process, and the Lahore High Court is expected to hear an appeal in the case in March.

Two Bangladeshi bishops, Bejoy D’Cruze of Sylhet and Paul Ponen Kubi of Mymensingh, received death threats from radical Muslims at Christmas.