The Shepherd, September 2007
NEWS SECTION
THE PLIGHT OF IRAQI CHRISTIANS
KEITH RODERICK reports that: “Since the fall of Saddam, the Christians of Iraq have been beaten down by every wheel in motion: violence, extortion, and murder. In desperation, Christian religious leaders are now openly criticizing the Iraqi government for failing to protect their flocks. Chaldean archbishop Louis Sako recently lamented in the AsiaNews, ‘In Iraq Christians are dying, the Church is disappearing under continued persecution, threats and violence [are] carried out by extremists who are leaving us no choice: conversion or exile.’ Twenty years ago the Iraqi Christian population was estimated to be 1.4 million. The Department of State reported there were almost 1 million in early 2003. U.N. sources claim the figure to be 700,000. Two years after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, it was estimated that 40 percent of the refugees fleeing Iraq were Christian, deliberately targeted in Iraq. There were 20,000 Christian families living in the Dora neighborhood of Baghdad before the liberation of Iraq. Today, there are only 3,000 families. Most are only partially intact, as members of those families were killed, displaced to other areas in Iraq or fled the country. One in four Christian families living in the major Iraqi cities has left. A religious cleansing is taking place as Muslim extremists either demand that Christians convert to Islam, and send daughters and sisters to convert and marry a Muslim man; or, worse, force families to leave or be killed.… The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq reported that attacks on individuals and Christian institutions began to seriously escalate in 2006. Since then, Iraq has seen attack after attack on Christian churches and their leaders.”
TURKISH COURT AND THE PATRIARCH
AN ENI (Ecumenical News International) report, issued on 31st August, states that the Turkish Court has gone further than we reported in our last issue and is attempting to bar Patriarch Bartholomeos I from using his traditional title “Œcumenical Patriarch.” This is a title bestowed upon the Patriarchs of Constantinople in the time of St John the Faster (sixth century). What should be contested is not the Patriarch’s use of the title, but the promotion of the idea that the title somehow means that the Patriarch is something of a Pope for the Orthodox, and is the head of the Orthodox Church.
COLLABORATORS BEING INVESTIGATED
THE STATE COUNCIL studying the Securitate archives in Romania, is reviewing a list of 20 Orthodox churchmen, who may have been collaborators with the communist secret police, the Securitate. Many files were burned in December 1989 to prevent the names of collaborators being discovered. The late Patriarch Teoctict also opposed the opening of the files, and so the State Church there missed an opportunity to eliminate suspicion. Mircea Dinescu, a member of the council, said that some of these clerics were potential candidates to lead the Romanian Orthodox Church. The matter is pressing as the election for Patriarch Teoctist’s successor is to take place on 12th September.
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