More and more Christians are suffering from terrorism in Arab countries - now a synod dealt with their fate. The East experience a real "Christian depopulation," according to the Vatican.
Amman -
now and then touches his eyes from the kitchen table to the little fig tree under his window. Mansour Mattosha pours steaming tea. "I have the whole drama seen with my own eyes, "he says finally, and pokes around in his cup. For ten years he was pastor at St. Bihnam Church in Baghdad, the community no longer exists.
Apocalypse in Mesopotamia - the 2003 U.S. invasion unleashed the most brutal persecution of Christians in recent history. Throughout the country, churches were burned and destroyed monasteries, Christian families threatened, fathers or sons kidnapped, murdered priests. Every day he had issued Taufzeugnisse - for those who just wanted to get away.
now live on the former 1.2 million Christians under Saddam no longer than another 300,000 in the country. And the exodus continues. 60.000 are alone in the Jordanian capital Amman stranded, where for a year is also working Mansour Mattosha as Syrian Catholic priest.
If the priest goes through the steep streets of the poor district of Ashrafiyeh, where his little Mary's Church stands, he can tell almost every house a destiny. Georgi's family has come four months ago. Adnan's father, an electrician, was abducted in Iraq in one visit and has since disappeared. "Go away", was soon after spray-painted on the front door.
live now Awatif mother and her three adult children in Amman in a small attic room. At night all sleep under the stars on the flat roof between the satellite dishes the neighbors. Around the corner lives a newly married couple who smashed the Muslim torturers in Iraq to their bottle shop and pushed a CD with death threats at their doorstep. Twice a week, Pastor Mansour visited the sick in the Red Crescent Hospital, whose third Floor is fully occupied with Iraqi victims of terrorism.
Christian groups
The Chaldean Church traces its founding to the Apostle Thomas. In 431 it was because of doctrinal disputes to break with the Catholic Church in Rome. Since 17 Century are the Chaldean Christians reunited with the Holy See, but with its own church hierarchy. Head of the 23 bishops, the Patriarch of Babylon, Emmanuel III. Delly, who is based in Baghdad.
The Coptic Church dates from the late antique Christianity. As founder of the tradition is to the apostle Mark, who allegedly middle of the 1st Century and lived in Egypt was the first bishop of Alexandria. The Coptic Church has its own pope, Shenouda III, the 87-year-old., Based in Cairo. The proportion of Copts in the total population is estimated at around 10 percent. Your relationship with the Muslim majority is dominated for decades by irritability, aggression latent and open violence.
The Maronites live in Lebanon. The state, together with a share of 34 percent Christians an absolute exception in the region. In contact with the Crusaders, the Maronites agreed that in the 8th Century for the first time, received their own patriarch, 1182 a union with the Catholic Church in Rome. The Maronites to distance themselves some demonstrative of their Arab environment. According to the Lebanese constitution, they have the right to ask the President of the country. mge
Alarmed by the tragedy in Mesopotamia, the Catholic Church has called for the first time in its history a major crisis meeting on the fate of her sister Oriental Churches. 150 patriarchs and bishops come from 10 to 24 October at a special synod in Rome. In its Troubled region are the roots of Christianity. From Ur of the Chaldees, now southern Iraq, are made to Abraham to the Promised Land, the most famous immigrant in world history. In the Palestinian Bethlehem Jesus was born. In Jerusalem, he died on the cross, according to the faith of Christians rose again three days later. And would not Paul moved from Jerusalem to Athens and had established on the territory of modern Turkey and Greece, the early church, the followers of Jesus would have remained a small Jewish sect.
live today has 17 million Christians among the 480 million Muslims of the Middle East. They are small minorities - from of one percent in Iran and Turkey, from 2.3 in Israel and 3.5 percent in Jordan to 10 percent in Egypt. "History has made us a little flock," said Pope Benedict XVI. When he invited a year ago to the church meeting. The 46-page preliminary paper Synod called the concerns of the faithful clearly by name. Whether in Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey or Iran, wherever they felt the growing strength of "political Islam" and its "extremist tendencies" threatened. The Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories impedes freedom of movement, economic and religious life. In Iraq, Christians are the weakest Part of the company main victims of violence.
The East experience a real "Christian depopulation," the bottom line is concerned at the Vatican. One day you will ask yourself, "if Jesus was really here, if no people presence in the area who believe in him," fears the patriarch of the Melkite Catholics, Archbishop Lufti Laham. "Then the Holy Land for Christians to a museum."
But Muslim intellectuals see the exodus with concern. "The fewer Christians there are, the stronger the Islamic fundamentalism," predicted Mohammed Sammak, political advisor to the Grand Mufti of Lebanon. "If the Christians will one day be gone, that's like when you pull out of a cloth threads -. at the end disintegrates the entire social fabric "Since the war of 2006, 70 000 Christians left the cedar state - according to a survey, most radical because of the Hezbollah.
"The worst thing would be if the participants of the synod would come back only with beautifully worded documents," said Wael Suleiman, the 36-year-old director of Caritas Jordan. He calls to local churches, less to Europe or America to squint and more to build on our own forces. In Jordan, Christians had a share of 3.5 percent of the population, possess but one third of economic power. "We should have the parable of the Good Samaritan not only preach but also to live." The same applies to the ratio of Jordanian Christians to the Iraqi refugees.
threatening letter from Al-Qaeda
What does Wael Suleiman, can be at the Chaldean Notgemeinde read in Amman district Lweibdeh. About 150 people - young and old - have gathered for prayer on Sunday evening. The faces are serious, exhausted and withdrawn. Their chants in Aramaic the language of Jesus are similar to the Jewish liturgy in synagogues over the wordy church services in the West. serves as the church The combined living room with a garage of a ground floor apartment. In addition to the entrance hangs a threatening letter from Al-Qaeda, which someone brought back from Baghdad.
"We are one of the oldest Christian communities in general - and today we are as, relatives of Americans' insulted," says Father Raymond Moussalli, who came from Mosul. 5000 people belong to his makeshift church. "You have saved her life - but what a life" Almost all of them can not return, and most can not continue.
So they eke out an existence in a foreign country - illegally, in hiding somewhere in the attic or with relatives. The Synod he has only one expectation: "We hope that the Church in Europe to our fate is silent. We hope that she gets her voice strong and helps us to get back into our lives "
Frankfurter Rundschau, 07.10.2010 -. Fr-online/politik
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