The Apostle, St. Thaddaeus.
Posted on 01/29/2005 6:45:51 PM PST by Destro
Iraqi Christians flourished long before Muslims
By Steve Gushee
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 28, 2005
The kidnapping of a Catholic bishop in Mosul last week is a sad reminder of the once robust but rapidly diminishing Christian community in Iraq.
Insurgents abducted Syrian Catholic Archbishop BasileCasmoussa apparently to frighten Iraqi Christians. They wanted to discourage Christians from voting on Sunday, according to Iraqi bishop, Louis Sako of Kirkuk.
Both bishops are members of a branch of the Roman Catholic Church and one of several small, eclectic church groups in the country.
Christians flourished in Iraq long before anyone, anywhere was Muslim. The advent of Islam in the seventh century began the decline of Christianity in the Middle East. Many are now migrating from the war-torn country. Numbers are hard to verify, but there are significantly fewer than 2 million Christians among the 24 million Iraqis today.
The story of Christianity in and around Iraq is a mixture of history and myth but certainly began in the very early days of the faith.
St. Thaddaeus generally gets credit for bringing the new faith to Assyrians living throughout Mesopotamia, the vast area that is now part of Iraq, Iran and Syria.
Thaddaeus, however, has a murky history. He is also known as the Apostle Jude, the brother of James and author of the New Testament letter of Jude. Thaddaeus is at times linked to a St. Addai who was a missionary to Mesopotamia in the second century. St. Thomas the apostle, Sts. Mari and Aggai are also honored as founders of the faith among the Iraqi people.
In any event, Christianity in Iraq, through what is known as the Assyrian Church of the East, took root very shortly after the faith was born. The language of liturgy there was and, in some cases, remains Aramaic, the tongue Jesus spoke.
By the 16th century, the Assyrian Church, long splintering, began to take its present shape. Some groups remained loyal to the Orthodox tradition, while others, such as the Chaldean Catholic Church, professed loyalty to the Catholic church in the West. Protestants also began to gain a foothold.
The Syrian Catholic Church of which the kidnapped bishop is a member has a significant presence in Iraq. That community traces its roots to the church in Antioch, Syria, where, the Bible says, followers of Christ were first called Christian. It was united with the Roman Catholic Church in 1871.
Christians in Iraq have a rich, ancient and complex history. Sadly, they may not have a future.
The Apostle, St. Thaddaeus.
Sounds like an attempt to bad mouth the saint.
Well, of course there was Christianity in Iraq before there was Islam. Islam only goes back to the 5th century AD. Geeze, if the point is that Christianity is superior to Islam because it's been around longer, than sun worshippers (and there may still be a few around Iraq) are better than the Christians.
Dig the secret hand signal.
Sadly, Christians from the East get a lot of that from America these days.
This article is not a response to historians, but to public culture. You would be surprised how many people believe that Islam was around and all was groovy until evil Christian "Crusaders" came and tried to stamp it out. These are people non-educated by our public non-education system.
Murky as in opaque or hard to see through. Many of the early saints are hard to pin down. It can be difficult to separate fact from ever-changing oral tradition. Many times, accounts of the lives of the saints are contradictory with no reference to help find the truth.
In any case, the writer sounds mostly sympathetic to Iraqi Christians and Christians in general. I wouldn't make too much of the phrase.
This example serves as a critical warning to every Western nation.
I agree. They're victims of the Western Civilization-bashers infesting the "education" system.
ping
Sure the did, and once the fundamentalist Muslims take over Iraq you can say good bye to the Chaldean Catholic Church.
http://i-cias.com/e.o/chaldean.htm
St. Thad was a MASON! Yeah, they CLAIM that Masonry started in the early 18th Century in England, but now we have our proof of the Masonic Cabal though that hand signal.
They can all immigrate here and counterbalance the Muslims in Paterson/Clifton (the area that borders the former), Jersey City and SW Brooklyn.
Interesting site... thanks for the link!
And it should. Wherever islam is allowed to establish roots, it attacks its host like a cancer. I am hard pressed to think of a single country where muslims are present in significant numbers where they are not causing trouble. Islam is not a religion of love. It is a demonic cult...a malignancy of the human spirit.
Wow!
Fascinating...you could be on to something here.
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