TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/042390/0423610.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 8.1 KB | 158 lines

                                                                                RELIGION, Page 66

Fear in the First Churches


Christianity may be headed for extinction in the lands of its
birth


    An Arab Christian woman living outside Bethlehem did not
dare make Easter eggs this year. Reason: "Our Muslim brothers
consider any signs of celebration a violation of the intifadeh."
In West Beirut some churches canceled Palm Sunday processions
through Muslim streets or shifted Easter midnight Mass to 3:30
p.m. so that worshipers could be home by nightfall. "How can we
celebrate Easter?" asks a refugee from inter-Christian fighting.
"We have never been this low."

    Such Holy Week tribulations underscored the long-range fears
of many Middle Eastern Christians that their religion may be
headed for eventual extinction in the very lands that were
Christianity's cradle. Originating on the eastern rim of the
Mediterranean nearly 2,000 years ago, the newborn faith spread
rapidly to Syria, and thence the apostle Paul took it to his
native land, present-day Turkey. Others went southward to Egypt,
making Alexandria the first center of Christian culture long
before Rome and Constantinople. The rise of Islam beginning in
the 7th century ultimately made that faith predominant.

    Some 10 million Christians remain in the Mideast. But for
how long? According to Gabriel Habib, general secretary of the
Cyprus-based Middle East Council of Churches, "Fear, human
suffering and hopelessness" have caused so many Christians to
emigrate that there is deep concern about the "continuity of the
Christian presence and witness in this region." At an assembly
of the church council in January, Orthodox, Roman Catholic,
Protestant and Anglican leaders vowed, "We shall stay in these
lands, according to the will of God. This is where we belong and
where we are rooted."

    Muslim cultural pressure is by no means the only cause of
Christian decline, reasons for which vary country by country.
Lebanon is convulsed by feudal warfare, pitting Christians
against not only Muslims but, increasingly, rival Christians.
Saudi Arabia has long forbidden any open Christian activity. By
contrast, Islam is not the state religion in autocratic Syria
and its 10% Christian minority will apparently be secure as long
as Hafez Assad holds power.

    Christianity's future is anything but secure in Israel and
the occupied areas, despite the faith's strong roots there and
the government's official commitment to religious freedom.
Author Amos Elon has written that Jerusalem may soon become a
mere "museum" for visitors, bereft of Christianity as a "living
religion." A clergyman in the city's withering Catholic
community agrees: "I am afraid that the day will come when we
will have the Christian holy places without local Christians."
Church experts estimate that Jerusalem has 9,000 resident
Christians, one-third of the total at Israel's founding. The
toehold was further weakened last week when 150 Jews moved into
homes in the traditionally Christian quarter of the Old City,
touching off a raucous street protest.

    After years of relative harmony, friction between Christians
and their fellow Arabs has intensified sharply with the recent
rise of Islamic fundamentalism. "Life here is becoming
unbearable," says a Bethlehem woman who plans to emigrate. "We
Christians and Muslims have been living together peacefully for
a long time, but these fundamentalists are completely different.
We never felt the fear of Muslim domination before." Breaking
into tears, her daughter adds, "Bethlehem is becoming a city of
ghosts." "Of course I am afraid," admits a nearby merchant whose
shop was hit by arsonists when he refused to observe a Muslim
strike. He plans to move to South America. Speaking for many
young Christians, a 22-year-old waiting in the long line for
visas at the Canadian embassy in Tel Aviv says simply, "I have
no future here." A top leader of the West Bank's outlawed
Islamic Resistance Movement contends that future Muslim rulers
would protect Christians -- if foreign religious agencies pull
out. But many Middle Eastern churches, suspect due to their
Western ties, would be hard put to survive without foreign
clergy and cash.

    Nowhere is the decline as striking as in Turkey, where the
Ecumenical Patriarchs, "first among equals" in the world's
Eastern Orthodox hierarchy, have held sway since A.D. 451.
Today, when Patriarch Dimitrios celebrates the Eucharist on a
typical Sunday in Istanbul, the service is conducted with
virtually no congregation. In the 1920s, Istanbul was 80%
Christian; now there are barely 3,000 Greek Orthodox
communicants in the city of 6 million. Says one ranking
churchman: "The young leave as soon as they can, since there is
no future for them here."

    Political repression compounds Christianity's other problems
in Turkey. The secular regime not only forbids construction of
new churches but also tightly restricts residence permits for
foreign clergy. The country's only Orthodox seminary was closed
in 1971, which means that the Patriarchate seems doomed to
extinction, perhaps by the turn of the century, for want of new
priests. Turkey's Armenian remnant is also denied a seminary.
A mere 28 Armenian priests remain; only two of them are celibate
and thus eligible to become future bishops. "All we can hope
for," says a prominent Christian, "is that when and if Turkey
joins the European Community, freedom of religion is made one
of the requirements."

    Egypt's 5.4 million Copts are the region's largest surviving
Christian community. Though Egypt's churches fare better than
those in most Muslim countries, there have been jailings of
Christians who evangelize or violate the strict taboo against
conversion from Islam. Christians are alarmed over last month's
rash of Muslim assaults on their churches, homes and shops in
Upper Egypt. "Antagonism toward Christians is becoming more
entrenched," laments a Protestant minister in Cairo. Coptic
immigrants to the U.S. complain that Egypt's Christians are
barred from good jobs in academia, government, the media and
many other fields.

    If Egypt has the largest Christian population, Lebanon long
had the most powerful one; until the civil war, which began in
1975, it was the only Arab nation dominated by Christians. But
after years of political upheaval, all churches together can
probably claim only 43% of the population. In West Beirut, 85%
of the Catholic parishioners have fled the violence. Since the
latest intra-Christian war broke out last January, one-third of
the inhabitants have fled the formerly safe Christian enclave
in East Beirut. At stake, says Maronite Catholic Archbishop
Youssef Khoury, is nothing less than "the survival of our
people."

    The specter of Muslim domination underlies the Maronite
Catholics' fanatical battle to cling to power. "We are afraid
that the Christian community will disappear. That is why we are
fighting," explains a taxi driver in East Beirut. In West Beirut
a Greek Orthodox clerk who has long lived happily among Muslims
nonetheless fumes that if Christians lose the presidency, "you
won't see me in Lebanon for one more day. I've seen other
countries where they are ruled by Muslims."

    For all their intensity, such deep-seated fears among many
Middle Eastern Christians seem to be based as much on feelings
and perceptions as on facts. "Overt discrimination is rare" in
most Muslim countries, contends Douglas duCharme, spokesman for
the Middle East Council of Churches. He admits, however, that
"there are limits on the role of non-Muslims in a society where
90% of the people are Muslim." A moderate Lebanese scholar
agrees that the problem is not so much persecution as "a broader
feeling that a handful of Christians are not really wanted in
the Islamic world." Looking at the long term, church strategists
realize that inexorable tides of history, belief and numbers are
running against them.


By Richard N. Ostling. Reported by Jamil Hamad/Jerusalem and
Lara Marlowe/Beirut, with other bureaus.