Fighting to survive as a church

On August 23rd, the patriarchs of the four ancient churches of Northern Iraq gathered for a unique and historic joint service in a church in Dahuk, the major town in the area of Kurdistan to which most of the estimated 670,000 newly displaced have fled, including thousands of Christians. In a rare demonstration of unity, the four patriarchs fielded questions from the audience: five displaced Christians had been selected to address the church leadership, and they used the occasion to vent their anger, frustration and despair, but also to call for concrete solutions to their dilemma of now living away from their ancient homeland, seemingly without any hope of ever returning.
In a unique display of resolve, but also despair, the patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Aphrem the Second, called on the Christians to defend themselves once Islamic State is defeated and the Christians are allowed to return to their ancient homeland on the Nineveh Plain.
The pain and agony was felt in every word that evening!

Kim Hartzner, MD, Managing Director

15 / 21

The Patriarch, in his answers to the audience, put the blame for the current situation on the local politicians representing the various Christian churches, but also called for unity among all to address the situation, and again encouraged the Christians to take up arms and defend themselves:
“Of course we feel responsibility for these people, it is our job to take care of them. First, this West who is called Christian, is not interested in what will happen with us, with what we will do. The West is only concerned about the consequences to the economic situation. And for a few days Obama he intends to protect American interests, so If Islamic State will come here and hurt American interests in Erbil (capital of Kurdistan) he will come and hurt them. He did not care about what will happen to the Christians. Don’t think America or Britain will come and fight for us. Don’t be cheated to think they will defend us, the Christians. From the first day we went to the United States, we have sent letters to a lot of important persons. We attended meetings to the assembly of presidents, you can see these letters on the Internet .
We told them what we want. Also I met with several presidents in Lebanon who attended a meeting there, and I told them that we wish for our people to go back to our houses, to our land, we need for our people to be protected…….

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