Free Republic

October 29, 2011 Washington, DC The Plight of Churches in the Middle East The “Arab Spring” is unleashing forces that are having a devastating effect on the Christian communities of the Middle East. Our Churches in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine report disturbing developments such as destruction of churches and massacres of innocent civilians that cause us grave concern. Many of our church leaders are calling Christians and all people of good will to stand in solidarity with the members of these ancient indigenous communities. In unity with them and each other, we the members of the North American...

Bishop Anba Stephanos (Orthodox Coptic) of Beba and Elfashn Christians in Egypt are currently experiencing their worst time in recent centuries. This statement was made by the Coptic Orthodox Bishop Stephanos of Beba and Elfashn to the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). Christians are being violently killed under the eyes of the international media. Also, for the first time in many years, churches are being systematically burned and destroyed. The police are taking no action and nobody is punished for it. In the Egyptian media, “the facts are systematically covered up in order to...

After all, nothing says "Religion of Peace and Tolerance" like claiming someone else's sacred ground as a spoil of war and sticking a mosque on it. It is intended as a permanent exercise in supremacist gloating. This act would only uphold a long tradition of building mosques on sacred sites seized in Islamic conquests, just like the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, and the Hagia Sophia, along with innumerable other churches, synagogues, and temples from Spain to India and beyond. Despite the vague headline about "wars of religion," what follows is a refreshingly complete report. "After the Egyptian Revolution: The Wars...

When I received word of the fatal car bomb attack on Coptic worshipers leaving the Saints Coptic Church in Alexandria after this year's New Year's mass, I recalled my earliest memories of the first of these brutal, senseless, and unprovoked attacks against the Coptic people in my homeland of Egypt. Eighty-three Christians were massacred in El-Zawia El Hamra, Cairo in 1980 by Muslim believers committing an act of jihad similar to this current episode and similar to what we now face in other parts of the world today. We took our persecution for granted, and I wondered then where my...

Thousands clashed with police during a funeral procession Thursday for six of seven people killed in an attack on churchgoers leaving a midnight Mass for Coptic Christians, security officials said. Throughout the day, protesters in the southern town of Nag Hamadi pelted police with rocks and damaged cars and stores. Early in the day, they smashed ambulances outside a hospital in frustration over delays in turning over the bodies for burial. A security official said police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd. The riots followed an attack the previous night, in which three gunmen in a car sprayed automatic...

This morning, in front of the United Nations, demonstrators will gather in support of the Coptic Christians of Egypt, and the action is coming none too soon, if you ask me. For the better part of 20 centuries, Alexandria, the grand port built by Alexander the Great, stood as a bastion of culture, a melting pot of Roman, Macedonian, Greek, Italian, Egyptian, Muslim, and Christian Levantine tolerance. As recently as 1958, the English author Lawrence Durrell celebrated the city's luminous diversity in his enchanting "Alexandria Quartet" books. Last week, however, Alexandria's churches and Christian neighborhoods burned with fires of sectarian...