Category: WM Special

Iran is over 99% Muslim and Islam is the state religion. The Church’s roots in Iran are very old going back to the 2nd century. Is Christianity the oldest religion in Iran?  No, we have two older communities, older than Christianity. First, we have the Zoroastrian community which goes back centuries before the arrival of Christianity and Islam. Second, we have the Jewish community. The Zoroastrian community consists of about 20,000 people and the Jewish, between 20,000 and 35,000. These two communities are older than the Christian community.    Today, Iran is over 99% Muslim. How does Islam permeate daily life?  If you are on the streets of Tehran, or any part of the country, you will notice the portrait of the martyrs, the Ayatollah, the late Khomeini, the current Ayatollah Khamenei. If you use a phone in public telephone booths, you will hear the voice of Imam Hussein telling you what to do.    So, if you pick up a phone, immediately you will hear a (recorded) voice of the Imam?  Right. And in schools, the Disciplines are permitted but through a perspective based on the Koran and Hadith and other Islamic sciences.    In fact, if I understand correctly, the picture of the Ayatollah is even on the cover of the catechism books?  Right, and maybe it is a way to show that Christians are under the protection of the regime and are considered dhimmis (protected people) in the Islamic Sharia. It is a way to say that you [Christians] are under our [Islamic] regime. Then, you have the religious police.    What about the modesty patrols that make sure that women are properly garbed?  Sometimes they are hard liners and sometimes not depending on the regime. Under Khatami, for instance, they were a little bit liberal so girls could show a little bit of their heads. Under Ahmadinejad, it is stricter.   It is very strict now and back to the complete covering?  Yes, only the face is seen. But there are women who cover their hands and faces, too.    Christians number about 100,000 in a population of 71 million. How are Christians viewed in Iran?  Christians are viewed as an ethnic minority because the Christians are predominantly Armenians, and Syro-Chaldeans. We have 80,000 Orthodox Armenians who are also called Gregorian or Apostolic Armenian, 5,000 Catholic Armenians, and around 20,000 Assyro-Chaldeans plus other communities such as Latin, Protestants Churches which, all together, make up between 100,000 to 110,000. So, they are seen as an ethnic minority and as such, they are not allowed to celebrate their rites in Farsi, the official language of Iran. They can’t celebrate the Holy Mass in Farsi but in Armenian or Chaldean only.    To distinguish them as foreigners?  Not only that but to prevent them from being attractive and understood by the local Iranians.    To prevent the Iranians from being attracted to the faith?  Right, and to prevent them [Iranians] from understanding what they [Christians] are saying. There was

ARMENIANS. Armenia, part of modern Turkey, was under Soviet rule until 1991, when Communism fell. At various stages of its history, it was under Arab, Byzantine, and Turkish rule. The monk Mechitan sought safety in Venice. His followers formed the congregation of the Mechitists, which started the development of Armenian culture. Only 4% of the population are Roman Catholics, while the majority (94%) are “Armenian Apostolic Catholics.” A “Katholikos” heads the Roman Catholics. They were banned from attending the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which condemned the heresy of monophysitism, that is, Christ has only one divine nature, despite His earthly birth, life, death, and resurrection. Later, they accepted conciliar decrees of the Council of Ferrara-Florence in 1453, and confirmed the union with the Roman Catholic Church. In 1996, Pope John Paul II and Katholikos Karekin I (+1999) signed a joint declaration to bridge the gap between the two Churches. The Armenian Apostolic Catholics (or Oriental Orthodox) had also accepted the decrees of Chalcedon. For political reasons, the Byzantine Emperor, influenced by the monphysites, opposed them. They reunited with Rome for more than two centuries (1198-1375), but internal conflicts prevented total union among themselves.   CHALDEANS. They form a minority group today in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. Already mentioned in ancient writings, the Old Testament considered them people with magical powers. They are either Nestorians, who admit a divine and human nature in Christ, but which are merely accidentally united in Him, or Oriental Rite Roman Catholics. The Chaldean Catholics trace their roots to the Latin Crusaders, and they had always sought reunion with the Roman Catholic Church. But centuries of conflict due to circumstances of time, place, and persons, have always blocked their efforts. In 1552, their patriarch, Simon III Baida, journeyed to see Pope Julius III. Refusing election to the Patriarchate twice, they forced him physically to accept the position. The following year, the Pope proclaimed Sulaqa as the Patriarch of the Chaldeans, an event which marks the official establishment of the Chaldean Catholic Church.   COPTS. The name is Arabic for “Egyptian.” St. Mark brought the Christian Gospel from Alexandria to Egypt and Abyssinia. Wrongly thinking that monophysitism was the orthodox doctrine, for it was supposedly taught by St. Cyril of Alexandria, the Patriarch of Alexandria accepted the heretical teaching. The Byzantines, too, had accepted the decrees of Chalcedon, and their followers are known as “Melkites,” or the “King’s men.” But the traditionalists in Egypt resented the “upstart” Byzantines, and so, to promote peace, Emperor Justin II created a Melkite Patriarchate and a non-Chalcedonian Patriarch. The majority went with the non-Chalcedonian Patriarch, and observed a modified Alexandrian liturgy, while the Melkites followed the Byzantine. Their Arab conquerors subjected them to taxes, tributes, or Islam – or death. Many embraced Islam. The first attempt of reunion with Rome occurred during the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1439). Pertinent documents were issued, but their Church leaders refused to sign them. In 1600, a Franciscan friar was named their Vicar and, in

In 1054, the mid-Eastern Christian churches split from the Roman Catholic Church, and all efforts in the last 10 centuries to reconcile them have failed. Differences in culture, language, social traditions, politics, and even human ambition have been the factors of this continued alienation and suspicion. And yet, both sides believe in the same God and receive the same sacraments. A number of them have rejoined the Roman Catholic Church, but one remains aloof and refuses to accept the primacy of the Pope in Rome. St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, was martyred in Rome, the Eternal City and capital of the ancient Roman Empire. The bishops who succeeded him there inherited his primacy and supreme authority over all Christian churches, and Rome is now the head and center of Christianity. The other mid-Eastern churches can also claim apostolic origins, but do not enjoy the same privilege. Antioch traces its beginnings to St. Peter, but he did not die there. Alexandria in Egypt, a Jewish center of culture and learning, was the second imperial city as big as Rome. Tradition says that St. Mark, St. Peter’s close disciple, was the founder of its Christian Church. St. James the Apostle headed Jerusalem, the cradle of Christianity, where he was martyred. Constantinople, founded in 324 by Constantine the Great as the seat of his new empire, could not claim the same apostolic origin. Christianity was persecuted until Emperor Constantine the Great granted it legal existence in 313 A. D. For strategic reasons, he abandoned Rome and, in 324, built a new seat of his empire in Byzantium, renamed Constantinople (“Constantini polis,” or Constantine’s City). The new imperial capital soon eclipsed Rome in importance, grandeur, and culture. Because Christianity flourished under imperial protection, it seemed a matter of course that the Emperor would be considered head of the Christian community, and he was expected to promote the well-being of both the Empire and the Church. And Constantine himself believed that religious unity and uniformity of belief would consolidate imperial unity, and he banned everything that threatened to disrupt it.   The first councils Sincere Christian leaders were perplexed over many Christian mysteries, especially the Trinity. Arius (+336), a priest in Alexandria, could not rationally explain how Jesus could also be divine. If He was, how could there be only one God? He concluded that Jesus could not be divine, but only a mere creature, lower than the Father. To worship Jesus was idolatry. More importantly, His death on the cross was useless and could not save the world. In this way, Arius believed he was preserving the doctrine of only one supreme God intact. To settle the dispute, Constantine convoked the first ecumenical council in Nicaea in 325, which unequivocally condemned Arius and his teachings. It drew up a succinct summary of the articles of Christian faith, we now know as the Nicene Creed. Not all accepted the condemnation, and Constantine imposed his imperial authority to force everyone to accept the Nicene

As the 2003 United States-led invasion of Iraq began, the country’s Christians started streaming across the border into neighboring Jordan. Today, most of them continue to live here in abject poverty with no hope of ever returning to the land of their ancestors. “We have lost our home country, we are not willing to lose our faith,” says Brahim, a 65-year-old chemistry teacher and Christian Iraqi residing in Amman. According to figures released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Iraqi refugee population is largest in Syria, with some 220,000 registered with the body. Another 47,000 have been registered with UNHCR in Jordan, while Lebanon hosts 10,000 registered refugees. “The number of Christian Iraqi refugees in Jordan has decreased dramatically from about 30,000, only a few years ago, to some 10,000 to 15,000 today,” says Rev. Father Raymond Moussalli. Christians residing in Jordan belong mostly to the Chaldean, Syriac, Assyrian and Protestant Churches. “Most of us speak Chaldean, which is very similar to the original language of our Lord Jesus Christ,” says Oussama, a 24-year-old Iraqi Christian. Christians congregate daily at the basement of the small Chaldean Church in Webdeh hills, where it is headquartered. They come to exchange stories of their home country, pray in silence, or simply to find solace with other refugees who, like them, are forced to live in a foreign land. Many live around the area as well as in other older Amman quarters, such as Jabal Hussein or Markah. “The international community has become indifferent to the plight of Christians still residing in Iraq, whose number is dwindling from nearly a million to less than 400,000 today,” complains Brahim. Batoul, a woman in her 60s, fled the Iraqi capital only a few months ago. “We owned two buildings in Bagdad. One morning, I woke up and saw that someone had painted a message in bright red on the garden’s wall. It was a threat to kill us if we did not come up with 80,000 dollars. The police asked us to immediately leave the country, saying that they did not have the means to protect us,” she recalls with sadness. Brahim’s story is similar. “I resigned from my teaching job at a Christian school when Father Youssef Aboudi, our head priest, was killed by militants after being accused of proselytism. The threats did not stop when I stayed home. I eventually had to leave for the sake of my 24-year-old daughter,” he adds. Many Iraqi refugees escape with few funds, adding to the hardship they face in their land of refuge. Iraqis wishing to obtain a Jordanian residency which allows them to work, for example, have to place about 50,000 US dollars in a special account. Refugees registered with the UNHCR hold asylum-seeker cards, but without residency, the refugees cannot work legally and, therefore, have no access to healthcare and education. “Living conditions are extremely difficult and expenses run very high. We need as much as 1,000 dollars a month in

The last 50 years have seen an unprecedented and unsustainable spike in consumption, driven by a culture of consumerism that has emerged over that period, says a report released by the Worldwatch Institute. This consumerist culture is the elephant in the room when it comes to solving the big environmental issues of today, the report says, and those issues cannot be fully solved until a transition to a more sustainable culture is begun. “State of the World 2010,” subtitled “Transforming Cultures: From Consumerism to Sustainability,” tries to chart a path away from what Worldwatch President Christopher Flavin calls “the consumer culture that has taken hold, probably, first in the U.S. and now in country after country over the past century, so that we can now talk about a global consumerist culture that has become a powerful force around the world.” In this culture, says the book-length report, people find meaning and contentment in what they consume, but this cultural orientation has had huge implications for society and the planet. The average U.S. citizens, for instance, consume more each day, in terms of mass, than they weigh. If everyone lived like this, the Earth could only sustain 1.4 billion people. Flavin admits consumerism is not the only factor driving environmental degradation but says it is one of the key root causes on which other factors are built – and, as a cultural framework, it is expanding. “In India and China, for instance, the consumer culture of the U.S. and Western Europe is not only being replicated but being replicated on a much vaster scale,” he says.   A sixfold rise in consumption Consumption has risen sixfold since 1960, the report says, citing World Bank statistics. Even taking the rising global population into account, this amounts to a tripling of consumption expenditures per person over this time. This has led to similar increases in the amount of resources used – a sixfold increase in metals extracted from the earth, eightfold in oil consumption and 14-fold in natural gas consumption. “In total, 60 billion tons of resources are now extracted annually – about 50% more than just 30 years ago,” the report says. Escalating resource consumption has also led to unsustainable systems of distributing and producing those resources. In the field of agriculture, for instance, every one dollar spent on a typical U.S. food item yields only about seven cents for the farmer, while 73 cents go to distribution, says the report’s chapter on shifting to a more sustainable agricultural system. It points to this as one outcome of increasingly unsustainable consumption habits. These habits have formed only recently – the same dollar yielded 40 cents for the farmer in 1900 – but they have now become ingrained. This consumption is based on more than individual choices. As co-author Michael Maniates says, “We’re not stupid, we’re not ignorant, we don’t even have bad values.” Rather, we are acting under the heavy influence of cultural conventions that influence our behavior by making things, like