Preachers and Patriarchs: U.S. Leaders Rally around Middle Eastern Christians

960 years. Let’s see, Jared and Methuselah lived longer than that, according to Genesis 5. But no one else. Eastern and Western Christianity split apart 960 years ago.

Yet last May, the head of the billion-member Roman Catholic Church met the leader of the 250-million-strong Eastern Orthodox Church in Jerusalem. The meeting—between Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew—continued a fifty-year trend of the two churches to nurture their mutual ties as children of God.

These two men are not alone in trying to build global ecumenical fellowship.

American Efforts

In early May, nearly 200 leaders across America signed a Pledge of Solidarity and Call to Action on behalf of Christians and other religious minorities in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. Signers hail from a rare broad spectrum of Evangelicals, Catholics, Anglicans, and Orthodox Christians, as well as Arab-Americans, progressives, ambassadors, and journalists. Two congressmen—one from each political party—have addressed the issue on Capitol Hill as well.

The pledge concentrates on “this current wave of persecution” and “brutal extremist campaigns” against Middle Eastern Christians. Washington, D.C. Cardinal Donald Wuerl calls for protecting religious freedom in the Middle East: “If history has any lesson to teach us about silence, it’s not a good one.”

According to Fox News and other sources, the number of Christian Middle Easterners has fallen 60 percent since 2011. This number indicates many Christians have died or converted, but likely most of them have fled or immigrated.

In Turkey just one percent of the population is Christian, whereas Christians were one-quarter of the population a century ago. Christians in Iraq numbered 1.5 million a generation ago. Now they total 200,000. War has wrecked 30 percent of Syria’s churches. At least 40 Christians in Iran are “in prison, detained, or awaiting trial because of their religious beliefs and activities,” reports the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. And among both Israelis and Palestinians, the number of Christians has plummeted since 1948.

The pledge of solidarity asks Washington to defend and assist Christians and religious minorities in the Middle East. The question at hand: will this kind of document, or subsequent efforts, help?

Mideast Responses

In Orthodox churches in Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria, the incense smells as strong as it looks. The formality of the service is as rigid as it is long. The chanting of Scripture and ringing of bells and gongs is both beautiful and enigmatic. Floors are stone, benches are wood, and icons and images in stained glass windows stared. In many settings men and women sit separately.

Yet when you meet Arab Christians, be they Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant, you quickly learn they are not just waiting around for their Western brothers and sisters to save them. Besides, their churches are not just decades or centuries old. Many date back to the first millennium. If you mix that ancient strength with Western Mideast diplomacy that usually focuses on Muslims and Jews, you may start to understand why some Christians in the Middle East distrust or oppose what they call Western “intervention.”

Fawzi Khalil, pastor in Cairo at the largest evangelical church in the Middle East, highly values “the prayers and concerns of our Christian brethren around the world, and in the U.S. especially. But we don’t believe outside pressure would be best for our daily life with our Muslim friends. The government of Egypt with local Christian leaders is best suited to fix our problems.”

In Syria, many Christians support the beleaguered government because some militant rebels have attacked them. Father Gabriel Daoud is a Syriac Orthodox priest, and he resents that U.S. support sometimes goes to his enemies. He bitterly asks if Westerners would ever “let these militants into their countries to destroy everything.”

Then again, many Mideast Christians do crave more assistance from the United States. “We feel forgotten and isolated,” says Baghdad’s Catholic Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako. “If they kill us all, what would be the reaction of Christians in the West? Would they do something then?” Plus, many Christian immigrants to the West become activists for more action on behalf of their home countries.

The key is to pray faithfully and boldly for Christians throughout the Middle East, and then offer overt help to specific people with a humble heart that is eager to bless…and be blessed.

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(Originally published by The Presidential Prayer Team.)