Posted on 07/22/2014 11:41:36 AM PDT by NYer
Islamic militants have seized a monastery in northern Iraq, kicking out its Christian monks as well as Christian residents of Mosul.
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ISIS) insurgents stormed the ancient Mar Benham monastery in the Christian town of Qaraqosh Sunday, near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, which was overrun by ISIS on 10 June.
Mar Benham is a 4th century monastery run by the Syriac Catholic church.
A member of the Syriac clergy said the monks pleaded to be allowed to save some of the monastery’s relics but the ISIS fighters refused and ordered them to leave on foot with only the clothes on their back.
“You have no place here anymore, you have to leave immediately,” one of the militants told the monks, according to the clergyman.
The monks then walked several kilometers along a road and were eventually picked up by Kurdish Peshmerga fighters who drove them to Qaraqosh, AFP reported Monday.
Christian families in the area said that as well as the monks there may have been another nine people living in the monastery.
This is the latest move by ISIS, which is trying to create a caliphate in north eastern Syria and northern Iraq, a Salafist-orientated Islamist state, which follows an extreme anti-western interpretation of Islam, promotes religious violence and regards anyone with a different interpretation of religion as infidels and apostates.
Over the weekend hundreds of families from minority religions fled Mosul, a once multi-cultural, cosmopolitan city, which is the second largest in Iraq.
Leaders of Iraq’s Chaldean church said that Mosul is now virtually emptied of Christians for the first time in almost two millennia.
The ISIS insurgents issued an ultimatum to all Christians that they had until 19 July to either convert to Islam, leave or pay a special tax. If they don’t comply “then there is nothing to give them but the sword,” read the ominous ISIS threat.
Other groups, who have been persecuted in the Mosul area, include Yazidis, Shabak and Shiite Turkmen populations.
Mosul Christians are mostly Assyrians, or Chaldean’s, known as the Church of the East and are an eastern rite of the Catholic Church.
But ISIS’s treatment of Shia Muslims has been much worse than their treatment of Christians. 13 Shia mosques and shrines have been destroyed and there are reports of Shiites being held captive for ransom, repeatedly beaten and in some cases murdered.
In the evening of Sunday July 20th, an air-launched missile struck the Franciscan monastery in Yacubiyah, a village located not far from the Turkish border in the Orontes Valley in north-west Syria. The building belonging to the Friars Minor of the Custody of the Holy Land was severely damaged. Fortunately, there were no deaths.
Several photos taken Monday morning, July 21st, of what remains of the Franciscan monastery in Yacubiyah, in north-west Syria. (1/3)
(g.s./c.g.) – On Sunday evening, July 20th, an air-launched missile struck the Franciscan monastery in Yacubiyah, a village located not far from the Turkish border in the Orontes Valley in north-west Syria. The building belonging to the Friars Minor of the Custody of the Holy Land was severely damaged. According to a notice from Fra Pizzaballa, Custos of the Holy Land, Fra Dhiya Azziz, who was working inside the monastery when the missile struck, reported that he was uninjured, other than a few blows to the head. “Fortunately, when the missile fell the friar was not in his room, which was completely destroyed,” stated Fra Pizzaballa, who then repeated the call to pray for peace in Syria and the Middle East.
In spite of the damages caused by the war in Syria, little acts of solidarity and fraternity among believers of different communities continue. There is no shortage of testimony, such as that of Feras Lufti, another Syrian friar of the Custody of the Holy Land, currently in Damascus. “For the last several weeks, Aleppo has been in grave crisis: there is almost no water,” reports Lufti. “People sometimes have to wait for hours to fill their containers with water for drinking or bathing. We are fortunate to have wells in our monasteries, and we can distribute the water to everyone, Christian and Muslim, without distinction. One day when we had finished drawing water, an elderly person came to ask for more. He was a Muslim. He came, in spite of the great effort expended due to his age, not for himself but for his neighbor, a Christian who was very ill.”
Father Feras cites another example. “Another time, here in the capital, I was in the home of a Christian lady who had died a little earlier. Her family and friends sent for me to pray with them. After the prayer, when I was about to leave, a man stopped me. From the way he expressed himself, I immediately understood he was a Muslim. He was very emotional and he cried. He told me that he had prayed for the soul of the departed with two suras (short chapters from the sacred text) from the Koran and asked me if God would accept his prayer for this good soul. I asked him, ‘Why did you pray for her?’ He replied that the deceased had taken care of his grandchildren and fed them. It turned out that this man’s daughters, widowed because of the war, were refugees in Damascus and had not been able to find a place to live except in the Christian Quarter. There they found a solidarity among women that they had not expected. I saw him later in the church, accompanied by his two daughters.”
Ping!
They have as much tolerance as a liberal.
You imagine ISIS will try to come up through Mexico and do the same thing here? If so, I bet 0 and his team are trying thir damnesf to find a way to strip them of thir guns before they arrive here.
The persecution continues. It will only get worse. Christians need to remember that they will hate us, because they hate the name of the Only Begotten Son.
Actually, 0 and his team are doing their damndest to strip US of our guns before they get here, after all he has to protect his people.
bttt
I suspect what ISIS will do in this country is send groups to attack and occupy small towns, schools and/or churches full of congregants. Then, as response forces approach, they start shooting, a la Beslan.
Plus... I suspect they’re already here in large numbers.
> I suspect what ISIS will do in this country is send groups to attack and occupy small towns, schools and/or churches full of congregants. Then, as response forces approach, they start shooting, a la Beslan.
If they try that in our church there will be a lot of dead Muslims laying around all over the place. Half our congregation is pack’in and a good percentage of us either have military training or are ex-LEOs or both. They will be surprised when we aren’t afraid of them as they expectedt and fire at them from cover and then take own their weapons and use them against them.hell I may even put on one of their black robes and head covers and walk up right behind them and blow a few to hell...lol
They have as much tolerance as a liberal.
Liberals will continue to tolerate and like Muslims as long as the Muslims attack Christians and Jews. When the Muslims turn on the atheistic/agnostic liberals, there will be no one left to defend them. They should learn a bit of history from WWII.
Good map. Hell I’m workin on a suspected one at this moment...: )
> Actually, 0 and his team are doing their damndest to strip US of our guns before they get here, after all he has to protect his people.
US is what I meant...lol
So, have the ISIS leaders been invited to pray at the Vatican yet?
The criminal psychos gathering in one place. Plenty of work for our MOABs.
ISIS would be for a very, very RUDE AWAKENING. Americans are ARMED to the TEETH.
They could very well start a shooting war and take the terrorists by surprise.
We need a new truth campaign about what the Muzzies are really up to abroad and here in the U.S. you’d be shocked t how many LIVs I talk to that have absolutely no clue that an invasion is underway. If we can just get the Millenials to look up from their cell phones they’ll listen. Maybe its time to build a trivia app for “guess which one of Obama’s statement is the truth or a lie” (of course 97 % + would be lies so you might have to use another personality. Have to reward them with a bell or fart sound depending on which answer they provide. Hey we’re gonna have to get creative...: )
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.