Eastern Churches Renew Calls to Prohibit Attacks on Christians

Daily Star, Lebanon – 9/9/14

Beirut — Muslim religious authorities must issue religious edicts prohibiting attacks against Christians and other minorities regardless of circumstance, a coalition of Oriental churches demanded Monday.

The Gathering of Christians in the Levant reiterated its demands in a statement that deplored the desecration of religious symbols – including the recent pro-ISIS graffiti on the walls of churches in Tripoli – cautioning that such actions “would jeopardize national coexistence and fuel sectarian hatreds and strife.”

“We join the voices of the patriarchs of the Orient in stressing the importance that Muslim religious leaders issue a clear and blunt diktat prohibiting the expiation of others and criminalizing attacks on Christians and other minorities,” said the statement, issued at the end of their meeting at the seat of the Chaldean archdiocese in Baabda.

The meeting also touched on the plight of missing Syrian bishops Paul Yazigi and Yohanna Ibrahim, who disappeared in Syria more than 500 days ago, calling for information regarding their whereabouts and for parties to help secure their release.

The group lamented what it described as “a state of indifference” regarding crimes in Syria and Iraq, urging regional and international parties to take action to check the violence and secure the release of the bishops.

The patriarchs of Oriental churches, led by Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai, sounded the alarm last month over the persisting persecution of Christians at the hands of ISIS, who have captured large swaths of land in north Iraq and Syria and forced non-Muslims to convert to Islam or face death and persecution.

The patriarchs called on the international community to intervene militarily in Iraq and Syria to curb the militants and protect Christians who had fled their homes in the face of rampant ISIS violence.

© 2014 Assyrian International News Agency.

Source: