Damascus

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After 10 years of mystery, the Orthodox shepherds of Aleppo remain missing

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After 10 years of mystery, the Orthodox shepherds of Aleppo remain missing

Metropolitan Paul Yazigi had no way to know that he was about to vanish into the chaos of the Turkish-Syrian border during the violent rise of the Islamic State.

"If we want to be good children to God, then we don't thank Him only when He gives us [blessings]," he said, in one of his final sermons (translated from Arabic) before he was kidnapped on April 22, 2013.

"Also, when we are hurting, we say to Him: 'Your hand must be taking care of us, and we thank You.' …A Christian is a creature that gives thanks to God for all things one knows and doesn't know, for both the good and the hardships one faces in his life."

Sermons about faith and suffering are always timely in ancient churches.

The bishops of Aleppo, Syria -- Metropolitan Yazigi and Metropolitan Yohanna Ibrahim of the Syriac Orthodox Church -- disappeared 10 years ago while seeking the release of two kidnapped priests. Their car was surrounded by a pack of armed men, as they maneuvered through risky checkpoints near west of Aleppo. Their driver died in the gunfire, but a survivor later testified that the kidnappers were not speaking Arabic and appeared to be from Chechnya.

There were no ransom demands from the terrorists. The shepherds of Aleppo simply vanished, inspiring few headlines outside the Middle East.

The 10-year anniversary passed quietly this spring, after years of special prayers during Orthodox worship services around the world.

"I don't think anyone can assume, at this point, that they are still living. But there is a sense that we don't know enough about what happened to have a sense of closure," said Father Thomas Zain, dean of St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral in Brooklyn, New York.

"It's likely that they were kidnapped in Turkish territory, which added another level of complexity to the political situation."


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Many like to speculate: What was the biblical 'thorn in the flesh' that plagued St. Paul?

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Many like to speculate: What was the biblical 'thorn in the flesh' that plagued St. Paul?

THE QUESTION:

What was the biblical "thorn in the flesh" that so plagued St. Paul?

THE RELIGION GUY'S ANSWER:

We'll never be sure. But the question is perennially fascinating.

"Thorn in the flesh" is one of many commonplace phrases we take from the Bible. It appears in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, where St. Paul writes that he knew "a man" -- modestly referring to himself -- who was "caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told." He describes the aftermath of his powerful experience in verses 7-9:

To keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. (New Revised Standard Version)

Other English translations say "arrogant," "conceited," "lifted up," "proud" or "exalted" instead of "elated."

Christians through history have pondered what so plagued this New Testament writer and Christian founder (though we can imagine his close colleagues knew). Some say it was a interior spiritual or psychological challenge, while others see opponents, obstacles or persecution his pioneer missionary work coped with.

Many focus on the telltale word "flesh" and insist it must have been some physical malady.


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Centuries of blood and faith: Why many Christians in Middle East look to Russia for help

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Centuries of blood and faith: Why many Christians in Middle East look to Russia for help

Whenever I travel overseas, I am always humbled by how much news consumers in other lands know about what is happening in America and around the world.

This sadness is linked to one of the saddest realities — for decades — in American journalism: American readers don’t seem to care much about international trends and news. Thus, far too many American newspapers dedicate little or no space to international news.

Now, combine that with the reality that has driven GetReligion for 17 years, which is the sad state of accurate, informed, fair-minded religion-news coverage in many, maybe most, American newsrooms (especially in television news).

So what happens when you put those two sad trends together? If way too many journalists don’t “get” religion and way too many news consumers don’t care much about international news, what do you think happens to coverage of complicated religion-news trends and issues on the other side of the planet?

That was the subject of this week’s “Crossroads” podcast. Click here to tune that in.

In particular, host Todd Wilken and I focused on the media’s struggles to cover the complicated religious realities in the Middle East — such as Russia’s role in Syria, in the wake of Donald’s Trump’s decision to abandon Kurdish forces in the northern rim of that troubled land, leading to a Turkish invasion that threatened many religious minorities.

The big idea: Of course Russia has economic and political interests in Syria, ties that have been there for many years. It would be stupid to ignore those realities. But what about the religious ties between Orthodoxy in Russia and the ancient Orthodox Church of Antioch, for centuries based on the Street Called Straight in Damascus? How do you cover Russia’s interests in Syria without even mentioning that?

Come to think of it: How can reporters (even in elite newsrooms like The New York Times) cover almost anything that happens in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel and elsewhere without taking in account religious trends and history?


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Yes, Russian interests in Syria are political, but there are centuries of religious ties as well

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As a rule, the foreign desk of The New York Times does high-quality work when covering religious stories that are clearly defined as religion stories, frequently drawing praise here at GetReligion.

However, when an international story is defined in political terms — such as Donald Trump’s decision to abandon Kurdish communities in northern Syria — editors at the Times tend to miss the religion “ghosts” (to use a familiar GetReligion term) that haunt this kind of news.

The bottom line: It’s hard to write a religion-free story about news with obvious implications for Turkey, Syria, Russia, the United States, the Islamic State and a complex patchwork of religious minorities. The Times has, however, managed to do just that in a recent story with this headline: “In Syria, Russia Is Pleased to Fill an American Void.”

Included in that complex mix is the ancient Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church, based in Damascus. Let me state the obvious here: Yes, part of my interest here is rooted in my own faith, since I converted into the Antiochian church 20-plus years ago. Click here for my 2013 column — “The Evil the church already knows in Syria” — about the plight of the Orthodox Church in a region ruled by monsters of all kinds.

This brings me to this particular Times feature. One does not have to grant a single noble motive to Russian President Vladimir Putin to grasp that secular and religious leaders in Russia do not want to risk the massacre of ancient Orthodox Christian communities in Syria. And there are other religious minorities in the territory invaded by Turkish forces. This is one of the reasons that American evangelicals and others have screamed about Trump’s decision to stab the Kurds in the back.

How can the world’s most powerful newspaper look at this drama and miss the role of religion? Here is the overture:

DOHUK, Iraq — Russia asserted itself in a long-contested part of Syria … after the United States pulled out, giving Moscow a new opportunity to press for Syrian army gains and project itself as a rising power broker in the Middle East.


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Glimpse of wider Orthodox debate: Will Russian priests keep blessing weapons of mass destruction?

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egular GetReligion readers are probably aware that I am a convert to Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

Readers who have been paying close attention (including a few in Russia) know that I attend an Orthodox Church in America parish in Oak Ridge, Tenn., that — while largely made up of converts — has Russian roots and members who are from Russia and Romania. When our senior priest (from the American South) does some of the Divine Liturgy in Old Church Slavonic, you can hear people reciting the rite by memory.

When I talk to Russians about subjects linked to Russia and the church, I hear all kinds of things — ranging from realistic concerns about life in Russia to worries and frustrations about how Americans often forget that there is more to Russia and the Russian worldview than Vladimir Putin.

However, when you read U.S. news reports about Russian Orthodoxy the assumption is always that the Orthodox Church and the Putin regime are one and the same. However, many Orthodox believers reject much of what Putin does and are concerned about the church being tied too closely to the state. Russians also see tensions between church and state that are rarely mentioned in news reports, tensions linked to political and moral issues, such as abortion. In other words, they see a more complex puzzle.

Every now and then I see a U.S. media report that — for a second — seems aware of complexities inside Russia and inside the Russian Orthodox Church. The Religion News Service recently ran this kind of feature under the headline: “Russian Orthodox Church considers a ban on blessing weapons of mass destruction.” Here is the overture:

MOSCOW (RNS) — Early one evening in May 2018, days before the annual parade celebrating the Soviet victory in World War II, a convoy of military trucks carrying long-range nuclear weapons trundled to a halt on the Russian capital’s ring road.

As police officers stood guard, two Russian Orthodox priests wearing cassocks and holding Bibles climbed out of a vehicle and began sprinkling holy water on the stationary Topol and Yars intercontinental ballistic missiles.


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If major church leaders of Syria blast President Trump's missiles and tweets, is that news?

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Please allow me just a moment here to speak as an Eastern Orthodox Christian, as well as a journalist and as, well, an American voter.

In the past several weeks, the crisis in Syria has jumped off the back burner of the mainstream press and into the headlines. There are lots of valid Google search terms linked to this, starting with "Donald Trump," "innocent civilians" and "Russia."

However, there is an angle to this story that means the world to me, yet it's one you rarely see covered in American media.

Believe it or not, religion does play a role in the Syria crisis. The most agonizing reality in all of this -- as I have mentioned before here at GetReligion -- is that several religious minorities in Syria, including the ancient Orthodox patriarchate in Damascus, depend on the current Syrian government for protection from radicalized forms of Islam.

Once again let me confess: My daily prayers include petitions for the protection of Christians, and all of those suffering, in Damascus, Aleppo and that region.

Do these religious believers recognize the evil that surrounds them, on both sides of the conflict? Of course they do. Please consider the message in a 2013 sermon by an Antiochian Orthodox leader here in America, Bishop Basil Essey of Wichita, Kan. He states the obvious:

Anyone who prays for peace in Syria must acknowledge, at the beginning, that "vicious wrongs" have been done on both sides and that "there's really no good armed force over there. No one we can trust. None," concluded Bishop Basil.
"So the choice is between the evil that we know and that we've had for 30-40 years in that part of the world, or another evil we don't know about except what they've shown us in this awful civil war."

This brings me to an important story that ran at Crux, focusing on how leaders of ancient religious communities in Syria reacted to the Trump administration's decision to attack Syria (during the festive week following Orthodox Easter, I might add). Oh yeah, that Pope Francis guy is involved in this, as well.


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Will team Trump come through for Christians in Middle East? Will press cover this story?

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Two decades ago, my family converted to Eastern Orthodoxy -- becoming part of the ancient Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church that is based on Damascus, located on the street called Straight (as in Acts 9:11).

From 2001-2004 we were members of a West Palm Beach, Fla., congregation in which most of the members had deep family roots into Syria, Lebanon or Palestine. Needless to say, they had stories to tell about the struggles of Christians in the Middle East.

Here in America, we tend to focus on the present. At the moment, that means talking about atrocities linked to the Islamic State. When you talk to Christians from the Middle East, the events of the present are always tied to centuries of oppression in the past. It's all one story.

Right now, the issue -- for many Christians, and members of other oppressed religious minorities -- is how to survive in refugee camps. After that they face the ultimate questions of whether to flee the region or attempt, once again, to return to their battered homes and churches and start over.

Thus, I noticed a story last week that received very little attention in the American mainstream press. Once again, we are dealing with a story that I first saw in an online analysis at The Atlantic. When I went looking for mainstream, hard-news coverage, I saw this short CNN report, and that was pretty much it. Here's the heart of that CNN story:

Washington (CNN) Vice President Mike Pence announced Wednesday night that the Trump administration will no longer fund "ineffective" programs run by the United Nations to help persecuted communities and will instead send money to such groups directly through the US Agency for International Development.
"President (Donald) Trump has ordered the State Department to stop funding ineffective relief efforts at the United Nations, ... and from this day forward, America will provide support directly to persecuted communities through USAID," Pence declared to extended applause while speaking in Washington to the group In Defense of Christians, which advocates for greater protection of Christians in the Middle East.
"While faith-based groups with proven track records and deep roots in the region are more than willing to assist, the United Nations continues to deny their funding requests," Pence said.
The vice president, who is deeply religious, urged his "fellow Christians" to support faith-based groups and private organizations.

    Note the strange, vague little phrase that Pence is "deeply religious," backed by the scare-quote "fellow Christians" reference. In other words, this move is just another attempt to play to the GOP base. Thus, this isn't really a story that matters.

     


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    What brings Rome and Moscow together at last? Suffering churches in Syria, Iraq (updated)

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    It is certainly the most important story of the day for the world's Eastern Orthodox Christians. Yes, even bigger than the announcement -- with the lengthy fast (no meat, no dairy) of Great Lent approaching -- that Ben & Jerry's is poised to begin selling vegan ice cream.

    I am referring to the announcement of a meeting between Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Orthodox Church in Russia.

    Any meeting between the pope and the patriarch of all Russia would be historic, simply because the shepherds of Rome and Moscow have never met before. Hold that thought, because we will come back to it.

    The big question, of course, is: Why are they meeting? What finally pushed the button to ease the tensions enough between these two churches for their leaders to meet?

    In terms of the early news coverage, the answer depends on whether you are one of the few news consumers who will have a chance to read the Reuters report, being circulated by Religion News Service, or one of the many who see the Associated Press story that is, I believe, deeply flawed. Alas, the majority of news consumers will probably see a shortened version of the AP report and will be totally in the dark about the primary purpose of this historic meeting.

    So here is the top of the Reuters report:

    MOSCOW -- The patriarch of Russia’s Orthodox Church will take part in an historic first meeting with the Roman Catholic pontiff on Feb. 12 because of the need for a joint response to the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, the Orthodox Church said.
    Senior Orthodox cleric Metropolitan Hilarion said that long-standing differences between the two churches remain, most notably a row over the status of the Uniate Church, in Ukraine. But he said these differences were being put aside so that Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis could come together over persecution of Christians.


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    You are a priest in Syria (or a U.S. pastor): What do you think of the news today?

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    You are a priest in Syria (or a U.S. pastor): What do you think of the news today?

    Let's run through this life-and-death equation again, because it's at the heart of this week's GetReligion "Crossroads" podcast, which centered on two different posts (here and here) about threats to the ancient Christian churches in Syria. Click here to tune that in.

    Start here. You are a priest in an ancient church in Syria, part of a body linked to a form of Eastern Orthodoxy or with Catholic ties of some kind. In recent years you have seen members of your flock -- perhaps even a bishop -- kidnapped or killed. This may have been by the rising tide of the Islamic State or by one of more of the insurgent groups that is trying to defeat the armies of President Bashar al-Assad. 

    You know all about the crimes of the Assad regime. However, you also know that -- at the moment -- Assad knows that religious minorities of all kinds in Syria are under attack and thus they are standing together.

    The bottom line: ISIS is killing Christians faster than the anti-Assad Sunni Muslim insurgent forces, some of which are receiving U.S funds and help, but the insurgents are pretty good at killing infidels, as well. Deep down, you wonder if the insurgents -- most allied with Saudi Arabia -- will end up trying to divide Syria with the Islamic State. The main thing you fear is complete and total chaos, since the one thing the insurgents and ISIS leaders agree on is that they want the current government gone and those who supported it dead, in slavery or driven away in the river of refugees.

    So, what do you think of the following news from -- pick an elite U.S. news source -- The New York Times? 


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