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Editor’s Note:
When the right thing’s said, it doesn’t matter who says it. The Guardian has this one right, and that’s that. Was Ma’loula the last straw? Assad’s no choirboy, but Foreign Minister Lavrov is right to point up that if he didn’t have wide support, he’d be dogmeat. Russia and China stood against Western intervention… and they were right. Now, even Establishment voices like The Guardian are getting hip. The West (primarily, American interventionists on both sides of the political aisle) reached its zenith in the so-called Orange Revolution, where it staged a coup against the rightfully-elected President. South Ossetia in ’08 was “a bridge too far”… and Syria merely confirmed the trend. God willing, we can muzzle the godless warmongers in the West. Reflect on this… the most godless are those who use religious rhetoric… the Evangelicals and their fellow travellers aren’t Christian, and the sooner that we realise it, the better we’re off we’ll be.
BMD
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Last week, Prince Ghazi of Jordan joined the Prince of Wales on a visit to an Egyptian Coptic parish in Stevenage and the Syriac Orthodox Cathedral in west London, where he heard from a number of Christian families who’ve had first-hand experience of the rising tide of persecution. He said, “We can’t ignore the fact that Christians in the Middle East are, increasingly, being deliberately attacked by fundamentalist Islamist militants”. Author William Dalrymple said on the BBC last week, “The Arab spring [is] rapidly turning into a Christian winter”.
Clearly, this is a sensitive subject. The perceived support that Christians allegedly gave to President Assad in Syria and to the Egyptian army in deposing President Morsi in Egypt made them increasingly the target of violence, with churches assaulted, priests abducted, individuals targeted, and homes looted. In Egypt alone, Amnesty International reported that during this past year, there have been 207 attacks on churches and 43 Orthodox churches destroyed. The situation for Christians in Syria deteriorates rapidly as foreign jihadist militants increasingly influence the Free Syrian Army. Today, many thousands of Syrian Christians flee over the border to Turkey. One man who made the journey from Syria claimed, “Where we live, 10 churches have been burned down. They started to threaten Christians in the town we live. When the local priest was executed, we decided to leave”.
All this is a part of a wider picture, which sees Christians increasingly forced out of the biblical homelands. Indeed, across a vast swath of the world between Morocco and Pakistan, the persecution of Christians continues to gather pace, often with barely an eyebrow raised in the secular West. Perhaps, this is beginning to change. Last month Baroness Warsi warned, “A mass exodus is taking place, on a biblical scale. In some places, there’s a real danger that Christianity will become extinct”. On Saturday, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Douglas Alexander, spoke up against the “political correctness, or some sense of embarrassment at ‘doing God'” that makes this a taboo subject.
This reluctance to speak out partly comes from a peculiar sense that there’s a hierarchy of victimhood, with Christians less deserving of concern. No doubt, the historical association of Christianity with persecution of other beliefs… the Crusades, the Inquisition, and so on… is also working away somewhere in the background, as is the idea that Christianity is essentially a Western faith. This links to the worry that supporting persecuted Christians is somehow taking sides in a clash of civilisations. This thought looks especially foolish when written down, which is precisely why it’s worth stating so baldly. One does not have to “do God” to recognise that protecting the rights of religious minorities, as enshrined in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is the human rights equivalent of the canary in a coalmine. It doesn’t help that some Evangelical Christians, not least the former archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, take every opportunity to speak of Christians persecuted for their faith in Britain. This is nonsense. Furthermore, it’s offensive nonsense, to millions of genuine victims. Douglas Alexander was right, “Across the world, there’ll be Christians this week for whom attending a church service this Christmas isn’t an act of faithful witness, but an act of life-risking bravery”.
Of course, it’s not just in the Middle East that Christians are targets. In addition, other religious groups are clearly subject to persecution. However, as billions of Christians gather for Christmas, with their attention focused on a troubled town in the West Bank… one from which Christians have also been fleeing for several years… it’s worth recalling that the message of peace and goodwill is hardly a political reality for a significant minority of the world’s Christians. This should concern religious and non-religious alike.
23 December 2013
The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/23/persecution-christians-religion-editorial
Voices from Russia 
Lavrov Proposes Conference on Christianophobia… He Sez Russia Looks After the Interests of Christians in the World
Tags: chrisitanophobia, Christian, Christianity, Coptic, Coptic Church, coptic orthodox christians, coptic orthodox church, Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, diplomacy, diplomatic relations, Egypt, Ivica Dačić, Orthodox, Orthodoxy, Patriarch Tawadros, persecution, Persecution of Christians, political commentary, politics, Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, Pope Tawadros, Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria, Russia, Russian, Russian diplomacy, Serbia, Sergei Lavrov
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After meeting with Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić, Foreign Minister S V Lavrov said that Russia offered to host a conference next year to combat Christianophobia, saying, “In the coming year, we propose to organise a conference to combat Christianophobia within and through a series of meetings, similar to those which took place this year on anti-Semitism and Islamophobia”.
19 December 2014
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At a meeting with His Holiness Pope and Patriarch Tawadros Sulaymān of the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, Foreign Minister S V Lavrov stated that one of the Russian Federation’s main foreign policy objectives was to see that no one limited the rights of Christians, saying, “Relations between our churches go deep into history and became one of the foundations for the development of relations between Russia and the Middle East and North Africa. This is our common heritage… however, in re culture and history, the present and future of this region is alarming”. Lavrov noted that Russia appreciates Patriarch Tawadros’ contribution to efforts to prevent a disaster in the region and to his work in preserving inter-religious peace, saying, “We’re delighted to hear your assessment of the political efforts to calm the situation in the Middle East and North Africa. One of our foreign policy objectives is to see to it that no one limits the rights of Christians”. In turn, Patriarch Tawadros observed that he long dreamed of visiting Russia, as he had read Russian theology and literature, saying, “I learned a lot from Orthodox theology, Russian literature, and fairy tales. I’m grateful for Russian leadership in supporting Egypt”. At the same time, he said that the situation of Christians in some Middle Eastern countries is dire, pointing up, “Some groups use violence against the people. Christians are victims of violence in these countries. However, the situation in Egypt changed significantly for the better after 30 June”.
29 October 2014
ITAR-TASS
http://itar-tass.com/politika/1659495
Read more:
Oppression of Christians in the Middle East
Editor:
Russia stands up for oppressed Christians… the USA stands up for oppressors… whether they’re Saudi Wahhabis, Afghan semi-Talibans, or Ukrainian Uniate murderers; it stands for those who oppress and kill confessing Christians. Fancy that… that puts the bloviations of Marie Harf and Jen Psaki in a new light and it shows Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz up as consummate hypocrites and poseurs. Never trust an “Evangelical” or those who associate with them… one of our bishops called them “Christian atheists”… that’s so true! I’ve never seen a group more grasping and impious… whilst they mouthed pietistic platitudes with ingratiating smiles on their faces! None dare call it deceit… the Devil isn’t called the Father of Lies for nought.
BMD