CHRISTIANITY is facing an “existential threat” in parts of the Middle East, where communities have dwindled to mere shadows of their former selves, a new report has warned.
Nearly 75 years on from the creation of the state of Israel, Christians in the West Bank have declined from 18 per cent to less than one per cent; and, in Syria, the number of Christians has plummeted from ten per cent in 2011 — before the war began — to less than two per cent, the study of Christian persecution by the RC charity Aid to the Church in Need found.
Its report, Persecuted and Forgotten, says: “More than five years on from the military defeat of Daesh, the threat of a full-scale resurgence has by no means disappeared. A revival of jihadism has the potential to deliver a knock-out blow for Christianity in its ancient heartland. This is not only because the numbers of Christians are now so low but also because their confidence is so fragile; they may have made it through times of genocide but, in the absence of security, the draw of migration is — for many of them — all but irresistible.
“That desire to leave is magnified in a cultural setting which remains antipathetic to Christians. Treated as second-class citizens, discriminated against at school and in the workplace, poor pay or joblessness trigger many to seek a life outside the country.”
An “existential threat now extends to parts of Israel and Palestine”, the report warns.
The study looked at 24 countries where violence against Christians was particularly high, and found evidence to suggest a deepening of persecution in the past two years. In three-quarters of the countries, oppression or persecution of Christians had increased, researchers found.
In Africa, in all the countries surveyed, the situation for Christians was uniformly worse than in 2020, owing to rising Islamist extremism.
The RC Bishop of Ondo, in Nigeria, the Rt Revd Jude Arogundade, said that a genocide was taking place in his country. In the 18 months between January 2021 and June 2022, more than 7600 Christians were killed in Nigeria.
Speaking at the launch of the report this week, Bishop Arogundade said: “There is a concerted effort to drive Christians out of their lands by various means, including kidnapping and killing of lay people and priests, stealing land belonging to Christians and attacking churches during services.”
On Pentecost Sunday this year, in an attack on St Francis Xavier’s, in Owo, Ondo State, during mass, about 40 people were killed. Attackers had disguised themselves as worshippers to get into the service.
An associate priest of the church, Fr Andrew Adeniyi Abayomi, said: “The world has turned away from Nigeria. A genocide is taking place, but no one cares. Nearby security personnel and police failed to come to our rescue, even though the attack lasted at least 20 minutes.”
In Eritrea, where people in the Tigray region have endured a war for two years, the report says: “Eritrean troops stand accused of a campaign of ethnically motivated ‘cultural cleansing’, reportedly participating in massacres of Ethiopian Christians, such as the one at Aksum, as well as destroying ancient monasteries and church buildings.”
Aksum is believed by many to house the Ark of the Covenant. Amnesty International later verified the reports of a massacre at Aksum.
ACN said it had also received reports of nuns being raped during the conflict.
Christians in Asia are also being persecuted at the hands of authoritarian states, with harassment of Christians in China one of the worst examples.
“In varying degrees, from tightening constraints in Vietnam to an almost total ban in North Korea, state authoritarianism restricts — or even strangulates — believers’ ability to worship freely,” the report found.
ACN said that, despite the evidence of rising persecution against Christians, the West continued to deny that Christians are the most persecuted faith group, owing to “cultural misperception”, something that has been described by the Chaldean Archbishop of Erbil, in Northern Iraq, Mar Bashar Warda, as “political correctness”.
ACN has designated 23 November as “Red Wednesday”: a day to campaign for those persecuted for their religious beliefs. Churches are invited to pray for the persecuted Church, and to light up their buildings in red. A petition to urge the UK Government to put pressure on the Nigerian government to bring those responsible for the Pentecost Sunday attacks and other atrocities to justice has also been launched.
acnuk.org/persecuted-and-forgotten