Power-point done for a paper that's already done

Running Head: CHRISTIANITY IN THE MDDLE EAST

Christianity in the Middle East

Elizabeth Weeden

Ottawa University

CHRISTIANITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Abstract

A brief survey of events and occurrences from the first century to the present day. This survey outlines the background for understanding the complex questions in relation to the presence of Christians and their relationship with the other religions in the Middle East at the present time.

Christianity in the Middle East

Background

Christianity has been a considerably dominant religious force over the past centuries. A lot of theories have been surrounded with a lot of myths in the society with various other religious societies such as the Hindu community having various ways of thinking and regards towards Christians. Expansion of Christianity into communities of other beliefs has been eminent even with the fact that it has been compounded with several issues.

In the Middle East for example, questions have been raised about Christians and their religion. Being a Muslim dominated region it is hard for Christians considering the various radical beliefs entailed in Muslim culture (Chapman, 2012). The situation for Christians in these regions is a complex one and it is hard for students to make it in these regions. Various irritating questions have been asked of Christians and in this case the questions are normally very complex in nature in such a manner that some are forced to keep to themselves or reduce their exposure to the people of the other religious beliefs.

With a total of around 15 million Christians in the Middle East –Arab Christians. These arab Christians claim to be in the bible in the sense that they are mentioned as “ God fearing Jews from every nation under Heaven “ regarded to have been present in Jerusalem on the historic day in relation to the bible mentioning. These kind of people are known to be happy and confident about their long presence within the region for over 2000 years.

History

The Christians in Iraq look back at the golden age of considered for the Eastern churches around the 5th and the 12th century where the gospel was focused and spread to India and Chinese countries, the Christians then made enormous contributions to the Islamic civilization (Chapman, 2012).With the Christians based in Lebanon considering themselves to be the descendants to Phoenicians and their continued confidence that they have been based in the region from the early Christian times. The Christians in current Egypt in a similar manner, also consider themselves to be the descendants of the ancient Egypt and therefore consider the Arab Muslims who overcame them around the 7th century as the foreign invaders.

Christians in the current state in the Middle East can only look back at the comfortable life of the Christians in the region before (Iwuchukwu, Mariners, Siltner, 2013). At the moment, the situation is far much from stable as these Christians face several kinds of tribulation in the region. There are a lot of cases of unfolding drama in the cases of the Christian-Muslim relationship within the Middle East.

Christians in the middle east today try and overcome the various challenges while also trying to get a hand on the importance of the events that have lead to the changes in rulers in countries such as Tunisia and Egypt (Chapman, 2012).They in this case are obligated to reconciling to the fact that the islamists may end up having a much upper hand in power compared to what they have until this moment.

To get better insight regarding the current state of relations between Christians and Muslims in the Middle East, it’s necessary to delve a little deeper into the history, (Griffis, Sydney 2007). Christianity spread rapidly from Jerusalem along major trade routes to major settlements, finding its strongest growth among Hellenized Jews in places like Antioch and Alexandria. It is from these places that the first prominent theologians first arose. The first major disagreement that led to fracturing of the church was between Antiochians and Alexandrians. This was called the Nestorian schism.

This argument revolved around claims by Alexandrians over alleged theological extremism by Antiochians, and its battleground was the Roman capital, Constantinople, originating from its bishop's, Nestorius's, teaching on the nature of Christ. He was condemned for splitting Christ's person into separate divine and human natures, the extremes of this view, however, were not preached by Nestorius. Cyril of Alexandria succeeded in the deposition of Nestorius at the First Council of Ephesus in 431. The result led to a crisis among the Antiochians, some of whom, including Nestorius himself, found protection in Persia, which continued to espouse traditional Antiochian theology. The schism led to the total isolation of the Persian-sphere Church of the East, and the adoption of much Alexandrian theology in the Antiochian sphere of influence.

Some of the Alexandrian victors at Ephesus, however, began to push their anti-Nestorian agenda too far, of whom Eutyches was the most prominent, (Griffis, Sydney, 2007). Much back and forth led to the Council of Chalcedon of 451, which found a compromise that returned to a theology closer to that of Antioch, refereed by Rome, and condemned the Monophysite theology of Eutyches. However, the outcome was rejected by many Christians in the Middle East, especially by non-Greek-speaking Christians on the fringe of the Roman Empire – Copts, Syriacs, Assyrians and Armenians. In 482, Emperor Zeno attempted to reconcile his church with his Henotikon.

However, reunion was never achieved, and the non-Chalcedonians adopted miaphysitism based on traditional Alexandrian doctrine, in revolt against the Byzantine Church. These so-called Oriental Orthodox Churches include the majority of Egyptian Christians – the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria – majority of Ethiopian and Eritrean Christians – the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Churchs – many Syriacs – the Syriac Orthodox Church – and the majority of Armenians – the Armenian Apostolic Church.

The name Melkite (meaning 'of the king' in Aramaic), originally intended as a slur, came to be applied to those who adhered to Chalcedon (it is no longer used to describe them), who continued to be organised into the historic and autocephalous patriarchates of Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem. Collectively they form the traditional basis for the Greek Orthodox Church, known as Rūm Orthodox in Arabic, which is their language of worship throughout Lebanon, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Jordan, Syria and Christian diaspora. The Georgian Orthodox and Apostolic Church held to a moderate Antiochian doctrine through these schisms and began aligning itself with Byzantium from the early 7th century, and finally broke off ties with their Armenian non-Chalcedonian neighbours in the 720s.

The Ottoman Turks carried out a series of violent massacres of ethnic Assyrian and Armenian Christians in the 1870s, these killings, which resulted in over ten thousand deaths, were known as the Hamidian massacre.

The Ottoman Turks conducted a large-scale genocide and ethnic cleansing of the ancient and indigenous, Greek, Armenian, Assyrian and Maronite Christian inhabitants of Anatolia, north western Iran, the fringes of northern Iraq and northern Syria and Mount Lebanon during and immediately after World War I, resulting in well over 3 million deaths and large-scale deportations in the Armenian Genocide, Assyrian Genocide, Greek Genocide and Great famine of Mount Lebanon.

The fall of the Ottoman Empire and World War I ushered in the greatest period of violence against Christians in the region, (Griffis, Sydney, 2007). Subsequently, hatred against Christians was fueled by the suspicion of the West prevalent in much of the Middle East because of its support to Israel, and the ravages attributed to Western colonialism; as it happens, Christians are perceived by some in the region as sharing the same religious beliefs with the Western former colonialists. Derogatory words and insults are often used on these pre-Arab and pre-Islamic Christian communities, describing them as "illegitimate children of the crusaders" or as "slaves of western colonialists"

In spite of the fact that every country in the Middle East has at least a small number of believers in Christ from a Muslim background, and in spite of the fact that all native Christians are Arabic speakers themselves, Christians in the Middle East face persecution –in various grades, depending on the residence country– and are often isolated, (Thomas, David, 2013).

The fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, the Syrian Civil War and the concomitant rise of ISIS have recently greatly increased violence against Christians in those countries. Some, including Hillary Clinton, referred to the ISIS campaign against Christians and other religious minorities in the region as a genocide. Later on, in March 2016 the United States officially joined this view, with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry declaring during a news conference at the State Department that ISIS "is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control including Yazidis, Assyrian Christians, Armenians and Shia Muslims"; it was the first time since Darfur (2004) that the United States declared a genocide.

Kurdish tribes have in Turkey, Syria and Iran have conducted regular raids against their Christian neighbors and even paramilitary assaults during World War I. Kurds were responsible for most of the atrocities committed against the Assyrian Christians due also to a long tradition of perceived Kurdish rights to pillage Christians. A Kurdish chieftain assassinated the patriarch of the church of the Aast at the negotiation dinner in 1918, and the aftermath led to further decimation of the Christian population.

Throughout the nearly fifteen centuries of Muslim-Christian encounter, individual adherents of both religions often have lived peacefully with each other, (Sharp, Andrew 2012). At the same time Muslin expansion into Christian lands and Christian imperialism in Muslim lands have fostered ill will and fear among both sides.

In the Middle East, Christian-Muslim relations have been affected historically by territorial ambitions, competition for particular sites important to both faiths, and the constantly changing developments in the region’s politics. After the Second World War, Israel was formed, further complicating things the As implied earlier, Christians, being minorities in Muslim majority states, Christians are focused on trying to live as full and equal citizens. In some cases such as Syria and Egypt, Christians are struggling for their very existence. Often they look back at periods in history where coexistence and tolerance marked relations.

Despite everything that has happened what should be done to go back to the way things were in the good old days? Can both Christians and Muslims in the Middle East put their differences aside and share the historically important sites to both religions? I believe these things are possible through constant dialogue.

Eastern Christians in the Middle East have always wanted to distance themselves from everything Islamic, (Smith 2015). Their main concern is the freedom and integrity of Christian existence in the Middle East. Even with these there are still some similarities between Christianity and Islam. Their primary focus is aimed towards the West and they emphasize their differences from Arab and Islamic identity. They see the main threat to Christians as not the West, or Israel, but Islam.

Evidently interreligious conflict has been noted to have negative implication to the economy of the countries in the middles east. Among the sectors greatly affected is tourism. This is due deteroriating security, in such countries as result of religious conflicts. Tourism growth over the past few decades can mainly be attributed to curiosity by people of one religion, to explore another religion, (Stefan Constantin 2016).

Presence of a God is a common belief amongst the two religions, (Sharp, Andrew 2012). Christians and Muslims have always believed in the existence of an almighty God –Allah for Muslims and Jehovah for the Christians. The differential case here is the name given to the God but the belief of the existence of a common God is held by both parties in the case.

Implications

Over the recent years, relations between Muslims and Christians around the middle east have become increasingly differentiated, waved by anti-Islamic rhetoric and fear mongering,( Smith 2015). Christians have always viewed the Qur’an as fraudulent and Muhammad as an imposter .For the case of Muslims, a good number of verses in the Qur’an call for treating Christians and Jews with respect as recipients of God’s divine message. However, many Muslims have found it difficult not to view Christians as polytheists because of their doctrine of the Trinity.

There has however been complications in the relationship between the Christians and Muslims around countries in the Middle East, (Smith 2015). At the moment, Christian-Muslim relations are deemed to be at a low point that had not been witnessed since the crusading days. Christians are being killed in Lebanon as a direct result of the Syrian war, with bishops being kidnapped, churches burnt down and priests tortured. There have been fears that native Christian communities countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, and Syria will one day be forced out of their native homes in the Middle East with no signs of returning.

Efforts are however being made in the Middle East to enhance better understanding between the two long-standing neighboring communities, (Smith 2015). Both Christians and Muslims worked to improve relations and to encourage by motivation of peaceful coexistence around the 20th century. Through the structured struggles of organizations, such as the World Council of Churches, and many more informal setups, dialogue has been conducted in an effort to solve the various questions surrounding the fighting amongst the two religions.

Conclusion

The Orthodox Church, as an example of Christian community has resolved and started to reexamine the sources of the individual faiths and, on a theological level, try to understand how God works through the various other religions such as Islam (Sharp, Andrew, 2012). Efforts are also being put with an aim of disconnecting itself from the concept of nationalism embraced by the Western world and put more emphasis on the common links -historical and linguistic, that were shared by the Christians and Muslims, aiming at a more positive representations in the coming days.

Reference

Colin Chapman, 2012. Christians in the Middle East – Past, Present and Future.

Griffis, Sydney H. The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007.Iwuchukwu, Marinus C., and Brian Siltner. Can Muslims and Christians Resolve Their Religious and Social Conflicts? Cases from Africa and the United States. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2013.

Jane Smith 2015. Christianity, Islamic Studies, Religion and Politics.

Sharp, Andrew M. Orthodox Christians and Islam in the Postmodern Age. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2012.

Stefen, Constantin, The Bucharest University of Economic Study, Romania: The Middle East: Measuring the Relationship between Conflict and Tourism .Bucharest University of Economic Study, Romania, 2016

Thomas, David, Ed. The History of Christian-Muslim Relations. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2013.