The ousting of Christians from the countries of the Middle East is a sore spot of the modern world. Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt and Syria are in the midst of a civil war -- these are only some of the countries where Christian civilization is currently being destroyed. Experts contemplate the issue of who benefits from this and whether Christianity has a chance to survive in the Middle East.
The Syrian city of Homs, the third in the country in terms of population, has almost completely lost its Christian population. Thousands have been killed and about a million have fled. The situation is similar in Damascus, Aleppo, Hama, Latakia and other cities. It is a real religious war, which is being carefully ignored by the world community, thinks Eugeniy Satanovsky, president of the Institute of Middle East:
"It is believed that religious wars are a matter of the past. But they have become a matter of the past only for those western politicians that are not paying attention to them. Religious wars are underway in Africa and in the Middle East. Syria is only one of the platforms of the rapid de-Christianization of that region. And since radical Islamists representing radical terrorist movements wage these wars, it is not in favor of the world community to interfere in them. Nobody has abandoned the double standards. Unlike the XIX century, when people in Europe were still worried about the genocide of Christians in Syria and Lebanon, today people just ignore it based on their economic and geopolitical interests."
Moreover, the open persecution Syria's Christian population is today more and more often becoming just a small coin in the civil war, which has been going on for three years. Last spring Islamists captured two high-ranking Orthodox metropolitans. One of them was a brother of the present Patriarch John X of Antioch. Up until now there is no clarity regarding the destiny of the two bishops. In early December some armed extremists took hostage Pelagia Sayyaf, the superior of the Saint Tecla Orthodox convent in Maaloula, together with several nuns. They are all still alive, but there are no guarantees of their release, says Nikolay Balashov, deputy chairman of the Department of External Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Read the full article, with pictures of other desecrations, online here:
Assyrian International News Agency
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