Posted on 08/27/2002 7:30:54 PM PDT by kattracks
WASHINGTON, Aug 27, 2002 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- A nun belonging to Iraq's Christian minority that still speaks a dialect of Aramaic, the language of Jesus, was found beheaded in Baghdad, the U.S.-based Chaldean News Agency reported Tuesday.
CNA blamed "Muslim terrorists" for this murder of Sister Cecilia Hanna, 70. According to this wire service of Iraq's Christian exiles, she "was knifed down savagely and her head was severed from the rest of her body by a group of thugs while she was staying in the Chaldean monastery located in Palestine Street in Baghdad."
When asked about this report, a State Department spokeswoman told United Press International Tuesday, "We are not aware of this case."
Shortly after the start of the U.S. war on terrorism, Albert Yelda, a London-based Iraqi opposition leader, had warned that Iraq's ancient Christian community would be made a whipping boy for this conflict.
Yelda told UPI at the time that Iraq's Christians "no longer dare to wear their traditional crosses. They are being called crusaders. They do not receive food rations. They are being told, 'Ask the Americans to feed you. You have no business being here.'"
In an interview, Bishop Ibrahim N. Ibrahim of the Chaldean Church's Eastern diocese in the U.S. referred UPI to the CNA story Tuesday but denied that Christians in Iraq were being singled out for persecution.
However, CNA now ranks Sister Cecilia Hanna among the long line of martyrs in present-day Iraq, whose Christians are the descendants of one of the oldest known civilizations -- Mesopotamia. Collectively, these Christians are known of Assyrians.
Assyians say they were the first nation to adopt Christianity as state religion in 179 AD, more than 100 years before Armenia, which prides itself with being the first Christianized country. The Assyrians also claim were the ones to have built the first Christian churches and to have been the first to translate the New Testament from Greek into their vernacular, which still resembles the language of Christ.
The Chaldean Church, to which the murdered Sacred Heart of Jesus nun belonged, is in union with the Vatican and has approximately one million members, half of whom still live in Iraq, while the rest is spread around the world, Bishop Ibrahim said.
Another 300,000 to 500,000 Assyrian Christians belong to the venerable Church of the East. This denomination was once condemned as heretical because it followed the teachings of Nestorius, the 5th-century bishop of Constantinople, who taught that the Virgin Mary was not the "theodokos," or mother of God, but simply the mother of Jesus Christ.
Nestorian missionaries were the first the reach Mongolia, China and Japan in the 8th century. However, in the 16th century, a segment of the Nestorian Church recognized the Pope and united with Rome, which persecuted the remaining Nestorians for centuries, especially in India.
"Today, our two churches are very close," Bishop Ibrahim said. While not in full communion, they practice Eucharistic hospitality under certain circumstances. In other words, they commune each other's members if they have no church of their own denomination to go to.
"Our liturgies are very similar," Ibrahim explained. "Assyrian services consist of 99 percent liturgy with lots of incense," Yelda said. The difference is that while the Chaldeans allow icons in their churches, the Nestorian sanctuaries are as stark as synagogues. But for a simple cross above the altar, nothing adorns them.
There are other parallels between the Nestorians and the Jews as well. Nestorians call their priest "rabi" (teacher), and like orthodox Jews they eschew mixed marriages. "We want to preserve a Christian people in our country," Yelda explained.
While Bishop Ibrahim allowed that "Christians like all others suffer from the turmoil in Iraq, but are not targeted for persecution," the Chaldean News Service accused Saddam Hussein's government of appeasing "the rising tide of Muslim fanaticism."
This movement, it said, "has at its final goal not only the murder or the complete subjugation of non-Muslims but all those who do not measure up to its doctrine of terror and hatred."
According to Albert Yelda, Saddam Hussein, too, has set out to destroy the venerable Assyrian culture, "not out of any Muslim convictions but because, like every tyrant, he hates minorities."
Yelda described how Saddam had banned the Assyrians' cultural clubs, where their literary language was kept alive. "Saddam had hundreds of Assyrian villages razed, including recently a 2nd-century church."
Yelda also accused Saddam's son, Uday, of raping and killing an Assyrian woman and then making this act public knowledge.
As for the repression of Iraqi Christians in the name of Islam, Yelda said it ran counter the stated wish of the Prophet Mohammed, who was so impressed by the Assyrians' knowledge of medicine and sciences that he issued a Firman, or letter of protection, for them.
The Firman disappeared without trace over 150 years ago.
By UWE SIEMON-NETTO, UPI Religion Correspondent
Copyright 2002 by United Press International.
Oh I think this is exactly the kind of thing Allah might want...not God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit...only the false god Allah.
And BTW Senator, this Catholic knows exactly what islam represents in this world.
I don't believe they all want to kill us. Sorry. It may come down to what you want, but until then, I will hold out for a better way. We have already killed scores of them. It hasn't done much good. Looks like we're fixin' to kill scores more, and I doubt it will do much good in the long haul.
There are plenty of our own who would do the same thing if they could get away with it.
Unless you deny the divinity of Jesus Christ you can not logically deny that Mary is indeed the Mother of God. Do you believe in the Trinity. Is Christ God or isn't He?
I WISH Americans would wise up and treat all organized islam in the U.S. the same way.
The judicial ruling in 1892 was that followers of "impostors such as Mahommet" are not to be granted freedom of religion under the first ammendment but rather "are to be harassed."
I can assure you that the EASTERN ORTHODOX CHURCH knows full well that MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS of its numbers were wiped out by commies and nazis during the last century.
It is estimated that the commies murdered about 850,000 Orthodox Clergy and Church workers( choir leaders, teachers and so forth) throughout Eastern Europe and USSR. Along with 50 or 60 millions of their members in the USSR and the countries behind the iron curtain.
That 45 million number seems awfully low to me.
The nazis also took a big toll on the Orthodox Christian as well. In Yugoslavia alone, Almost 800,000 Serbian O.C. died in concentration camps in Croatia during WWII when Croatia was allied with the nazis. And another 100,000 or more in muslim-nazi Bosnia and nazi-Albanian occupied Kosovo, when muslin nazis were given the green light to butcher Christian Serbs.
As to muslims....go to this web site:
WWW.Decani.yunet.com
This is a web site of a Serbian Orthodox Monastary in Kosovo. You will get an angle on what is happening to Christians at the hands of islamics in Kosovo.
The lame-sream media will NEVER show you this stuff....120 churches destroyed since the UN appeared in Kosovo.
You are a very smart person and I enjoy your posts, but I think that site will show you some things that you didn't know about.
BYE!
Refresh yourself with the Church's statement... - Lol... you're tenacious ;)
Impossible, Brent Scowcroft says that Iraq has no terrorists, we have to focus on the War on Terrorism
Godspeed this woman.
BYE!
I will check it out. Perhaps 45 million is a lower than the actual number of casualties. So far, that book is the only one I know if that makes an attempt at documentation. Let me know if you find something else on the subject. And thanks for the kind words! Bye to you too! =)
Matthew 1:23 "Behold the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name Him Emmanuel, a name which means 'God is with us' "
Luke 1:35 "The angel answered her: The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; hence, the holy offspring to be born will be called Son of God"
Simple logic dictates that Mary is the mother of this Son of God. Even Luther, Calvin and Zwingli agreed on this point.
Martin Luther: "In this work whereby she was made the Mother of God, so many and such good things were given her that no one can grasp them....Not only was Mary the mother of Him who is born [in Bethlehem], but of Him who, before the world, was eternally born of the Father, from a Mother in time and at the same time man and God." Weimer, The Works of Luther, Vol. 7, page 572.
John Calvin: "It cannot be denied that God in choosing and destining Mary to be the Mother of His Son, granted her the highest honor.....Elizabeth calls Mary Mother of the Lord, because the unity of the person in the two natures of Christ was such that she could have said that the mortal man engendered in the womb of Mary was at the same time the eternal God."Calvini Opera, Corpus Reformatorum, Braunschweig-Berlin, 1863-1900, Vol. 45, page 348 and 335.
Ulrich Zwingli: "It was given to her what belongs to no creature, that in the flesh she should bring forth the Son of God." Zwingli Opera, Corpus Reformatorum, Berlin, 1905, Vol. 6, I, page 639.
That's because in your American dreamland you have no idea of who you're dealing with, and you have not witnessed the depths of depravity that humans are capable of. You've read about such things but trust me sweetcheeks, once you've seen it first hand you'll learn how real it is.
Their dedication to their "cause" and their hatred of us is such that they will kill themselves in order to express it. They're not going to stop either, not now or 100 years from now, until they're forced to stop. Old-world tactical military victories are not going to stop them. There are several thousand children waiting to take the place of every Taliban desert goon we kill.
Their perverted worldview runs like blood through their society. It's taught in their schools and in their mosques where instead of learning history and arithmatic, they're taught how to beat their useless, unredeemable heads against the koran. It's taught by parents to their larvae and it's encouraged by their political leaders.
Go ahead and play nice with those who explicity swear to destroy you, your family and your way of life. I'll continue to remember a family friend who on 911 was turned into something that resembles what you scrape off the bottom of your barbecue grill.
It certainly is.
Luke 1:43 "And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"
John 20:28 "Thomas answered, and said to him: My Lord, and my God."
Colossians 2:9 "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead corporeally;"
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