Posted on 04/30/2002 11:26:55 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
Outraged by the protracted standoff between Israelis and Palestinians at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, a considerable number of Arab Christian clergymen – including some heads of various churches – are publicly condemning not only Jews and Israel, but Christians in the West – especially in the United States – for siding with Israel.
Here, as translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, are recent statements made by several Arab Christian clergy. MEMRI is an independent, non-profit organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle East.
Attacks on Christians in the West
Father Manuel Musalam, head of the Latin Church in Gaza, told Palestinian Authority television:
Therefore I, the Christian Palestinian, say in all rage and daring to the Christians of the world: You are loathsome! You are contemptible! You are cowards! – because you cannot carry the message of Jesus in your hearts. The message of Jesus is one of love, sacrifice, mercy, life, and manhood, and these Christians of the world have no mercy, no compassion, no manliness, no sacrifice. I do not mean only towards us, but even towards the Jews, as not only do the Jews kill us – we also kill them, because we are in a war of self-defense…
We – and I say this brutally, because he who remains silent is Satan – are facing the filthy Christians of the West. … We hear that the American Congress is demanding that Bush unleash Israel to slaughter the Palestinians. What kind of Christian is this?! This is not Christianity; it is not even paganism. This is Christianity of the jungle. Our New Testament is not their New Testament, our Jesus is not their Jesus, our [Church of the] Nativity is not their [Church of the] Nativity, and our peace is not their peace. I will say still more: Our God is not their God …
Father Musalam voiced similar sentiments at a meeting between heads of church in Gaza City and a delegation of Muslim clerics from the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Religious Endowments:
During the same meeting, Bishop Alex, head of the Roman Orthodox Bishopric of Gaza, said: "Real Christianity means love and harmony, and it exists only in Palestine and the Holy Land. In contrast, Western Christianity is false. Anyone who claims he is a Christian but has no love or tolerance in his heart is no Christian."
Condemnations of Protestantism and the American political leadership were voiced by the Egyptian Coptic Church as well, which typically enjoys good relations with the West via the Coptic communities in the U.S., Canada, and Australia. In an article titled, "Oh Mr. Bush, Are You Christian or Crusader?" Coptic priest Marcus 'Aziz Khalil wrote:
If only God would intervene to defend the world from these enemies of peace. Although they swathe themselves in sheep's clothing, they are wolves seeking to kill the flock. … We Christians of the East, who in the past refused to stand by the Crusaders and stood by our Muslim brethren, are also opposed to the negative deeds of the Western governments biased in favor of Israel despite its arrogance and even though it damages the holy sites. We say to Mr. Bush: During your term, Jesus' name is disgraced by the attacks on the holy places. Are you a Christian, Mr. Bush? I doubt it. Perhaps you are a Crusader. God alone knows.
Egyptian Shura Council member Dr. Nabil Luka Babawi, an expert in criminal law and a Copt, attacked President Bush in an article titled "Judas Is Back":
Babawi published another article in the Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram slamming his fellow Copts living in the West for their failure to support the Palestinians:
Elias 'Awwad, head of the Palestinian Roman Orthodox Church, said, "The Zionist movement controls European and American public opinion … For this reason, we witness a weakness in the defense of the Christian holy sites on the part of America and the European countries ... These people [Western Christians] deal first of all with their interests, not their religion. … In my view, they are not Christians, because they do not act according to the precepts of the New Testament. …"
The Bishop of the Assyrian Orthodox Church of Mt. Lebanon and Tripoli, George Saliba, stated the following regarding Christian leaders in the West:
Jesus once said to the Jews: "You are the sons of Satan, and you do the will of your father Satan." They answered: "No, we are not the sons of Satan, we are the sons of Abraham." He replied to them: "Had you been the sons of Abraham you would be acting [in accordance with] the acts and precepts of Abraham. Therefore you are the sons of Satan. …"
Jews throughout the generations
Father Manuel Musalam compared the armed Palestinians in the Church of the Nativity to Jesus on the cross:
The Jew has a principle from which we suffer and which he tries to impose on people: the principle of the "gentiles." To him, the gentile is a slave. They [the Jews] give the [Palestinians] working in Israel only a piece of bread, and tell them: "This piece of bread that you eat is taken from our children, and we give it to you so you will live not as free men on your land, but as a proletariat and slaves in Israel, to serve us …" The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are based on this principle, and anyone who reads the Protocols feels that we are in this period with the Jews. …
The Church, the Pope, the Christians, and the New Testament clearly state that, according to Christian belief, the ones who killed Jesus are the Jews, and there is no way to deny or renounce this… The Jews are the ones who killed Jesus; after him, [they killed] the Christians, and after them, the Muslims. Now they are again killing both the Muslims and the Christians. Throughout history, we have seen that the Jews persecuted the Christians at the beginning of the Church, and now they are again persecuting the Church, and Islam …
As is known throughout the world, even in our time, they always accuse the Christians … The case of Pope Pius XII is bad enough. They accused him of terrible things… They attack the Church because the Pope was not as strict as they wanted in protecting the Jews from Nazism – while the Jews found shelter only in the Church and with Christian families …
In a letter to the editor of the Egyptian Coptic weekly Watani, Egyptian Coptic clergyman John Jirjis wrote:
The Coptic priest Marcus 'Aziz Khalil wrote:
The Hezbollah television station Al-Manar gave its viewers an exclusive broadcast of a lecture on "Christianity's View of the Jews" by the Bishop of the Assyrian Orthodox Church of Mt. Lebanon and Tripoli, George Saliba, at an Islamic institute for religious studies. He said:
1. I think the Jew's perspective is pragmatic. Any friend is a friend. They don't at present encourage "proselytizing" (to say the least), but are aware of and glad about the strong pro-Israel sentiment.
2. If by pinging me you're referring to my own sort of perspective, I think you mis-state Biblical prophecy. Israel's rejection of her Messiah was, as God predicted, a serious apostasy bringing serious consequences (Deuteronomy 18:15ff.:; 28:15ff.). But her future renewal to repentance and acceptance of Messiah Jesus are guaranteed by God (Jeremiah 31), and will mean the glory of Israel, as —
The mountain of the house of Yahweh Will be established as the chief of the mountains, And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it. 3 And many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, To the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways And that we may walk in His paths." For the law will go forth from Zion And the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem. 4 And He will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples; And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they learn war
Isaiah 2:2b-4
Does that sound like metaphysical extinction to you? It doesn't to me.
Israel's rejection of her Messiah was, as God predicted, a serious apostasy bringing serious consequences (Deuteronomy 18:15ff.:; 28:15ff.). But her future renewal to repentance and acceptance of Messiah Jesus are guaranteed by God (Jeremiah 31), and will mean the glory of Israel
— is an utter bafflement to me. I'm not sure how language could be clearer. That and your newbie status is making bring the word "troll" to mind. With good reason?
Dan
Here is the Lord Jesus' position: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6).
Here is the apostle Peter's position: "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men [sc. than that of Jesus] by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).
Believing Jesus as I do, and therefore the Bible, that is also my position.
I mean I can acknowledge the brutality of the Israelis--and that at times they have gone overboard in hunting down terrorists--and they've been unjust to the many Palestinian Arabs who've had nothing to do with the terrorism-- but wow, look what they've been responding to! A whole people, and indeed a whole world religion, who hates Jews with such unspeakble violence, it sends its children out to kill themselves while murdering innocent civilians--then has the gaul to call such vile murderers "martyrs."
Where is the Christian Arab condemnation of suicide murder?
I recognize none of these Orthodox churches listed in the article, except the Copts with whom we are not in communion and do not accept. The 13 Orthodox churches in the Seattle-Tacoma area here do not hate the west, while I admit that the Serbian church can be tough on Americans.
We are a very ascetic faith and we do seek non-aquisitive lives. We don't promote this world as a saving one, but try to focus on the next world instead.
Our faith promotes humility and subservience to others and our priests are excellent role models. I belong to the Orthodox Church of America and we pray for the president and armed forces of this country at every single liturgy on Sunday. I have been present at liturgies given in the Russian, Serbian, and Romanian Orthodox churches here and they all prayed the exact same way.
On the Sunday after the attacks of 9-11 our priest gave a sermon, "Bless My Enemies".
I have never heard of the Roman Orthodox Church and I appeal to my fellow Orthodox to explain to me what it is. We have gained a recent surge of popularity and many churches using the word "orthodox" in their name have arisen as of late.
A new bloodshed in the Middle East arouses a special anxiety in the Russian Orthodox Church. The faithful of the Moscow Patriarchate are concerned for the safety of the peaceful citizens of various nationalities and faiths living in the Holy Land. At the same time, we are concerned for the fate of the great biblical shrines located in that region.
By virtue of its history and geographical location the Holy Land is a place where people of various ethnic backgrounds and followers of the three religions – Christianity, Judaism and Islam have co-existed. Consequently, only one national or religious group cannot prevail in this sacred land. The Holy Land must become a hospitable home for everybody, not only the Israeli and the Palestinians, but any person. Christian, Muslim and Judaic shrines should be preserved there with respect for the legitimate rights of every inhabitant of that land and every pilgrim who wishes to visit freely the places of worship.
Today the Holy Land has been blasphemously defiled with enmity and stained with blood. We mourn every victim, condemning violence against civilians. We, who have survived many wars and terrorist actions, are horrified by the killing of innocent people in Jewish cities and districts. We are especially saddened by the fact that terrorist suicides have been used to kill, which contradicts the teaching of every religion. We also mourn and protest seeing the life and freedoms of peaceful Palestinians trampled upon and their houses and property destroyed.
We are shocked by the abuse of shrines, the use of buildings and territories which belong to religious organizations for violent struggle. There is an extremely acute confrontation developed around the great shrine – the Church of the Nativity of Christ in Bethlehem. Our Church urges that that any violent action in the place of the Nativity of Christ be abandoned and armed people be withdrawn from it.
It causes alarm to see the Arab civil self-organizations structures slackened forcibly and attempts made to deligitimatize the Palestinian National Administration. These actions can lead to a complete breakdown in the negotiation process and to the deprivation of the Palestinian people of their internationally recognized right to create a state of their own. We remind all that the heads of Christian churches in Jerusalem in their joint statement made on March 9 reiterated that it is important that “the Palestinians may enjoy their rights as represented in the International Legitimacy”.
Peace must return to the Holy Land. It is our profound conviction that to this end it is necessary first of all to stop all the hostilities and to return to responsible dialogue. The Palestinian side should unconditionally stop terrorist actions against civilians, while Israel should withdraw its troops from Arab cities and return to the Palestinian leader the freedom to communicate with the world and his compatriots.
We ask the leadership of the Russian Federation, the United States of America, the United Nations and the European Union to exert every effort to establish peace in the conflict region and to ensure there the implementation of the decisions made by the world community.
Any further escalation of the bloodshed will not only involve destabilization of the situation throughout the Middle East, but also create a real threat of a clash between civilizations in other regions. If the conflicting sides do not show the will for peace or prove unable to cope with the situation, the world community can and must increase the degree of its involvement in the peace process in the Middle East so that the suffering of civilians may end and international stability may be protected, as was the case in many other recent conflicts. It should be borne in mind that the Holy Land is a property of all humanity and we must together share responsibility for its fate and the fate of its inhabitants.
Information Service of the Serbian Orthodox Church 13 April 2002
"We equally deeply regret that innocent Jewish children suffer on the streets and intersections of the Holy City of Jerusalem and other Israeli cities and that innocent Palestinian children suffer in the surrounded settlements of Judea, Samaria and Galilee."
Rest is here
That's incorrect, actually. The Coptic Church and the Assyrian Church are not Eastern Orthodox Christians and are not in communion with us.
...and the Orthodox, by their structure or lack thereof, are notoriously nationalistic and always clothe their natinonalism in religion.
Oh, I see. You're just an Orthodox-hating bigot vomiting forth lies.
And Orthodox churches hate the West, for cultural reasons.
And your lies server your master well.
May God forgive you for your words and thoughts.
You will note that the above writing, from 1998, is published on an Orthodox website and was written by an Orthodox Christian. He was persecuted heavily by CAIR after it was published and you can see evidence of this by doing a simple google search of his name. They called for him to be fired from his job.
By our faith we are required to love all. But it is the Orthodox, above all, who knew well before the rest of America, about the joys of being hated by Islam.
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1992:
The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People: When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People, "the first to hear the Word of God." The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God's revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews "belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ", "for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable."
We will celebrate our Pascha this coming Sunday, rather than Easter as the rest of you may have, because we celebrate the resurrection of Christ timed on the passover celebrated by the Jews.
We also church women after childbirth, a ritual we gained from Judaism.
Our churches are elaborate in decor and filled with symbolism and ritual, based on the Jewish temples.
Because our faith is ancient and we change nothing, you would find that much of our faith is actually very close to the Jewish faith, with the exception of our worship of Christ as the son of God.
On this rare occasion, I agree with Larry. Knowing how the Palestinian Authority lies about everything, why are we suddenly crediting them with telling the truth. If the Palis said that the sun rises in the East, I would assume that by some miracle the sun has started rising in the West. We notice a reference to both Latin and Roman clergy, which are terms normally used in the Middle East to refer to Western Rite Roman Catholics, so at least one of these terms is misused.
We know that there are some RC clergy under Palestinian rule who publicly side with the terrorists, but as a Catholic I take my ideas on truth from the Bible, the Pope, and the Ecumenical Councils. The Pope is, you may remember, a Western Christian himself.
The Copts are suffering terrible persecution in their ancestral Egyptian homeland (they are the descendants of the ancient Egyptians, the Egyptian Arab majority are immigrant interlopers). They are Monophysites, unless they have changed this position, and are obviously less connected theologically with the Eastern Orthodox than the Orthodox are to their fellow Trinitarian Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants. Again, all Christians under Islamist rule are dhimmi hostages, and anything they may say has to be regarded in the light of that reality.
In 1984 the Roman Orthodox Church was established as a Western Rite Orthodox Church...
From here
Certainly these people are not Eastern Orthodox Christians.
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