A side order: the auxiliary bishop of Baghdad, Andraos Abouna; the bishop of Zakho and Dohuk , Petros Harboli; Hope Ammann, president of the Fondazione Saint Camille, Mgr. Michel Kassarji, Chaldean bishop of Beirut, the bishop of Alquosh, Mar Maqdassi Michael - author of the quotation with which we have titled this post - and his father Joseph Malkoun, pastor of Saint Raphael in Beirut. From Times of 2 March . It is our Rodolfo Casadei pleasant duty to thank the coaching that has made this publication possible.
But we will not give
"I'd rather die a martyr than to live as a slave at home anywhere else." So the Chaldean Iraqis respond to the violence of Islamic terrorists that they are decimating
Beirut
Politici e militari. Membri del parlamento e media di tutto il Medio Oriente. Autorità religiose sia cristiane che musulmane. Non mancava proprio nessuno al convegno delle Chiese cristiane d’Oriente intitolato “Cristiani d’Iraq: Agonia di una presenza o resurrezione” che si è svolto a Beirut lo scorso 19 febbraio. Scopo dell’iniziativa, voluta dal vescovo caldeo di Beirut Michel Kassarji e ospitata dall’università Notre Dame de Louaizé Maronites: assert that the presence of Christians in the Middle East is severely threatened and that his loss would be a tragedy for all the peoples of the region.
"All have contributed to the exclusion of Iraqi Christians, and many will make it easy to start," said Monsignor Kassarji in his speech. "From the darkness of this tunnel, but today we are beginning to become aware of the fact that if Christians are lost, then all is lost. Why is the Muslim tradition has never known such an exclusion of Christians from living in different countries. With this conference we want to raise the alarm about the fate of Iraqi Christians. The Iraqi model anticipates to what is destined to happen in the Middle East: a process whose only possible outcome is the disappearance of the Christian presence. Our ancestors have lived through the persecution they experienced there in the veins, is our own blood, and for that we must remain. And it is possible that this is done, if there proves to be just a bit of solidarity. " To listen
were representatives of all churches and Christian rites of Lebanon Melkite, Chaldean, Assyrians, Maronites, Armenians, greek-orthodox and all others. But there were also representatives of the Sunni Muslims and Druze, a Muslim Mohammad Sammak, Secretary General of the European Christian-Muslim for dialogue, the ambassadors of Spain and Iraq, the head of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Beirut, representatives of all Lebanese parties and many, many Lebanese and Arab TV stations: ANB, LBC, Future TV, Tele Lumiere (Christian), Noursat, OTV, Sat 7 (International Christian Lebanese), Sumariya (Iraqi) Kurdistan and Al Jazeera Satellite Channel (the television station of the Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party).
Many of the speakers that have taken place on the podium, but none of them gives the slightest accusation against population groups they belong to the perpetrators of murders, rapes, theft, intimidation, attacks that follow like a dripping and have tried so Iraqi Christians to lose their hope of a possible future in the country in which they live 2,000 years. None of the interventions mentioned neither the ethnicity nor the confession of the perpetrators of atrocities that are also claimed, whose intentions are declared. A mother whose daughter was kidnapped, raped and later died was thrown in the town square said he had received this telephone call: "We do not want money, we did to break your heart."
Ambassador gets up and goes
Mohammad Sammak intervened to point out that the right of Christians to remain is based on the letter of the Koran. Despite all that someone has offended the Iraqi ambassador in Lebanon has left the assembly in the middle of its operation, offended because he felt that the Iraqi state has been charged with breach against Christians. He is offended because the problem was simply put, because it was said that there is a problem.
Three Iraqi Chaldean bishops present at the conference, guests Chaldean Eparchy of Beirut which is not far from a major Shiite neighborhoods in the city. There were the archbishop of Kirkuk, Monsignor Louis Sako, well known to readers of Time, Auxiliary Bishop Andraos Abouna of Baghdad in March, with a refined sense of humor and contagious, and Tues Micha Maqdassi, Bishop of Al Qosh (the town at whose monastery during the sixteenth century, the Assyrian Christians decided to reunite with Rome), a mountain in the north, as he describes himself, muttering to himself: "I'd rather die a martyr in my country than live as a slave anywhere else. " But there were also representatives of the Assyrian Eastern Church, that is of Iraqi Christians who have been separated from Rome after 1553. Their attitude filled with wonder: despite coming from a situation in which the tragedy is the stuff of everyday life, in meeting one realizes that these men are not frightened or resentful, or sad or hopeless, or angry or thirst for revenge. Construct. As Monsignor Kassarji, who after years of effort he managed to get hold of a building in which to realize the medical-social center for Iraqi refugees present in Beirut (for the time it opened in 2007 as a subscription among the readers). On the third floor of a building in the suburb of Bir Hassan, have begun the renovation: the walls were demolished to make room for two doctors' surgeries, a dental surgery, a center of social assistance, classroom training. Kassarji perhaps optimistic, but speaks of opening in three months. His intention is to serve without distinction as to ethnic or sectarian people who come to the center. He believes it is possible to provide health care at very low prices to those who did not own resources, and thinks that this initiative can regime to respond adequately to the needs of Iraqis in Lebanon.
would like, however, that the West did more than his share, "International institutions are absent, and bend only with extreme caution on this issue. The initiatives are shy and modest in size in the energy invested in their actions. So you let Christians struggling in their grief. Yet we are confident that our presence is important for the Middle East, a land that Christians have always helped to flourish. "
