Christians in the Middle East face persecution, pushed to the periphery - by Michael Hirst
Christianity has a rich cultural seam in the Middle East. On the first Pentecost, when the disciples were blessed with tongues to tell the good news, one of the languages spoken was Arabic. So successful was the spread of Christianity across a region that now includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Palestine and Egypt that by the sixth century it had 15 million followers.The number of Christians in the Fertile Crescent is roughly the same today and comprises some 20 different churches, including Catholic, Coptic and Orthodox. But while 15 centuries ago Christians made up 95 percent of the region’s population, that figure has slumped to 5 percent. And it is dropping fast.Christians were at the forefront of the revival of Arab nationalism that swept across the region in the middle of the 19th century. But today Islamist movements have obscured the identity of Christians as Arabs. Emphasizing generic Islam as their primary source of solidarity, they have pushed Christians to the periphery of Arab life.
In strict Saudi Arabia, at the start of Holy Week, an Indian priest was arrested and deported when seven Mutawwa’in (religious police) officers broke into a private house where he was celebrating Mass. Basic religious freedoms are denied to all but those who adhere to the state-sanctioned version of Sunni Islam. The pro-Western government claims to allow non-Muslims to observe their faith in private, and there are said to be as many as one million Catholics in the country, but the punctilious work of the religious police ensures that non-Muslims face arrest, imprisonment, lashing, deportation and torture for engaging in any religious activity – including the wearing of such non-Muslim religious symbols as a cross – that attracts official attention. Last year alone, more than 70 expatriate Christians were arrested during worship in private homes in Saudi Arabia’s largest crackdown on Christians for a decade. In northern Egypt, one man was stabbed to death and 12 were wounded as men wielding knives targeted three churches within the space of an hour during religious services on April 14. Having initially said there were three attackers, police later claimed there had been only one, who was both drunk and mad. Copts in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria claim there has been a coverup and that the attacks were part of an orchestrated anti-Christian plot by extremist Muslims.
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