ISIS empties Nineveh Plains: 200,000 Christians flee, huge humanitarian disaster

In Turkey in the last century, and Iraq and Syria since 2003, "the foreign policies of Western countries have turned out to be utterly destructive to the many hundreds of thousands of native Aramean Christians who experienced persecutions, beheadings, crucifixion, kidnappings, expulsions and more. Simultaneously, Western governments and mainstream media have remained utterly silent and ignored the cries for help by the Arameans."

The Order of St Andrew the Apostle, Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate August 7, 2014 The Goal of the 'Islamic State Caliphate' (formerly ISIS). The World Council of Arameans reported on 'ISIS just emptied Nineveh Plains: 200,000 Christians flee, huge humanitarian disaster.' The World Council of Arameans (Syriacs) is dedicated to answer the call to protect and secure the rights, liberty and equality of the Aramean people, safeguard and promote the cultural heritage of its ancestors, ensuring justice, and uniting all its people as a self‐determined and internationally recognized Aramean nation. ISIS empties Nineveh Plains: 200,000 Christians flee, huge humanitarian disaster Read this press release on the web site of the World Council of Arameans » Last night, two Aramean children and a mother were killed as a result of a shameless attack by ISIS terrorists against Baghdeda (Qaraqosh) in North Iraq. At the same time, in the middle of the night, more than 40,000 Aramean families -- comprising at least 200,000 human beings -- fearfully fled their ancestral homes, towns and villages in the Nineveh region. Another unprecedented humanitarian disaster is now unfolding in Iraq. Most recently, thousands of Aramean families had already escaped the Mosul region to the Nineveh province, after the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorists rampaged the area. The Syriac Orthodox Archdiocese of St. Matthew, including its fourth-century Monastery of Mor Matay, and other local dioceses have been closed. The Nineveh plains are now emptied from its native Christians, who belong to the Syriac Orthodox, Syriac Catholic, Chaldean and Assyrian (Nestorian) churches in the region. This is the second region that has been emptied from its Aramean population for the first time in its millennia-old history. Thus, an ancient civilization, cultural heritage and population have been destroyed and erased from Iraq's future.

Greek Orthodox Archbishop: 'Hamas Used Church to Fire Rockets' (VIDEO)

"Christ tells us we must love each other, our neighbors, and our enemies... No other religion says that except the Christian faith." — Archbishop Alexios of Gaza

The source news report for this post.

by George Thomas, CBN News — August 8, 2014

GAZA STRIP -- Air raid sirens sounding in the Eshkol Region on Wednesday afternoon turned out to be a false alarm. The 72-hour ceasefire appears to be holding for now.

Hamas is not only using mosques to launch attacks against Israelis. It has also used a church compound.

Archbishop Alexios is Gaza's most prominent Christian leader. His decision to open his church to 2,000 Muslims escaping the war surprised many of Gaza's residents.

"Christ tells us we must love each other, our neighbors, and our enemies," Bishop Alexios told CBN News. "No other religion says that except the Christian faith."

Orthodox Archbishop in Gaza: Hamas fired rockets from church

by Joel B. Pollak, Breitbart News — August 8, 2014

Archbishop Alexios, the Greek Orthodox Christian leader of Gaza, told CBN News on Wednesday that Hamas had used the church to fire rockets at Israeli civilians prior to the 72-hour ceasefire. The church was also being used at the time as a shelter for Palestinian civilians of all faiths who were fleeing the war's bombs and rockets.

Hamas used the church and the civilians as human shields--a war crime under international law--in order to deter Israel from striking the rocket launchers, and to cause Israel maximum public relations and diplomatic damage if it did return fire. At least two United Nations facilities housing civilians were struck in that fashion.

Though the White House called Israel's actions in those instances "indefensible," and other world powers rushed to condemn Israel, few bothered to consider that they were playing directly into Hamas's hands, and creating an incentive for Hamas and other terror groups to continue to use the same deadly tactics in future.

The West’s (and Christianity's) Prostration to Islam

I cannot recommend strongly enough Raymond Ibrahim's work. Here, in a wide-ranging interview, he clearly puts forth the challenges facing Christians and Western culture from Islam, and warns against religious dialogue and interfaith outreach, which will only "exacerbate Christian persecution."  

In my book, Facing Islam, I also warn quite vigorously against religious dialogue of Christians with Muslims, primarily because it leads directly to Christians committing apostasy. Any Christian who affirms Islam is denying Jesus Christ. Any Christian who affirms Muhammad as a prophet is denying Jesus Christ. Any Christian who asserts that Islam is an Abrahamic religion is denying Jesus Christ. To remain uninformed about Islam in this day and age is tragic, and places one's soul in grave danger.  Get the book. 


The West’s Prostration to Islam
via RaymondIbrahim.com — August 5, 2014

Editor’s note: Raymond Ibrahim was recently interviewed by Fronda, a leading website in Poland.  The English-language version of the Polish interview, originally titled “Raymond Ibrahim: Prostration before Islam,” follows:

• Q: Who is Raymond Ibrahim? A scholar, a writer, an activist? What is his mission and the main goal?

Raymond Ibrahim: I am a little of all that and more.  Due to my background, academic and personal, I have had a long interest in the Middle East and Islam, especially the historic and contemporary interaction between Islam and Christianity.  After the strikes of September 11, 2001, I took an interest in the current events of the region vis-à-vis the West, and what immediately struck me was how, on the one hand, the conflict was almost identical to the historic conflict, one of continuity—at least that is how many Muslims were portraying it.

"In the West, the narrative was very different and based on a 'new paradigm', one that saw Islam and Muslims as perpetual victims of all sorts of outside and material pressures, mostly from the West.  Thus the [Western] analyses were immensely flawed and had little to do with reality."

But on the other hand, in the West, the narrative was very different and based on a “new paradigm,” one that saw Islam and Muslims as perpetual victims of all sorts of outside and material pressures, mostly from the West.  Thus the analyses that were being disseminated through media and academia were to my mind immensely flawed and, while making perfect sense to people in the West—for they were articulated through Western, secular, materialistic paradigms—had little to do with reality as I saw and understood it.

That was one of the reasons I left academia and began writing for more popular audiences, to try to offer a corrective to these flawed narratives.  My first book, The Al Qaeda Reader (2007), was meant to do precisely this—to compare the words of al-Qaeda as delivered to the West and as delivered to fellow Muslims, and to show how when speaking to the West, al-Qaeda and other Islamists used Western arguments, claiming any number of grievances, political and otherwise, as being the source of their jihad.  Obviously such arguments, widely disseminated by Western mainstream media, made perfect sense to the West.

But al-Qaeda’s Arabic writings that I discovered when I was working at the African and Middle Eastern Division of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., and which I translated for the book, made completely different arguments, basically saying that, irrespective of all grievances, Muslims must hate and wage jihad on all non-Muslim “infidels” until they come under Islamic authority, according to the worldview of Sharia, or Islamic law.

So in a way, you can say my mission since then has been to open Western eyes to the truths and reality of Islam—at least the reality of how it is understood and practiced by many Muslims—for Western eyes have been closed shut in recent times.

Bishop Suriel of the Coptic Orthodox Church: The Christian Copts are being forcefully driven out of Egypt

"We will not be safe from the indiscriminate and unstoppable destruction of IS and its ancillary extremist Muslim terrorist groups for long. If, as a nation, we do not take a strong stance against these crimes against humanity, it is only a matter of time before such fundamentalism infects the entire world."

Pravmir — August 5, 2014

The following is a statement from His Grace Bishop Suriel of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Diocese Of Melbourne and Affiliated Regions.

The world watches in silence as the last Christians are expelled from Mosul, Iraq in one of the most merciless and barbaric acts of genocide we have seen in the 21st Century.

Mosul, the cradle of Christianity in Iraq since the first centuries, is now purged of its entire Christian population. The ruthless and purposeful savagery of the attacks by the fundamentalist Muslim terrorist organization The Islamic State (IS) formerly known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), is truly inconceivable. Yet, most world leaders remain silent in the face of the murder of innocent children and horrific beheadings of civilians. We question why the media has not highlighted the unprecedented systematic eradication of the city’s entire Christian population. We also question why the Australian government have yet to comment and condemn this gross deprivation of human rights.

There is only silence.

The 'Wonderful and Confessedly Striking' Christian Manner of Life

This remarkable text seems very providential for us today, as we bear witness to and hopefully intercede for our suffering Christian brothers and sisters throughout the Islamic world. May we, by God's grace, experience some "pain of heart" for our brethren in Christ, that we may be found to have co-suffered with them, to have been co-crucified with them. Truly, "they are persecuted by all."

Transcript by OrthoChristian.com from a podcast on Ancient Faith Radio.

by Archimandrite Irenei (Steenberg)

Examining a passage from the anonymous second-century Epistle to Diognetus, Archimandrite Irenei explores the witness borne by the early Christian community and asks: does it reflect our Christian testimony today?

For our reflection this week I would like to offer up for your consideration a passage from an anonymous letter dating to the early second century or just possibly, the late first. It is a passage that has become well known in its own right on account of its singular beauty and the power of its testimony. The author of the text is unknown though often he is given the name Mathetes this, in fact, simply means “disciple” or “student,” and we know the text simply as The Letter to Diognetus. It is found in the collections of the Apostolic Fathers, from whom we have been recently reading here.

They love all men though they are persecuted by all. They are put to death yet they are restored to life. They are poor yet they make many rich. They are dishonored and yet in their very dishonor they are glorified...

The Epistle to Diognetus is a text written recounting the lives of the Christians as they are beheld by others in the early communities. Parts of this are written from a first-hand perspective and accounting of the new Christian religion, parts of it are written as the perceptions of the outsider. And there is a remarkable passage that occurs in this anonymous epistle, describing the Christians as if from the outside. Those who have the text available—and it is certainly easy to find in printed volumes or on the Internet—will find this as Chapter Five of The Epistle to Diognetus:

The Christians are distinguished from other men, neither by country nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor do they employ a particular form of speech, nor yet lead a way of life marked out by any singular worldly attribute. But inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the local customs with the respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking manner of life. 

They dwell in their own countries but simply as sojourners. As citizens they share in all things with others yet they endure all things as foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country and every land of their birth a land of strangers. They are in the flesh but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men though they are persecuted by all. They are unknown yet condemned. They are put to death yet they are restored to life. They are poor yet they make many rich. They lack and are in want of all things yet they abound in all. They are dishonored and yet in their very dishonor they are glorified.

That remarkable passage from the fifth chapter of the anonymous epistle to Diognetus—and I have slightly abbreviated it in the portion I have read—this is a most extraordinary extract. Every time that I encounter this text I think of it as a great shaming of my own Christian life. And there were times when the patristic sources, when the writings of the Fathers, or in this case the writing of an unknown person of the early Church served the holy and sacred task of doing precisely that—giving us that pin-prick of shame, of guilt, when hear such words as these and are forced to ask ourselves, “Would an outsider looking at my life, at our life, in our Christian example today, would they say such things?” Would they look at us living in the world, say as this author did, “They are known and marked out by their confessedly striking manner of life?”

In a world where we are told to blend in, to fit in, not to stand out but to be one of the crowd, one of the pack, despite far-flung claims of fostering individuality, this epistle reminds us that that the Christians did not desire nor strive to fit in. They strove, rather, to live lives marked out by their singularity of purpose and focus.

Raymond Ibrahim — Islamic Jizya: ‘Protection’ from Whom?

Raymond Ibrahim clarifies the Islamic practice of demanding the jizya from conquered Christians and other non-Muslims, refuting the obfuscations of modern academicians (and certain Christian leaders).

by Raymond Ibrahim — July 30, 2014

A conquered dhimmi making the annual jizya payment. Note the Muslim pasha and his retinue are fully armed, a battle axe lies at the ready, clearly visible as the hapless dhimmi makes his prostration. The jizya is blood money...

Is jizya—the money non-Muslims historically paid their Muslim conquerors—meant to buy them “protection,” including from outside enemies, as modern Western academics maintain?  Or was it simply extortion money meant to buy non-Muslims their lives, as Islam’s scriptures mandate?

The word jizya appears in Koran 9:29: “Fight those among the People of the Book [Christians and Jews] who do not believe in Allah nor the Last Day, nor forbid what Allah and his Messenger have forbidden, nor embrace the religion of truth, until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued (emphasis added).”

In the hadith, the Messenger of Allah, Muhammad, regularly calls on Muslims to demand jizya of non-Muslims:  “If they refuse to accept Islam,” said the Islamic prophet, “demand from them the jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay jizya, seek Allah’s help and fight them.”

Ramadan: Final Tally

Courtesy of The Religion of Peace.

ISIS Muslim Jihadist proudly holding up two severed heads.*

*The above photo is of Australian Muslim Mohamed Elomar, who traveled from his home country to join ISIS and wage jihad in Syria/Iraq/Greater Levant. A few days ago he mocked the Aussies and tweeted this terrorist threat: "Did you think I would leave your country without leaving a surprise. Fireworks coming up soon keep a close eye."

Ramadan Bombathon   2014 Scorecard Because, if you think all religions are the same, then you haven't been paying attention. 2014 In the name of The Religion of Peace In the name of ANY Other Religion By Way of Anti-Muslim Hate Crime Terror Attacks 272 0 2* Suicide Bombings 37  0 0 Dead Bodies 2429 0 2* Wounded 2028 0 0 (Not all attacks are immediately posted on TROP)

* 2014.07.03 - A Myanmar Muslim was killed by Buddhists on rumor of a rape. (A Buddhist was also killed by Muslims during the same riot). *2014.07.02 - An Arab teen was murdered by Israeli Jews following the kidnap and murder of three Jewish teens.

All 45 Christian Institutions in Mosul Destroyed or Occupied By ISIS

Since taking over Mosul on June 10, ISIS has destroyed, occupied, converted to mosques, converted to ISIS headquarters or shuttered all 45 Christian institutions in Mosul.

Cross removed and replaced with black flag of ISIS - Church in Mosul. 

Photo: AsifJaan via Twitter

Pravmir — July 31, 2014

(AINA) -- The following is the complete list of the Christian institutions in Mosul, grouped by denomination.

Syriac Catholic Church:

1. Syrian Catholic Diocese – Maidan Neighborhood, Mosul
2. The Old Church of the Immaculate – Maidan Neighborhood, Mosul (The church goes back to the eighth century AD)
3. The New Church of the Immaculate – Maidan Neighborhood
4. Church of Mar (Saint) Toma – Khazraj Neighborhood
5. Museum of Mar (Saint) Toma – Khazraj Neighborhood
6. Church of Our Lady of the Annunciation – Muhandiseen Neighborhood
7. Church of the Virgin of Fatima – Faisaliah Neighborhood
8. Our Lady of Deliverance Chapel – Shifaa Neighborhood
9. The House of the Young Sisters of Jesus – Ras Al-Kour Neighborhood
10. Archbishop’s Palace Chapel – Dawasa Neighborhood

World on brink of Third World War – Met. Hilarion of Volokolamsk

"Various countries create and maintain, through mass media, an image of the enemy. And that is one step away from a declaration of global war."

Pravmir — July 31, 2014

Moscow, July 31, Interfax - Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations has expressed concern over the current international situation, claiming that the world has found itself one step away from a global war.

“The current situation is increasingly reminiscent of that in the run-up to the First World War. News programs have turned into frontline news summaries, each day we hear about more and more victims. Yes, so far the conflicts have been on a local scale but whole countries and whole military-political blocs are getting sucked into the militaristic rhetoric,” the metropolitan wrote in an article published in the weekly supplement to the Rossiyskaya Gazeta (Russian Newspaper – Week) newspaper on Thursday.

Polarization has reached a critical point, the author said.

“Various countries create and maintain, through mass media, an image of the enemy. And that is one step away from a declaration of global war,” the article said.