I’m sorry, but PETA is not an environmental organization in any way, and they have nothing to do with what Patriarch Bartholomew was talking about. They are an animal rights organization. They have absolutely zero to do with the environmental movement. You have resorted to name-calling and false guilt-by-association rather than making an argument.

As for Soros, I find it very hard to believe that a multi-billionaire who has been devoted to promoting democracy in post-Soviet states is any sort of “socialist”. He was a major supporter of Poland’s Solidarity movement, Georgia’s Rose Revolution, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, and Andrie Sakharov’s work in the USSR. And he’s donated $6 billion of his own money. You are once again using name-calling to taint someone who has done a huge amount of significant charitable and pro-democracy work.

If this is the best support you have for calling people “neo-socialist eco-nazis”, then I feel you should withdraw the accusation.

I suppose it depends on how you define “freedom of worship”. The problem of putting freedom of worship above everything else is that our Lord called us to evangelize. At least in dhimmi form, and the communist one, ‘freedom of worship’ is not really freedom at all because Christianity becomes an internalized thing and is too limited to be what Christianity is. I my opinion the results speak for themselves.

I too wish the secular nationalist governments of the west would take into account these Christians in their political calculations, but it just is not going to happen. Other things will always be prioritized higher, not the least of which is the secular wests tendency to appease (which is what the money to Egypt, Turkey, etc. is about). The west on some level recognizes the threat that Islam is, but will continue to treat it as either a “rational actor” that can be negotiated with, or in a machiavellian manner – either way the remnant of Christians do not make rise to the level of even a variable…

What I am saying is this. Freedom of worship is the most important right
that a Christian can have. I will say that I value freedom of religion
more so than political freedom, or the right to vote. Given the choice,
I will put my faith above everything.

The Christians in the east have attempted to survive as best they can
under very difficult circumstances. They value the ability to be able
to partake the sacraments in Church, to baptize etc.. and worship.

The Christians who live under Islamic regimes and war as the Palestinians
do are attempting to preserve their faith in their homelands as long as it
is possible. Chances are, their situation will inevitably become worse
with the changing of certain regimes.

But why is it wrong to attempt to survive where conditions permit? The
Palestinian Authority and the regime in Syria are secular Nationalistic
regimes, not Islamic ones. On that basis the Christians have been
accepted as fellow Arabs, and are therefore tolerated.

If western politicians cannot help them, it is understandable. But at least
they should not be making the situation worse for them, either.

And it is a noble effort to preserve Christianity in the holy land and
the lands of its birth. And why should Eastern Christians not actively
work for the betterment of the Christians in the East?

The Serbian Church has established a lobby for the Serbs in Kosovo, as
the Order of Saint Andrew lobbies for the Phanar.

Why is it right for the US to pour money into supporting Israeli settlements
and supporting Turkey, etc.. without accepting responsibility for
Christian populations who are being affected by those policies?

Theodoros

I think you and George are saying the same thing: The middle eastern Christians have accepted dhimmi status long ago. The problem with this is that it leads to only one possible outcome – eventual conversion or death.

A temporary “blip” on this trajectory due to suppression of Islam by a “secular” dictatorship is , well temporary. Such is what happens when put aside your Christian freedom in politics.

Again, the core issues here have nothing to do with “the west”. Even on the edges neither a “Christian” west nor a secular one would support dhimmi status from the outside – it goes against the core of both kinds of “the west”. Can you see a modern secular west embracing a robust imperialism and going in a protecting all or some of the remnant of the middle eastern Christians? Will never happen – and frankly nor should it. The west simply does not have the moral basis to do this. Perhaps when the west was “Christendom” an argument could be made – but then their small efforts turned out to be a disaster as they were really political power plays manipulating Christianity for its own purposes (i.e. the Crusades).

To begin with, the “Christian Zionists” with their obsession with
the prophecies of Revelation and the Old Testament have been
providing a variety of political and financial support to hard
line Israeli religious groups. The history of modern Israel
in 1948 and 1967 resulted in the evacuation of Palestinian as
well as Israeli Christians from their villages and homes.

To begin with, read William Dalyrimple’s “From the Holy
Mountain” which is a travel book of virtually all the Christian
populations of the Middle East. Until recently, the Arab towns
of Nazareth and Bethlehem were populated by Arab Orthodox
Christians.

The Israeli settlers movement has been looking to displace Arab
Christians as well as Muslims from their native lands. The
Christians have been hit hard by the wars in the region and
extremists on both sides.

As for Saddam, the west had already supported him in the Iran-
Iraq war. The fact remains that for Eastern Christians freedom
of worship trumps political freedom. Read paleoconservative
publications like the American Conservative and Chronicles which
frequently publish articles about the difficulties of Christians
in Iraq. When Saddam went down, the most extreme Islamic elements
emerged to target the Christians.

Eastern Christiany (Orthodox, Assyrian, Copt etc) have never been
a priority of Western leaders. This goes in the Balkans as well
where they helped Islam in its effort to detach Kosovo from Serbia.

As for Saddam again, yes he was a monstrous figure but so are all
the regimes in that entire region. At least the Christians could
have had freedom of worship.

Theodoros

You should know this from the EP’s lecturing everyone else on nationalism and ethnocentrism.

Andrew,

It gets worse, much worse! I tried the game and when I added the “Land and Sea: Canyons” option to my world look at the messages that came up:

Think about it.
Do you like to take trips? This verse talks about taking a trip to the mountains to get closer to God. Most people today think about going on a trip in a car or a plane. But cars and planes are high-impact.

But if you are the EP then you are apparently EXEMPT, and can use an enormous Gulfstream private jet to go anywhere around the world. Never mind what you tell others!

High-Impact
We should try to have just a little effect on the earth–that’s being low-impact.

Apparently, if you’re the EP and his support crew you can be as High-Impact as you like, after all they don’t have to practice what they preach!

You can help!
Next time you need to go somewhere, maybe you can walk! Of course, be sure to ask permission and take a safe route. You’ll have time to think, and get some exercise. Plus, you’ll be making a smaller impact on the earth.

Maybe it’s time to the EP and his entire entourage to take a long walk and think about their HYPOCRISY and lack of INTEGRITY in regards to asking others to do what they themselves don’t practice and embracing the radical leftist environmental agenda that makes an idol out of nature and sacrifices precious human life on the altar of junk science.

Just when you think the re-branding of the EP to Green Patriarch could not get anyworse. The GOA is Proud to Present:

ENVIROMENTAL BALANCE: The Video Game Dedicated to the Green Patriarch.

http://www.patriarchate.org/multimedia/environmental-balance

Build Your Own World!

I have poking around this for a little while but I still cannot find the button to insert the Patriarchal Gulfstream Jet nor can I find the “Fidel Castro the Environmentalist” figure to play with.

I am speechless….utterly speechless!!!!

Christopher, you bring up a good point. The decimation of the indigenous Christian populations began hundreds of years ago. Bat Y’eor wrote a good book on the subject (name escapes me at present). In her estimation, the Levantine and African Christians have undergone a “1400 year-long holocaust,” that began with the Muslim conquests. Personally, I think things are way more complicated than that, but one can see that the trajectory of Christian civilization in the land of its birth has been on the down-side going back several centuries ago.

Those who think that Saddam Hussein, the Shah of Iran, Hafez al-Assad, and other secularists were “protectors” of the local Christian communities are correct in the abstract. In reality, these men were merely temporary speed-bumps on the road to a radicalized and totalitarian Waha’abi Islam. I suppose you could throw Kemal Ataturk into this mix as well.

There is a more subtle point however that eludes many of their apologists, and that is: what does it mean that Christians can only survive in their native lands because of the willingness of these tyrants to tamp down native Arab/Islamic terror against the subject peoples?

The theological implication of this is that the acceptance of dhimmi status implicitly means that there is no need to preach the Gospel. (That’s why almost all Orthodox jurisdictions don’t preach it here I imagine.) Politically its a disaster in this way: when the downtrodden Arab-Muslims masses revolts and overthrows these secularist tyrants, then there is hell to pay and they take it out of the Arab Christians (and Nestorians, Armenians, as well as Jews, Yazidis, Zoroastrians and other minorities) because these minorities had for so long been “favored” by the secularist tyrants.

Let’s not forget, the minorities (especially the Arab Christians) tend to have a higher standard of living in comparison to their Islamic brethren. You see this not only in Lebanon, but on the West Bank, Egypt, Turkey (in the old days), etc. Anyway, the upshot is that with the liberation of the Islamic masses and their taking over of the levers of government, life for the Christians becomes unbearable little by little. The only thing left for these poor people to do is immigrate. And this has accelerated since the beginning of the 20th century.

Getting back to the original point, there have been political trends in
the west that have been destructive for the Christian East. A case in
point is the so called “Christian Zionism” which has contributed to
the ravaging of the native Palestinian Christian populations (Orthodox
and Catholic).

Can you point me to a site I can read about this? First I have heard about it.

In addition, the war on Iraq has decimated the Christians
of Iraq who at least were tolerated under Saddam Hussein.

The neo-cultic dictatorship of Saddam was a glitch on an otherwise resurgent Wahhabism. Same in Syria. These things only last as long as the “great leader” does. Are you seriously suggesting that the west should have then supported Saddam? The Christians in Iraq were living on borrowed time, just as the Christians in Syria/Lebanon are today (as well as the few that are left in Palestine). It is silly to blame “the west” for the 1300 year history of Islam.

Christians in the middle east fought the good fight and have lost (Big Time! as my nephew would say). They need to immigrate or their choice will be stark: Convert or die.

You bring up some good points but I don’t see how you can point to the west as the issue in this. You are correct, sooner or later the Bathist regime will fall in Syria and the Antioch will be another anachronism just like Constantinople. Egypt after that…