By Theodore Shoebat
For the first time in 1500 years, the Chaldean Christians in Iraq are not able to fully observe their Christian Faith. There is a video that is just gut wrenching, a video that will bring you to tears. It is of an interview with Mor Nicodemus Daoud Sharaf, the Archbishop of Mosul, weeping and wailing because of the horrid persecutions being done to the Christians in Iraq:
Look to up to Christendom, and watch with a most careful eye her pillars, look to her priests and behold their actions, see how many martyrs they have made, and witness with awe the sublime strength of its warriors. Never forget, and always remember, how the fighters of Christendom “through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.” (Hebrews 11:33-34)
Remember the great Romanus, how he, through faith, fought the Turks even when his army was reduced to a few men, combating with drawn sword until he was captured by the sultan in the Battle of Manzikert; remember blessed Constantine how he, through faith, defeated the pagans and rescued the Church from persecution through a valiant force of pious men in the glorious battle of Milvian Bridge; remember all of the martyrs who, through faith, chose a holy death over an ignominious life, having been “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20).
In the words of the great Church Father and student of St. Peter himself, St. Ignatius,
For hearing that I came bound from Syria, for common names and hope, trusting through your prayers to fight with beasts at Rome, that so, by suffering, I may become indeed a disciple of him “who gave himself to God an offering and sacrifice for us” (St. Ignatius, Epistle to the Ephesians, 1)
These Christians in Iraq, they are the sons of the oldest Christians, the successors of the Apostles, the continuation of the most ancient Church. They go back to the first believers “dwelling in Mesopotamia” (Acts 2:9), and the ones who were with St. Peter “in Babylon, elect together with you” (1 Peter 5:12). They are the remnant of the purest form of Christianity.
Right now we are working very hard to help Christian orphans in Iraq, and to learn more about this, click here.