Chaldean Archbishop: Christian Persecution Leads to ‘Many Thousands’ of Converts

The National Catholic Register ^ | 12/3/19 | Ed Pentin

[marshmallow]

Hungarian government sponsors a conference that brought together men and women who are on the front lines in protecting Christians around the world.

BUDAPEST — The persecution of Christians in Iraq has led to “many thousands” of Muslims converting to the faith in the country, according to the newly appointed archbishop of Mosul.

Chaldean Archbishop Najib Mikhael Moussa, a Dominican and Mosul native appointed to the formerly ISIS-occupied archdiocese in January, said that “many thousands of Muslims discovered the Person of Jesus Christ” after the “kind of violence” Christians faced there — persecution that led the faithful to become “stronger and stronger” in their faith.

“Yes, we lost everything except our faith in Jesus Christ,” Archbishop Moussa told participants at the Second International Conference on Christian Persecution in Budapest. ISIS occupied Mosul from 2014 to 2017, during which they committed many atrocities and drove almost every Christian from the ancient, once-Christian majority city. Only a handful of Christians have since returned.

To help the persecuted, Archbishop Moussa went on, “one must help the persecutors first,” by “releasing” Islamists from being “prisoners, real slaves of ideology,” through giving them the Gospel so they can “discover the God of love and help them get away from death and violence.”

He also underlined the importance of preserving the region’s patrimony of Christianity that dates back 2,000 years — the “faith, liturgy, history, our mother tongue, our manuscripts, our documentation” — otherwise, “the tree will die if separated from its roots.”

[Salman]

It was so in the period just before the Roman Empire went Christian.

[Cronos]

From the blood of martyrs

[BlackVeil]

This is inspirational.