religious freedom

Christophobia in the Muslim World

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Source: Boston.com

Last weekend’s scenes of anti-Christian mob violence in Cairo, against a background of churches in flames, is a powerful reminder of a grim reality: Non-Muslim communities have become endangered species throughout much of the Islamic world.

Some statesmen have begun to acknowledge the existential crisis facing non-Muslims. Former Lebanese Prime Minister Amine Gemayel warned earlier this year that Islamic extremists are waging a war of “genocide,’’ while French President Nicolas Sarkozy now refers to the region’s Christians as the victims of “a perverse program of . . . religious cleansing.’’

The most sensational acts of anti-Christian terror command headlines — for a moment. Such was the case when 41 worshippers at Baghdad’s Our Lady of Salvation Catholic Church were held hostage and then massacred by Islamic extremists last October, and 23 Egyptian Christians in Alexandria were killed by a bomb blast as they left mass early this year.

Pakistan’s only Christian Cabinet member, Shahbaz Bhatti — the minister for minority affairs — was shot dead in March. He was a critic of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.

[…]

Read the entire article at Boston.com

Orthodox Churches Object to National Identity Cards

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First of all, let’s dispense with the pejoratives:

Conservative and nationalist wings within the churches have held demonstrations in Athens and Moscow and claim that the cards will compromise national and religious identity. Many have gone so far as to say that identity numbers such as 666 are the “mark of the beast” from the Book of Revelation, the final book of the New Testament.

Archimandrite Iannuarii Ivliev, a professor of biblical studies at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy told the May edition of Neskuchny Sad, a Russian Orthodox magazine, that the obsession with symbols such as 666 are the result of a primitive interpretation of the Book of Revelation.

All that might be true, but it is beside the point. Let’s examine instead the salient point:

Patriarch Kirill II of the Russian Orthodox Church told a meeting of the Bishop’s Council of the Russian Orthodox in February that “the church understands the position of people who do not wish to be subject to control that makes it possible to gather all-encompassing information about their private life, and could in the long-term be used to discriminate against citizens based on their world view.”

I’m with Pat. Kirill on this one. Why would Europeans want to relinquish all their private information to EU bureaucrats? Think of it this way: Do Americans want all their health information open to committees of bureaucrats appointed by such people as HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, or Barbara Boxer and the like? I don’t. And what happens if radical secularists gain control of the government? What happens if the moral foundation of culture is inverted and Christian values are outlawed, and action against the outlaws will appear the rationale and sane action to take? This is precisely Pat. Kirill’s warning and it is one we need to think long and hard about.

Source: The Christian Century | Sophia Kishkovsky

Moscow, April 26 (ENInews)–The Russian and Greek Orthodox churches are objecting to plans in both countries to introduce electronic national identity cards intended to streamline bureaucracy and, in the case of Greece, facilitate integration into the European Union.

Church officials are demanding close study of the cards and asking that authorities make them optional. They say that the personal and financial information that would be consolidated on the microchips in the cards could be manipulated to discriminate against believers.

In an interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta, an official government newspaper, earlier this month, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department of External Church Relations, said: “Credit cards, which a person uses to take money from a bank machine or for payment in a store, are one thing, but a personal card in which all the information about a person’s life and activities will be entered, about his bank accounts, health and travels is a different matter. These are different grades of state control over people.”

Conservative and nationalist wings within the churches have held demonstrations in Athens and Moscow and claim that the cards will compromise national and religious identity. Many have gone so far as to say that identity numbers such as 666 are the “mark of the beast” from the Book of Revelation, the final book of the New Testament.

At a demonstration in Moscow on 16 April, Orthodox nationalists joined forces with members of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. The Communists also oppose the Universal Electronic Card (UEC), which is scheduled to be introduced in Russia next year.

Segodnia.ru, an Internet publication that often covers religious and nationalist issues, commenting on the demonstration, said, “the introduction of the UEC makes it possible to build an unheard of, super-totalitarian electronic dictatorship, in which each individual person becomes a remote-controllable bio-object, for all practical purposes a robot with a bar code on his body or a microchip implanted under his skin.”

Patriarch Kirill II of the Russian Orthodox Church told a meeting of the Bishop’s Council of the Russian Orthodox in February that “the church understands the position of people who do not wish to be subject to control that makes it possible to gather all-encompassing information about their private life, and could in the long-term be used to discriminate against citizens based on their world view.”

On 27 March, thousands of Greek Orthodox priests, monks, nuns and lay people marched through Athens to the Greek parliament building in protest.

In April, the Synod of Bishops of the Church of Greece expressed its concern about the cards and said it would hold meetings with top government officials. Metropolitan Prokopios of Philippi, Neapolis and Thasos, who chairs the synod’s committee on dogmatic and canonical questions, reported that as a result of preliminary talks with the Greek government, the church had received assurances that, among other things, the numerals 666 would not appear in the cards in any form.

Archimandrite Iannuarii Ivliev, a professor of biblical studies at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy told the May edition of Neskuchny Sad, a Russian Orthodox magazine, that the obsession with symbols such as 666 are the result of a primitive interpretation of the Book of Revelation.

“Many years of atheism and the ban on all Christian education has had a poisonous effect,” he said. “Several generations of people have grown up whose religious consciousness, through no fault of their own, is on the most primitive level. They are baptized, but unfortunately not enlightened by the light of Christ’s Gospel … They think that they are under siege from all sides by ‘demonic forces.'”

He said the Bishop’s Council of the Russian Orthodox Church asked the government to make electronic forms of identification optional.

Fr. George Calciu: First Century Christian in the Twentieth Century

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Wesley J. Smith is a frequent commentator on the AOI Observer.

Source: First Things | Wesley J. Smith

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

I had no idea. To be more precise, before I converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, I knew that the Orthodox Church had been harshly suppressed by the communists, but I had no idea that the cruelty of persecution often equaled that inflicted on the early church.

Father George Calciu (1925–2006) was one such sufferer for Christ. A Romanian by birth, an Orthodox Christian by upbringing, and a priest by vocation, Calciu spent a total of twenty-one brutal years in prison—tortured and subjected to brainwashing—for his outspoken evangelism and criticism of communist materialism.

Fr. George’s remarkable story of faith and courage is vividly told in the exemplary book, Father George Calciu: Interviews, Homilies, and Talks. The book is primarily a first person biography taken from several interviews with Fr. George. But it also contains many of his sermons, most notably the famous, “Seven Homilies to the Youth,” a series of Lenten evangelical and anti-communist sermons Fr. George presented in defiance of the Romanian tyranny in 1978.

George Calciu was the youngest of eleven children, raised by devout parents as a faithful Orthodox Christian. Romania became communist in 1944, and the government soon began to crack down on the Church. Calciu was a medical student at the time, and his open faith made him suspect. He was imprisoned in 1948, where he was subjected to 1984-style mind control experiments—tortured until he denied Christ, and then forced to torture others toward the same end. “They wanted our souls,” he recalled, “not our bodies.”

Anguished over his “weakness,” Calciu vowed to become a priest if he survived. Released in 1964, he married, had a son, and obtained a doctorate in French. But the call remained, and when he took an ostensible French professorship at a theological seminary, he was secretly studying for the priesthood. He was ordained in 1973.

Fr. George and his family lived quietly until the communist government renewed its assault on faith. Heeding what he considered a divine call to speak out sacrificially, he offered seven homilies to young Romanians, one homily building on the next during each Wednesday of Lent. It was a rare moment of courage for 1978 Romania: When the church was closed to him by his terrified Patriarch, he preached from its steps. When the gates were locked, the growing audience of youth defiantly climbed the fence to hear him.

In his first homily, “The Call,” Fr. George urged the youth to hear “the voice of Jesus!” issuing a boldly subversive (to communism) call to faith:

What do you know of Christ, young man? If all you know is what they have taught you in atheism classes, you have been deprived, in bad faith, of a truth—the only truth which can set you free? . . . Who has pulled the veil over your eyes so that you would not see the most wonderful light of love proclaimed and lived by Jesus until the final end?

The answer was obvious: The government, the communists, and the educators they controlled. Fr. George offered a clarion invitation:

Come to the Church of Christ—to learn what innocence and purity are, what meekness is and what love is. You will find your place in life and the purpose of your existence. To your astonishment, you will discover that our life does not end in death, but in resurrection; that our existence centers on Christ, and that this world is not a mere empty moment in which nonbeing prevails. . . . Jesus is seeking you; Jesus has found you!

Week after week, Fr. George’s passionate homilies methodically built its evangelical message. In the second, he urged, “Let us Build Churches!” In the third, he described “Heaven and Earth,” the fourth, “Faith and Friendship.” In the fifth, perhaps knowing what was coming, Fr. George described the “Priesthood and Suffering:”

In the sixth homily, he presented the theology of “Death and Resurrection,” and then, just before Pascha (Easter), he concluded on a loving note, assuring his audience of God’s “Forgiveness.” He closed his last sermon with an excerpt from St. John Chrysostom’s famous Paschal homily read each Easter in every Orthodox Church in the world:

If any have labored from the first hour, let him receive today his rightful due. If any have arrived at the sixth hour, let him in no wise be in doubt, for in no wise shall he suffer loss. If any be delayed to even the ninth hour, let him draw near. . . . If any have tarried even until the eleventh hour, let him not be fearful on account of his lateness, for the Master, Who is jealous of His honor, receiving the last even as the first . . . Wherefore then, enter ye all into the joy of our Lord; both the first and last. . . . “Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice! Christ is risen, and life flourisheth! Christ is risen, and there is none dead in the tombs!”

At the end of Lent, Fr. George knew what to expect, and after months of physical intimidation and death threats, it came. Ceauescu ordered the Securitate (Romania’s secret police) to make Calciu disappear.

Fr. George’s faith was more mature and well formed than during his first imprisonment, and this time, despite beatings, torture, and deprivation, he did not break. At one point, he was so exhausted from unremitting interrogation that he could not even recall the Lord’s Prayer. “Then I remembered that there is a prayer to Jesus Christ: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.’ . . . I was no longer scared . . . and I was able to resist.”

He spent years in solitary. He knew nothing of his family, and they, nothing of him. One night, Fr. George heard the joyful peal of many church bells: It was Easter. Early the next morning, the worst guard in the prison—who delighted in torture—entered the priest’s cell. He should have turned his face to the wall. Instead, Fr. George looked his tormenter boldly in the eye and proclaimed, “Christ is risen!” Rather than delivering a blow, the guard paused, and blurted out, “In Truth He is Risen!” and nervously backed out of the cell.

That was when Fr. George experienced a vision of what Orthodox theology calls the Uncreated Light:

He shut the door and I was petrified, because of what he had said. And little by little, I saw myself full of Light. The board against the wall was shining like the sun; everything in my cell was full of light. I cannot explain in words the happiness that invaded me then. I can explain nothing. It simply happened. I have no merit.

When Fr. George was put in a cell with two criminals ordered to murder him, he instead converted them to Christ. By this time, Ceauescu was under pressure from Western leaders to not harm the dissenting priest. As a consequence, he was released to house arrest in 1984, and the next year exiled to America where he spent the rest of his life in freedom.

Fr. Calciu lived what he preached. He did not hate his persecutors. Rather, he prayed for them daily and trusted in God’s mercy for their salvation. He also found joy. In her introduction to the book, Frederica Mathewes-Green, one of Calciu’s spiritual children writes of Fr. Calciu, “He had a beaming smile. He was often amused by life, and ready to laugh. . . . Fr. George was joyful. . . . He was naturally affectionate, and would hold my hand or anyone’s . . . just beaming with a radiant smile.”

Fr. George Calciu lived the kind of life many Christians pray to receive—but to which most hope never to be actually called. But Fr. Calciu’s witness is clear: Persecution and martyrdom—as hard as they are—redound to increased faith and ultimate victory. As we Orthodox say when remembering the righteous departed: Fr. George of blessed memory, pray for us sinners.

Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism. His blog Secondhand Smoke is hosted by First Things.

75 out of every 100 Victims of Religious Intolerance are Christian

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Out of every 100 victims of religious intolerance in the world, 75 are Christians. After the terrorist attack on 20 January 2011 in Alexandria, the European Parliament adopted a resolution acknowledging the fact of violation of the rights of Christians. Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, in his interview to Izvestiya daily (Issue 50 (28311), 24 March 2011), speaks of the persecution of Christians today.

What is your opinion of the European Parliament’s resolution on the violation of the rights of Christians? How and why at all did it appear?

The European Parliament has adopted the Resolution on the Situation of Christians in the Context of Freedom of Religion, and the EU Committee of Foreign Ministers in its statement on February 22 expressed concern for ‘the increasing number of acts of religious intolerance and discrimination, as epitomised by recent violence and acts of terrorism, in various countries, against Christians’. These two decisions were to a considerable extent a result of the intensive efforts of Christian Churches. I should also mention the New Year message of Pope Benedict XVI who called Christians ‘the religious group who suffer most from persecution on account of their faith’. The protection of the rights of Christians is an urgent task today. The reason for the European Parliament’s resolution was the terrorist attack made at one of the Coptic churches in Alexandria on January the 1^st this year.

A week after, the foreign ministers of several European states appealed to the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy to react to this act of terrorism. The reaction followed in the form of this document of the European Parliament, which can be called revolutionary since the European parliamentarians finally spoke up on a problem which they preferred previously to hush up.

According to the non-governmental organization ‘Aid to the Church in Need’, out of every 100 victims killed in the manifestations of religious intolerance in recent years, 75 are Christians.

The enemy image

What has caused the violation of the rights of Christians in the countries mentioned in the resolution?

Every country has a specific character of interreligious relations. Christians used to live in most of these states for ages, even at times when local political regimes claimed to be much more radical than they are today. But in our days, when all the states are committed to the protection of human rights, the exodus of Christians from some states has only increased. In my view, this suggests a failure of today’s world policy in the area of religious freedom and a lack of interest in religious education. As a result, many draw their religious identity from setting off their own beliefs against those of others. Religious ignorance becomes a ground for cultivating hatred towards adherents to a different faith and even for calling for physical destruction. In addition, Christians have become victims of political miscalculations made by Western states. The situation is bad in Iraq. According to some estimates, a half of its 1, 4 million-strong Christian population has already left the country since 2003. Without assessing the internal political situation in Iraq as it was before the NATO interference, we can state that the affairs there had never come to the physical destruction of Christians. The foreign military invasion has made local Christians hostages to the ill-considered actions of NATO countries.

There is a grave situation in India, too. Since 2001, there have been some 130 attacks against Christian annually, and there were 149 attacks in 2010. In Pakistan, Christians often become victims of the so-called law on blasphemy which provides for capital punishment. On March 2, the Pakistani Minister for Religious Minorities, Mr. Shakhbaz Bhatti, a Catholic, was assassinated. He managed to do much for relieving the religious tension in the country, and he was not afraid of speaking in public against the initiatives of religious extremists.

Can this wave of violence be stopped?

Historically, many states including Russia claimed to protect Christian communities which lived in a minority situation. In our time, such external guarantees of the rights of minorities are impossible since they are viewed as interference in the internal affairs of a country. However, it does not give cause for refusal to support Christian communities in different ways such as raising this problem at international organizations or developing cooperation programs to foster interreligious peace in whole regions. The European Parliament’s resolution proposes a concrete action plan. It can be boiled down to the following fundamental principle: economic and financial support in exchange for ensuring human rights in the countries to which this support is given. This principle should become one of the factors in the foreign policy of Western states. The rights of Christians can be ensured only through dialogue between traditional religions both within states and on international level. That is why the Russian Orthodox Church participates in the work of the Interreligious Council in Russia and the CIS and advocates the establishment of a mechanism of dialogue between religious communities and UNESCO.

Uniting of confessions

Are violations of the rights of Christians happen only outside Europe?

Certainly, Europe does not allow of direct violence against people of any religion. However, the tendency towards secularization of the societal life has led to the emergence of political and legislative realities unacceptable to Christians. Religion is sought to be simply ousted from public domain. Let us remember the ruling of the European Court in the case of Lautsi versus Italy, which banned the presence of Christian symbols in schools. Discouraging are also attempts made by some EU states to introduce the so-call sexual education of children. Christians in Europe also see the violation of their rights in sexual minorities’ parades in Paris, Berlin and other once Christian cities. Therefore, it is difficult to speak of absolute respect with regard to the rights of Christians in Europe. So, it is a universal problem. For this reason, the Russian Orthodox Church keeps calling for an open, interested and equitable discussion on this issue.

Nobody should be lured away

What are the prospects for the joint efforts of Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Christians in protecting the rights of Christian minorities?

Unfortunately, even some states in Western Europe today increasingly seek to restrict the expressions of Christian religiosity in public life, arguing that the rights of people of other religions and those of atheists should be respected. For this reason, Christians of various confessions need to engage in joint actions to protect Europe’s Christian identity and to defend the Christian tradition of European culture.

In case of the Lautsi versus Italy proceedings, this solidarity has led to concrete results. The Moscow Patriarchate supported the protest of the Roman Catholic Church against the court decision and contributed to Russia’s support for the appeal lodged by the Government of Italy with the Grand Chamber of the European Court. The appeal was supported by some other European states as well.

And quite recently, on March 18, this position was supported by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg which ruled that crucifixes can hang in classrooms in European schools.

What is the role played by proselytism?

Proselytism, that is, luring believers away from one Christian confession to another, has long proved to be harmful for the development of dialogue between Christian Churches. In a situation where Christian have to face manifestations of Islamic extremism, solidarity of Christian, whatever Church or community they may belong to, become a vital task. Christians in the Middle East have long realized it and seek to give each other all possible help. The Middle East is the cradle of Christianity and it is very important that Christian presence should be preserved there. This can be achieved only with the help of the international community.

Vatican: Human Sexuality … Is Not an “Identity”

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More arguments for my thesis that “Sexual Orientation” is not an ontological category.

GENEVA, MARCH 24, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Here is the address Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi, permanent representative of the Holy See to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva, delivered Tuesday at the 16th Session of the Human Rights Council on "sexual orientation."

Mr. President,

The Holy See takes this opportunity to affirm the inherent dignity and worth of all human beings, and to condemn all violence that is targeted against people because of their sexual feelings and thoughts, or sexual behaviors.

We would also like to make several observations about the debates regarding "sexual orientation."

First, there has been some unnecessary confusion about the meaning of the term "sexual orientation," as found in resolutions and other texts adopted within the UN human rights system. The confusion is unnecessary because, in international law, a term must be interpreted in accordance with its ordinary meaning, unless the document has given it a different meaning.[1] The ordinary meaning of "sexual orientation" refers to feelings and thoughts, not to behavior.[2]

Second, for the purposes of human rights law, there is a critical difference between feelings and thoughts, on the one hand, and behavior, on the other. A state should never punish a person, or deprive a person of the enjoyment of any human right, based just on the person’s feelings and thoughts, including sexual thoughts and feelings. But states can, and must, regulate behaviors, including various sexual behaviors. Throughout the world, there is a consensus between societies that certain kinds of sexual behaviors must be forbidden by law. Pedophilia and incest are two examples.

Third, the Holy See wishes to affirm its deeply held belief that human sexuality is a gift that is genuinely expressed in the complete and lifelong mutual devotion of a man and a woman in marriage. Human sexuality, like any voluntary activity, possesses a moral dimension: It is an activity which puts the individual will at the service of a finality; it is not an "identity." In other words, it comes from the action and not from the being, even though some tendencies or "sexual orientations" may have deep roots in the personality. Denying the moral dimension of sexuality leads to denying the freedom of the person in this matter, and undermines ultimately his/her ontological dignity. This belief about human nature is also shared by many other faith communities, and by other persons of conscience.

And finally, Mr. President, we wish to call attention to a disturbing trend in some of these social debates: People are being attacked for taking positions that do not support sexual behavior between people of the same sex. When they express their moral beliefs or beliefs about human nature, which may also be expressions of religious convictions, or state opinions about scientific claims, they are stigmatized, and worse — they are vilified, and prosecuted. These attacks contradict the fundamental principles announced in three of the Council’s resolutions of this session.[3] The truth is, these attacks are violations of fundamental human rights, and cannot be justified under any circumstances.

Thank you, Mr. President.

NOTES

[1] Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties, Article 31(1): "A treaty shall be interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose" (emphasis added). Article 31(4): " A special meaning shall be given to a term if it is established that the parties so intended. " These rules of treaty interpretation are based on customary international law, and are applicable to "soft law."

[2] Moreover, many publications have given definitions of "sexual orientation," and all of the ones that we have seen are similar: they do not refer to behavior; they refer to sexual feelings and thoughts. E.g.:

(1) "sexual orientation means the general attraction you feel towards" another person or persons. Equality Commission (The United Kingdom); See, www.equalityhumanrights.com, under "What does sexual orientation mean?

(2) "sexual orientation may be broadly defined as a preference for sexual partners …." International Labour Office, ABC of Women Workers’ Rights and Gender Equality (2nd ed., 2007), p. 167). A "preference" is a mental-emotional state; it is not conduct.

(3) "sexual orientation refers to a person’s sexual and emotional attraction to people …." Amnesty International, Crimes of Hate, Conspiracy of Silence (Amnesty International Publications, London, 2001), p. vii (emphasis omitted).

(4) "’Sexual orientation’ refers to each person’s capacity for profound emotional, affectional and sexual attraction to, and intimate and sexual relations …." Asia Pacific Forum, ACJ Report: Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (15th Annual Meeting, Bali, 3-5 Aug. 2010), p. 8.

[3] L-10 on freedom of opinion and expression; L.14 on freedom of religion or belief; L. 38 on combating intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization.

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