Posted on 06/15/2016 9:23:07 AM PDT by marshmallow
In a joint statement, Syriac patriarchs said 'the wound of forced emigration is still bleeding'
Syriac patriarchs, marking the two-year anniversary since ISIS expelled Christians from a large part of Iraq, denounced “the ethno-religious genocide” of their people and called for the liberation of those areas.
Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan and Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch in a joint statement, stressed that “the wound of forced emigration is still bleeding.”
“Two years passed since the uprooting of our Syriac people from the land of our ancestors in Mosul and the Nineveh Plain, following the criminal act which amounts to an ethno-religious genocide, committed by ISIS and other terrorist groups,” the patriarchs said.
“On June 10, 2014, our people were forced to leave Mosul. On the eve of August 7 of the same year, the uprooting continued and our people were forced to leave … other villages and towns of the Nineveh Plain,” the prelates stated.
In all, about 150,000 people were uprooted and fled to the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq and neighboring Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.
Noting that ISIS forces consider as infidels “all those who do not share their religion or believe in their confessional doctrines,” the two leaders denounced the atrocities against non-Muslims in the region. They also welcomed the March genocide declaration of ISIS’s actions by US Secretary of State John Kerry and other countries.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicherald.co.uk ...
I believe that Church has the same problem with ISIS as Catholics had with Joseph Stalin. -Tom
Michael Moran- When told the Pope thought Stalin should stop repressing Catholics under his yoke, Stalin famously asked, "The Pope? How many divisions has he got?"
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