Exiled Archbishop of Mosul: 'I have lost my diocese to Islam; you in the West will also become victims of Muslims'

"You must consider our reality in the Middle East, because you are welcoming in your countries an ever growing number of Muslims. You are in danger... If you do not understand this soon enough, you will become the victims of the enemy you have welcomed in your home."

by Dr. Susan Berry, Breitbart News — August 18, 2014

The exiled Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul, Iraq, is warning westerners about welcoming an increasing number of Muslims into their countries, naively believing that they too believe in democratic principles.

“Our sufferings today are the prelude of those you, Europeans and Western Christians, will also suffer in the near future,” said Archbishop Amel Shimoun Nona in an interview by Corriere della Sera. “I lost my diocese. The physical setting of my apostolate has been occupied by Islamic radicals who want us converted or dead. But my community is still alive.”

Robert Spencer: 5 Ways the Quran Explains Today’s Headlines

I would add a sixth: the Global Persecution of Christians:

Those persecuting Christians in 41 of 50 nations are Muslims; that is, a whopping 82% of all persecution around the globe is being committed by the adherents of Islam — sometimes in Christian majority nations; for example, the Central African Republic which, after the 2013 Islamic takeover, now ranks #16, “severe persecution” (the Christian-majority nation did not even appear in the previous year’s top 50). 

As for the top ten absolute worst nations, where, according to the 2014 World Watch List, Christians suffer “extreme persecution,” nine—that is, 90%—are Muslim.  (Indeed, Open Doors’ global map of Christian persecution can easily be confused with a global map of the Islamic world, with the exception of China (ranked 37, “moderate persecution”) and some sporadic countries dominated by crime and godless tyranny, Columbia, North Korea, etc.). 

Similarly, a recent Morning Star News report listing 2013’s ten most horrific anecdotes of Christian persecution around the world finds that nine out of ten—again, 90%—were committed at the hands of those professing Islam.

Why is Muslim persecution of Christians so universal throughout the entire Islamic world? The commands contained in the Quran are clear about how Christians are to be treated:

Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth [i.e. Islam] among the people of the Book [Jews and Christians], until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. (Quran 9:29)

Kill the mushrikun [unbelievers] wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush. (Quran 9:5)

I will cast terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved, so strike them over the necks, and smite over all their fingers and toes. (Quran 8:12)

What about inter-religious dialogue and Muslim initiatives such as 'A Common Word Between Us and You'? Well, the Quran is quite explicit as to how Muslims should view Christians:

O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in fact] allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you – then indeed, he is [one] of them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrongdoing people. (Quran 5:51)

The classic Quranic commentary by Ibn Kathir explains: “Allah forbids His believing servants from having Jews and Christians as friends, because they are the enemies of Islam and its people, may Allah curse them.” 

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5 Ways the Quran Explains Today’s Headlines

by Robert Spencer, PJ Media — August 16, 2014
 

Nihad Awad of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has claimed ^[2] that “research has shown that anti-Islam prejudice goes down when people interact with ordinary Muslims and have greater knowledge of Islam.” Accordingly, he says, “it might also be a good idea for Americans of other faiths to borrow a Quran from a Muslim friend, neighbor or co-worker. In that way, knowledge may be increased as bonds of friendship are formed.”

Awad is right. Americans should read the Quran. If they did, they would find that it makes sense of a great many recent events that might otherwise remain inexplicable, bereft of clear motive or purpose.

5. The kidnapped aid workers in Syria.

It was revealed Thursday ^[3] that two young aid workers from Italy, Greta Ramelli, 20, and Vanessa Marzullo, 21, were kidnapped in Aleppo by Islamic jihadists. Western non-Muslim analysts routinely cite such stories as evidence of the evil of the jihadis — or else as evidence of how self-defeating their jihad is, if they would even try to drive out of their lands the people who have come there to help.

But the Quran makes the reasoning behind the abductions clear. Islam’s holy book directs Muslims to wage war against unbelievers, killing them by beheading and taking captives who may then be freed or ransomed: 

“Now when ye meet in battle those who disbelieve, then it is smiting of the necks until, when ye have routed them, then making fast of bonds; and afterward either grace or ransom till the war lay down its burdens” (47:4).

Mark Durie - ‘Three Choices’ and the bitter harvest of denial

How dissimulation about Islam is fueling genocide in the Middle East

What follows are key excerpts from a lengthy (4000+ words) article by Dr. Mark Durie, whose books Which God? and The Third Choice should be required reading for all Christians, especially for Orthodox Christian hierarchs, pastors and teachers. An orthodox Anglican with practical experience in Christian-Muslim relations in Australia, Dr. Mark Durie is a trusted voice to heed in these dark times.

I strongly recommend reading carefully and absorbing the full article, as well as Dr. Durie's books. For a shorter summary of the article with comment by Jenny Taylor see here.

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‘Three Choices’ and the bitter harvest of denial: How dissimulation about Islam is fueling genocide in the Middle East

by Mark Durie

In northern Iraq religious genocide is reaching end-game stage.  Islamic State (IS) soldiers, reinforced with military equipment originally supplied by the US, are driving back Kurdish defenders who had been protecting Christians and other religious minorities.  While hundreds of thousands of refugees have been fleeing into Kurdistan, around 40,000 Yazidis and some Christians are trapped on Mount Sinjar, surrounded by IS jihadis.  (Yazidis are Kurdish people whose pre-Christian faith derives from ancient Iranian religious traditions, with overlays and influences from other religions.)...

The IS jihadis are killing the men they capture.  In one recent incident 1500 men were executed in front of their wives and families.  In another incident 13 Yazidi men who refused to convert to Islam had their eyes plucked out, were doused with gasoline and burned alive.  When the men are killed, captured women and children are enslaved to be used for sex, deployed as human shields in battle zones, or sold to be used and abused as their new owners see fit.

The United States has ironically called for greater cooperation.  UN Ambassador, Samantha Power, urged ‘all parties to the conflict’ to allow access to UN relief agencies. She called on Iraqis to ‘come together’ so that Iraq will ‘get back on the path to a peaceful future’ and ‘prevent ISIL from obliterating Iraq’s vibrant diversity’.

Of course it is not ‘vibrant diversity’ which is being wiped out in Iraq, but men, women and children by their tens of thousands.  This is not about the failure of coexistence, and the problem is not ‘conflict’. This is not about people who have trouble getting on and who need to somehow make up and ‘come together’. It is about a well-articulated and well-documented theological worldview hell-bent on dominating ‘infidels’, if necessary wiping them off the face of the earth, in order to establish the power and grandeur of a radical vision of Islam.  

[...]

These events ought to be sobering to the West, not least because thousands of the IS jihadis were raised and bred in the mosques of Europe, North America and Australia, not to mention the madrassas of nations such as Malaysia, Bangladesh and Indonesia.  Having been formed by the theology of radical Islam in their home societies, would-be jihadis are flocking to Syria and Iraq where they seek victory or martyrdom, killing and raping as they go.

Why is this so?  How did the Arab Spring, hailed by so many armchair western commentators as the next best thing for the Middle East, blossom bright red into a torrent of blood?

Part of the answer is that the West is in the grip of theological illiteracy.  It has stubbornly refused to grasp the implications of a global Islamic revival which has been gaining steam for the best part of a century.  The Islamic Movement looks back to the glory days of conquest as Islam’s finest hour, and seeks to revive Islamic supremacy through jihad and sacrifice.  It longs for a truly Islamic state – the caliphate reborn – and considers jihad to be the God-given means to usher it in.

Christian Refugee from Mosul, Iraq: 'Our Neighbors Drove Us Out' (VIDEO)

This personal report details a phenomenon likely to be repeated as the Islamic State Caliphate grows in strength. As the IS moves into new areas and cities/villages, Muslims — whether motivated by fear or by agreement with the Quranic purity of the Islamic State and its application of sharia and the Pact of Omar against conquered Christians — will themselves take up arms against and persecute their Christian neighbors. They will side with the 'strong horse' and with the commands of their 'god' and their 'prophet'.

The personal report below is virtually identical to reports from the early 20th century in Turkey, as well as contemporary reports from Syria, Egypt, Pakistan, and virtually all Muslim countries today, as per this post:

'We knew our Muslim neighbours all our lives...We had excellent relations. It never occurred to us that Muslim neighbours would betray us.'


Christian Refugee from Mosul: 'Our Neighbors Drove Us Out'
Video and translation from MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute).
August 11, 2014

Implausible Deniability - West's ISIS Terror Hordes in Iraq

"The West knew the sectarian genocide now unfolding in Syria, Iraq, and soon in Lebanon was the inevitable result of their efforts to raise this regional mercenary force."

August 8, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - The US has pledged assistance for victims of and even possible "airstrikes" against terrorists who have surrounded and threaten to eradicate thousands of religious minorities in Iraq. However, the terrorists themselves are a product of US foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa, and instrumental in achieving Western objectives across the region. Punitive strikes and aid to the victims of what is essentially a Western mercenary army is part of maintaining plausible deniability. 

The terror hordes originated from NATO territory and have inundated Syria, Iraq, and now Lebanon. The goal of this well funded, heavily armed, professionally organized mercenary force is clearly to supplant pro-Iranian political and military fronts across Tehran's arc of influence - from Baghdad to Damascus, to Lebanon and Hezbollah along the Mediterranean. In the process, the heavily indoctrinated rank and file have committed horrific atrocities ranging from rape and torture to mass executions and sectarian genocide. While such war crimes have been taking place in Syria since 2011, it is becoming increasingly difficult to cover up similar crimes beyond Syria's borders under narratives of "civil war" linked to the so-called "Arab Spring."

Image: ISIS began its invasion into Iraqi territory from NATO-member Turkey, through Syria and riding in Toyota Hilux trucks - identical to those provided to "moderates" by the US State Department as part of multi-million dollar "non-lethal" aid packages. ISIS did not take these trucks from "moderates," the moderates never existed to begin with. From the beginning, it was the West's plan to raise a mercenary army of sectarian extremists operating under the banner of Al Qaeda. 

Instead, various stories have been used by the West to explain the appearance of ISIS in Iraq, the unprecedented scale of its operations, its convoys of matching vehicles and now military trucks, artillery, and even tanks. While the world is meant to believe ISIS spontaneously rose from the desert and "stole" billions in cash, weapons, and gear, a much simpler and documented explanation exists - Western state sponsorship - and state sponsorship that continues even as the West denounces the monsters of their own creation.

FIGHTERS LEAVING AL QAEDA AFFILIATES TO JOIN ISLAMIC STATE

by Awr Hopkins, Breitbart News — August 12, 2014

Fighters in Yemen and Africa are leaving Al Qaeda affiliates to join Islamic State.

The news has U.S counterterrorism analysts concerned that Islamic State's ability to conquer lands, oil fields, and infrastructure in Syria and Iraq has served to make the group more appealing to fighters who want to be on the winning side.

According to The Washington Post, "the influx" of new fighters is also bad for another reason--it makes Islamic State that much stronger.

The ability of Islamic State to draw fighters away from Al Qaeda is confounding when you consider that the group wasn't even in existence until Mosul was conquered on June 10.

Conversions to Christianity on the Rise in Egypt

“It is not the political power which oppresses us, but directly the kin,” one recent convert was quoted as saying. “If a Muslim is converted, his family and neighbors may beat him, or even kill him, for this amounts to treason.”

And this is because they are taught to do so by Islam, via the unchanging words of Allah and his "prophet":

"If they turn back from Islam, becoming renegades, seize them and kill them wherever you find them." (Quran 4:89)

[In the words of] Allah’s Apostle Muhammad, "If anyone changes his religion from Islam, kill him." (Sahih Bukhari 9.84.57)

AINA via Pravmir — August 10, 2014

The situation of Coptic Christians in Egypt has improved since the 2013 military overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood, and conversions from Islam to Coptic Christianity are on the rise, according to a report that appears on the website of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

“Organizations close to Christians of the East, and to Copts themselves, speak about a rise in the number of conversions to Christianity,” the report stated. “The figure is hard to determine as those who convert may face judiciary follow-ups or deaths if their conversion is revealed in broad day.”

Chaldean Christian Leader: 'A Christian Holocaust is in our Midst'

News of the horrific extent of Muslim persecution of Christians is finally filtering into the mainstream media, but without the proper context for understanding what we are seeing. Order and read the books I have listed on the right hand column of this blog for accessible, in-depth studies that will help you to stand firm in your faith, and to refute those who insist that the evil, false-deity 'Allah' is the same as the One True God — the Holy Trinity. Those who insist that we worship the same God, are also implicitly insisting on a false Jesus, a different gospel, and an unholy spirit (see 2 COR 11:3-4).

The time is coming when we too will be confronted with THE CHOICE: to confess our faith in Jesus Christ openly, facing persecution and death like our brothers and sisters in Iraq, Syria and throughout the Islamic world, or to deny Him who lovingly gave up His life for us on the Cross. 

The brutal and bloody rise of pure, orthodox Islam is a sign for our times, calling us to deep repentance and unwavering faith.

"You will be betrayed... and they will put some of you to death. And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But not a hair of your head shall be lost. By your patience possess your souls." (LK 21:16-19)

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Chaldean Christian leader: ISIS 'Systematically Beheading' Children in Iraq Persecution.org — August 9, 2014 (h/t Creeping Sharia) An Islamic State Caliphate devout follower of Muhammad literally applying Allah's command to behead the infidels:  "I will cast terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved, so strike them over the necks, and smite over all their fingers and toes" (Quran 8:12). Horrific and sickening reports continue to pour in from Iraq of the atrocities committed by the self-proclaimed Islamic State (also called ISIS). The Chaldeans, also known as Assyrians or Syriacs, are an Aramaic-speaking Iraqi community who trace their Christian heritage back nearly 2,000 years. A prominent leader in the Chaldean community describes the horrors of a “Christian Holocaust” in Iraq today, a “living nightmare” almost unimaginable in its cruelty: children being systematically and publicly beheaded, women being raped, and men being hung. He pleaded at the White House for the world community to act in the face of these atrocities to relieve the suffering of the Iraqi people. By Eric Chen 8/6/2014 Iraq (Gospel Herald) – A prominent Christian leader of the Chaldean community unveiled the "systematic beheading of children" and other horrendous crimes committed by ISIS. He said that the Sunni extremists are committing genocide against Christians in Iraq and with the aim to instill the Sharia Law as the law of the land. In the interview with CNN's Jonathan Mann, Chaldean-American businessman Mark Arabo said that the "world hasn't seen an evil like this for generations." "There is a park in Mosul, where [ISIS] they actually beheaded children and put their heads on a stick and have them in the park," he explained. "More children are getting beheaded, mothers are getting raped and killed, and fathers are being hung."

Metropolitan Tikhon: Pastoral Letter Concerning Violence and Extremism in the Middle East

"Rather than feeling helpless in the face of world tragedies, we need to recall our unity with all of mankind and to respond with prayer for the suffering and the departed. In addition, just as the ascetic struggles of the great saints, in their own time and place, have a cosmic effect, so our own effort to purify our own hearts will have an effect on the rest of the world." 

~ Met. Tikhon of the OCA

AXIOS! to His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon, for this wise and sober, yet still heartfelt and deeply compassionate, letter. His practical, pastoral counsel on uprooting anger from our own hearts, bringing peace to our families, and giving alms within our own neighborhoods — in short, sanctifying our lives right where God has planted us — flows from his ascetical and monastic formation. Ours must be an "Activism of the Heart," in which repentance and contrition changes us first, and thus brings light, life and hope to this weary world which is rushing towards its end.

For more on this profound line of monastic thought and praxis, see this recent timely post over at Lessons from a Monastery: “By Withdrawing from the World, One is United with the World”

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Pastoral Letter from His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon to the Clergy, Monastics and Faithful of the Orthodox Church in America Concerning Violence and Extremism in the Middle East

OCA.org — August 10, 2014

“We have preferred profane and material things to the commandment of love, and because we have attached ourselves to them we fight against men, whereas we ought to prefer the love of all men to all visible things and even to our own body.”

(St Maximus the Confessor, The Ascetic Life, 7)

Beloved in Christ,

Our hearts have been deeply wounded by the stories and images of war and fighting throughout the world. The recent incidents of violence in the Middle East loom as tragic examples of an increasing disrespect for humanity and disregard for human life and dignity. The Orthodox Church in America joins those in the Middle East, in North America, and around the world who have raised their voices against the inhumane actions we are witnessing. We join all who condemn this blatant disregard for human dignity and life.

The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East, whose ministry in the Middle East consistently witnesses to the Gospel of love of Jesus Christ and the Gospel’s command to adhere to peace and non-violence, has issued a strong statement condemning the attacks against Christians in Mosul, expressed in “coercion forcing them to change their belief, pay a tax or leave their homes, while having their property confiscated.” The statement calls on “states that provide fundamentalist groups with any direct or indirect foreign support to immediately stop all forms of material, logistic, military and moral support.”

The Orthodox Church in America expresses its solidarity with the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch in its striving for non-violence and peace. We also express our solidarity with all the suffering Christian communities of Mosul, whose expulsion is ending the Christian presence there after nearly two thousand years.

Archimandrite Christophoros Atallah: Christians are aware that they will be persecuted in this world

The title sounds Christocentric and authentic, but as one reads through the entire text, one finds this to be a deeply conflicted message, mixing Christian teachings with Islamic nationalistic statements such as this:

"...These countries are our countries, the land is our land, the holy places are our places, and we are a fundamental part of their civilization. It is also because they want to rob our countries and our people of their civilizational, religious, spiritual and cultural identity, including the culture of Muslim-Christian religious coexistence in its Eastern Orthodox dimension... 

"We must likewise work persistently to hold on to and defend our national and ecclesiastical rights, no matter the obstacles that face us, demanding that we compromise our legitimate right to establish the State of Palestine with its capital in Jerusalem and a revival in our national Orthodox church through the participation of the people of this country in managing the affairs of their church and preserving a living Christian presence in our Holy Land."

See the torment caused by Islam? How it distorts Christian thinking into believing Islam, Fatah and Hamas are partners to the Church?  The idea expressed above of "the culture of Muslim-Christian religious coexistence in its Eastern Orthodox dimension" is incoherent nonsense born of centuries of Christians living as third-class dhimmis under Islamic oppression. A spiritual osmosis has taken place, the people of Jesus now infected with the germ of jihad, the equating of religion with territory, of linking a national Orthodox church with Palestinian Statehood with a Jerusalem capitol, of Christians as victims defending their "rights."

The very Muslims whom Archimandrite Christophoros thinks are his thoughtful ("tafkiri") allies today in creating a "State of Palestine," will tomorrow join the "takfiri" Islamic State Caliphate (or its successor) in finishing the final cleansing of the Middle East of all Christians, per the command of the prophet of Islam himself, Muhammad, recorded in a 'sound' hadith:

"I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslims." (Sahih Muslim 4366)

But not all is bad! This is a message with much to commend it; so much is written and phrased so perfectly, yet portions of it startle us as completely anti-Christian. It is at best a minefield, which I fear will confuse the faithful who may come across it without any benefit of context.

In sharp contrast to Archimandrite Christophoros' call for syncretistic nation building, seizing Jerusalem, and establishing a Palestinian State in alliance with Hamas, recall the description of first century Christians as recounted in the Epistle to Diognetus:

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

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...

God help us to avoid the infinite traps and temptations being spread by the enemy of mankind!

Archimandrite Christophoros Atallah: Christians are aware that they will be persecuted in this world

Notes on Arab Orthodoxy via Pravmir — August 9, 2014

O Christians of the Middle East,

“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me” (John 14:1).

When we look at what is happening in Syria, Iraq, Gaza [where Hamas is launching missiles at Israeli civilians from Orthodox churches] and many of the countries around us and the international silence accompanying it, which is more deadly than instruments of death and destruction, we are confronted with a single fact: the breakdown of the moral, ethical, spiritual and humanitarian order in our world. This is the catastrophe.

The Governor Pontius Pilate, who knew that Jesus had been unjustly handed over for death by the Jews, believed that by washing his hands before the people he would exculpate himself from the sin and crime of giving the Lord and Savior over to death. Today this Pilate-like thinking and behavior has spread and become an approach and an attitude (making an excuse of sin) as though a power that is satanic wants to replace light with darkness, truth with falsehood, religion with ignorance, humanity with bestiality, things divine with things satanic. However, beloved, no matter how much the darkness rules, falsehood and injustice spread, ignorance becomes general, the barbarity of killing and destruction grows and Satan rules the world through people whose consciences are darkened and whose hearts are filled with hate, no matter how much evil conquers, there is an end to all this history. As long as there are hearts that believe in God, that know the truth, and that live love, the resurrection is inevitably coming.