Genocide against Christians in Syria seeks 'to finish off what has survived after the Ottoman Turks'.

"I believe that what is happening should only be called a genocide." —Joseph Hakim, President, International Christian Union (ICU)

Jihadista Performing Ethnic Cleansing of Christians in Syria Pravoslavie.ru - July 22, 2013 The president of the International Christian Union (ICU) Joseph Hakim believes that radical groups in the Syrian opposition are using the civil war to perform the ethnic cleansing of Christians, reports FRONTPAGEMAG.COM. The native Christians who are a minority in Syria at the present time "have to flee from their towns and villages" and seek refuge in less dangerous regions of the country and abroad. The ongoing bloodshed in Syria gives islamists an opportunity "to finish off what has survived after the Ottoman Turks", said the expert, referring to the genocide of Armenian Christians during the First world war. "I believe that what is happening should only be called a genocide," said Hakim. Hakim is complaining about the passiveness of the European community which is a witness of killing of Christians, beheading of priests, destroying of churches and kidnapping of bishops in Syria. In the expert’s view, it is a matter of coordinated efforts aimed at eradicating the Christian populations of Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and the Middle East.

What's Become of Syria's Christian Sites?

Maaloula, where Aramaic is still spoken.

Magda Abu-Fadil - via OCP Media

As politicians debate the fate of Syria’s Christian minority, reportedly targeted by Muslim fundamentalists for supporting Bashar Al Assad’s regime, the country’s Christian sites seem to have been forgotten in the two-plus-year civil war.

“They cut off the head of the statue of Mary (Lady of the Two Worlds) in Syria’s Jisr El Shaghour region,” wrote Rev. Georges Massouh, a Lebanese Greek Orthodox priest, adding that it was still more acceptable than slaughtering human beings.

If the attack aimed to terrorize Christians, they will remain in Syria, whose every grain of soil is a witness to its Christianity, and will be martyrs of love, peace, and Christ’s eternal presence in them, he said this week in the daily Annahar.

Earlier this year, Tarek Al Abed wrote in Assafir, another Lebanese newspaper, that Christians and Muslims had coexisted in the Qalamoun region, noted for its Christian villages.

But the ongoing conflict has definitely taken a toll on Christians, their sites, and the language of Christ.

The Bible may have been translated into every language, but the tongue in which Jesus Christ would have preached is almost extinct, spoken by a few thousand people in Syria, mostly in the village of Maaloula.

Nobody can read or write Aramaic since there’s no alphabet and no visual record of it, I was told on a visit in 1991. Today it would be hard to quantify how many speakers remain, or how many have survived the fighting.

Linguistic scholars have disputed that contention, arguing that several hundred thousand people converse daily in Aramaic.

They agree that the “Western” dialect spoken in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine before the Muslim conquest, and thought to be the language Jesus used in spreading the gospel, is fast disappearing.

However, the “Eastern” dialect, the scholars argue, lives on – albeit in limited form – in Iraq, Iran, southeastern Turkey, and a sliver of some former Soviet republics.

One of the Semitic languages, spoken Aramaic of the “Western” variety is limited to the residents of Maaloula, a village 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of the Syrian capital Damascus.

It is also the popular language of people in the nearby villages of Jaba’deen and Najafa, although it has to compete with Arabic, the official language of Syria, as well as the closely linked Syriac and Hebrew.

Whatever records existed about the language were burned during the French colonial period, explained a Greek Orthodox nun at the St. Takla monastery in the craggy mountain village overlooking acres of once-rich agricultural land.

St. Takla’s monastery, one of the oldest in Christendom, dates back to the First Century A.D., and its founder was a disciple of St. Paul the apostle.

She was reportedly born to heathen parents in Iconia on the Greek-Turkish border and was persecuted for her beliefs by her ruler father.

Locals said St. Takla was fleeing her pagan father and his soldiers when she reached Maaloula. Its high mountains blocked her passage and it seemed she would be killed.

She is then said to have raised her hands in passionate prayer, which was answered when the mountain split, allowing her an escape route to safety.

St. Takla built a monastery, which contains her remains, on the spot from where she took flight.

For centuries it stood as a refuge for countless visitors and believers, convinced the water that oozes slowly from the rocky ceiling near the saint’s tomb had mysterious and curative qualities.

The word Maaloula originates from “Om Al Maalouleen” (mother of the afflicted), in reference to St. Takla’s healing powers, I was told, but evolved to signify passage or entryway.

The walls of the saint’s crypt are lined with valuable gifts donated by visitors who prayed to the young woman and had their prayers answered.

Situated between the steep rocky hills of the Qalamoun Mountains, Maaloula was most noted for its annual feast of the cross, when residents lit bonfires along various hilltops to mark the occasion and dance to the steady beat of drums.

I wonder if they still do, or dare to.

The village, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is surrounded by caverns, once used by the early Christians, to hide from invading Roman legions, and the entire region was thought to be rich with treasures.

Villagers believed they were sitting on several layers of different civilizations, but little was done to promote the village’s historic and religious attractions for many years.

The once rich surrounding agricultural lands were also hit by several years of drought, leaving only patches of green on an otherwise dry mountain.

Many of Maaloula’s residents either migrated to the capital or ventured further afield to the United States and Brazil in the 1920s in search of greener pastures.

When I visited, the farmers produced enough of the village’s own consumption of wheat, tomatoes, apricots and peaches, but one member of each family invariably commuted to Damascus to supplement their income.

Another major Christian site in Syria is Our Lady of Saydnaya, a magnificent edifice on a hill overlooking the village by the same name.

It boasted a library of hundreds of valuable manuscripts housed in the 547 A.D. structure.

The convent is a Greek Orthodox establishment directly dependent on the Patriarchate of Antioch, with its seat in Damascus, and which owns several properties in Syria and Lebanon.

Legend has it that Emperor Justinian I of Byzantium, while crossing Syria with his troops en route to battle with the Persians, stopped in the Syrian desert to rest and search for water.

In the distance he spotted a gazelle, which he hunted with great energy until he was overcome with fatigue on a rocky hill.

The gazelle was headed to a spring of sweet water when it was suddenly transfigured into an icon of the Holy Virgin and shone with a bright light.

Stretching from the icon, according to the story, a hand reached out to the emperor, saying: “No, thou shalt not kill me, Justinian…but thou shall build for me a church, here on this hill.”

Among the sacred sanctuaries of the Greek Orthodox faith, the Saydnaya convent is second only to Jerusalem as a holy visiting place of pilgrimage in the Middle East.

Many more excellent photographs at OCP Media...

Danish immigration spokesperson to unhappy Muslims: “Find somewhere else to live”

This is very sound policy suggestion. I call it the "Sandbox Rule."  So simple a child can understand it. If you want to play in our sandbox, you play by our rules. If you break the rules, you're put on "timeout." If you break the rules again, you're ejected from the sandbox and sent home, wherever that is.

This should apply to supremacist mosques (80% of the mosques in the U.S. preach/teach jihad, hatred of America, and Islamic supremacism), and supremacist Muslims. Mosques with proven links to terrorist activities or which have imams who have supported terrorism, should be permanently closed.

Why? Because Islam is not like any other religion. It is religion + political ideology with a goal of taking over its host country, wherever it spreads.

Danish immigration spokesperson to unhappy Muslims: “Find somewhere else to live”

from The Copenhagen Post, via Creeping Sharia

Venstre’s immigration spokesperson argues that it is a misguided attempt at tolerance to condone Islamic practices that contradict Danish values.

Muslims who show no interest in adopting Danish values ought to think about why they settled in Denmark in the first place, the immigration spokesperson for leading opposition party Venstre argued in an opinion piece published in Politiken newspaper today.

In her piece, Inger Støjberg criticises Danish Muslims who actively try to shield themselves from Danish values and norms and who think that their religious beliefs should not be allowed to be mocked.

Støjberg pointed to a study of Danish Muslims in which 55 percent responded that criticising religion should be banned and 64 percent thought that free speech should be limited in particular circumstances.

“Denmark is the land of the Danes and you are more than welcome to become a Dane and take part in the work and community,” Støjberg wrote. “But to those Muslims who constantly work against us, constantly question us, are unsatisfied, encourage going to holy war in Syria, commit honour killings, belittle our values, flag or way of living – to all of you: Go and find somewhere else to live. No one is forcing you to stay. We accepted you and now it’s up to you to show the necessary respect for our society and the values it is built upon.”

Spotting an opportunity, Martin Henriksen, integration spokesperson for Dansk Folkeparti, proposed that Venstre should use this opportunity to follow up with strict policies aimed at curbing migration from Muslim countries.

“I think that Venstre and Dansk Folkeparti should join together for the next election with a goal of reducing Muslim immigration to somewhere close to zero. It is the most effective solution to ensure that Denmark will remain socially and culturally united in the decades ahead,” Henriksen said.

The Neomartyrs: the Glory of the Church

By Photios Kontoglou

MYSTAGOGY - July 14, 2013

For one to speak or write today on religious matters, the majority of people would think it to be nonsense. And an even greater nonsense is the idea to write about the holy martyrs, even those who were martyred in recent years during the reign of the Turks over Christendom. This is because the short amount of time that separates them from us makes us feel they are very near us, they were people like us, whereas the ancient martyrs we see through the centuries that have past since the time they were martyred, and in our imaginations they appear more easily with the halo of a saint.

No people have spilled as much blood for the faith of Christ as ours, from the foundation of Christianity until today. And this bloody river is the purple worn by our Orthodox Church, which we must have as our greatest boast, and not to despise it or not ever speak of it. Furthermore, we should be ashamed to speak of it, in these times that we have no shame for the most shameful and loathsome sick things people do in these shameless times of ours.

We, the deceived people of today, only care about the welfare of our own bodies, and for this reason our souls have lost their sensitivity, with all the spiritual physicians we say we have. This is why we are scornful and call them fools those who seek after their material interests, though they make some sacrifices. We consider as even more nonsensical and small-minded those who sacrificed their lives for their faith, since, according to our sinful judgment, they did not look to enjoy their young years and seize this world, which is tangible and sure, but they were tortured, imprisoned, scraped, and in the end, they were slaughtered or hanged, those brainless ones, for some shady so-called eternal life and kingdom of heaven....

With these words our Church thunderously proclaims, with the martyrdoms it has undergone throughout the ages, that it is the true Church, blessed by the Lord, and not the West, which is a well-to-do and proud mistress, which has not only not spilled its blood for Christ, but the same burned people that were disobedient.

Our saints, who were martyred while we were enslaved under the Turks, were humble, simple, spoke little, and with the fire of faith in their breasts, they were guileless and uneducated, since the only thing they knew to say before the angry judge was: "I was born a Christian, and a Christian I will die!" Young people, lads in their prime years, went willingly to deliver themselves for the name of Christ, and instead of a betrothal they were slaughtered like lambs or hung with the noose around their necks. And for the unbelievers to terrorize them more, they would slowly cut their necks with the blunt of the knife, or they would separate them by hanging them with rotten rope that would easily cut in order to hang them again. And the only things the majority of them knew of our Religion were the words of Christ, who said: "Whoever confesses Me before men, I will confess before My Father who is in heaven. And whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven." As well as the following words spoken by our Lord: "Do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul", and: "Whoever loses his life for my name, he will live in eternal life."

O! What height and how much spiritual decorum our race had, at a time we dare to say was illiterate and barbaric. We, of today, are the barbarians, who are not in a position to feel as we ought the nobility and the greatness of the sacrifice for the name of Christ, which they offered with their bodies, those lion-souled ones, of whom the Evangelist John says were not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but were born of God. Let this generation of ours, the "sinful and adulterous", make themselves to be clever where there is no room at all to be clever, and let them mock those who gave their blood for their faith in Christ, with the hope of eternal life. The day will come when they will give a defense both in this world and in the other, and then they will understand the darkness in which they were found to be.

Excerpt from Πονεμένη Ρωμιοσύνη (Pained Romiosini). Translated by John Sanidopoulos.