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Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged to protect Christians threatened by the conflict in Syria, appealing to the plight of religious minorities as justification for Russia's involvement. After a meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Wednesday, Putin expressed sorrow over the persecution experienced by Christians in the Middle East, according to the Associated Press. Russian leaders have worked to develop close ties with Syria's Christian communities. Melkite Catholic Archbishop Jean-Clement Jeanbart has called Russia's intervention in the country a source of "hope for the country's Christians. "The Middle East is the cradle of Christianity, and Christians are in peril...

Vice President Mike Pence announced Wednesday night that President Trump has ordered the State Department to shut off funding for “ineffective” United Nations programs to help persecuted Christians in the Middle East, saying the administration will take over those efforts directly. “From this day forward, America will provide support directly to persecuted communities through USAID,” Mr. Pence said at the In Defense of Christians annual solidarity dinner in Washington. “We will no longer rely on the United Nations alone to assist persecuted Christians and minorities in the wake of genocide and the atrocities of terrorist groups.” Saying Christians have been...

President Trump has issued a White House directive forcing the State Department and USAID to bypass the United Nations and stop its "ineffective" relief efforts aimed at helping Iraqi Christians, Yazidis, and other persecuted religious minorities, and instead to provide the assistance either directly or through "faith-based groups."Vice President Mike Pence, in a speech at the In Defense of Christians annual Solidarity Dinner highlighting the plight of persecuted Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere, announced the directive and lambasted the United Nations, arguing the international body has "often failed to help the most vulnerable communities, especially religious minorities.""We will...

Around mid-April, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia –who once wrote a letter to Barack Obama beseeching the president to reconsider his foreign policies which enable the persecution of Christians in Syria — spoke again of the threat of Christian extinction in the Mideast during a meeting with Greek Defense Minister Panagiotis Kammenos. In the Russian Patriarch’s own words: "I regularly get reports of horrible crimes that are committed there against Christians, especially in northern Iraq. I have visited those places and I remember that there were many churches and monasteries there. The city of Mosul alone had 45...

Can Christianity survive, in the face of persecution and conflict, in the region of its birth? The BBC's Jane Corbin travelled across the Middle East - through Iraq and Syria - to investigate the plight of Christians, as hundreds of thousands flee Islamic militancy in the region.As I climbed the steep mountain path above the plain of Nineveh, Iraq, the sound of monks chanting and the smell of incense drifted out of the 4th Century monastery of St Matthew. Once, 7,000 monks worshipped here when Christianity was the official religion of the Roman empire. Almost the whole population was Christian...

Facing an Existential Threat: Christians Living in Islamic LandsPosted By Jack Kerwick On March 6, 2015 @ 12:35 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 2 Comments In spite of what Barack Obama would have us believe, he was as much in tune to Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress this week as was anyone and everyone else in the world. But exclusive focus on American/Israeli and Israeli/Islamic relations threatens to blind us to the fierce, unrelenting oppression with which Christians throughout the world are routinely forced to reckon courtesy of their Islamic neighbors.Throughout the Islamosphere in Africa and the Middle East,...

Notes Uncertainty About Those Responsible; What We Do Know Is That the Attackers Are ExtremistsA graphic account of the Islamist take-over of Mosul and the people’s desperate struggle to flee to safety has come from the city’s Chaldean bishop. Speaking today to Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, Archbishop Amel Nona said he thought Mosul’s last remaining Christians had left now a city which until 2003 was home to 35,000 faithful. The Christians are among 500,000 thought to have fled Mosul, which was overthrown Tuesday. That event is now followed by news today of militant attacks on the...

A British think tank has released a lengthy report claiming that militant Islam is the greatest existential threat to Middle Eastern Christianity, bringing Christian communities in the region "close to extinction." The London-based Civitas, also known as the Institute for the Study of Civil Society, published the report in December. "Christianity is in serious danger of being wiped out in its biblical heartlands because of Islamic oppression," reads a statement from the group issued Sunday. "But Western politicians and media largely ignore the widespread persecution of Christians in the Middle East and the wider world because they are afraid they...