“Kaninong Ministro kung ganyan ang mga Paring Katoliko? Mga Ministro ni Satanas na Diablo." [Whose ministers are the Catholic Priests? Ministers of Satan the Devil.]
“Mga magdaraya at anti-Cristo, ang mga nagtuturong si Cristo ay Dios." [Those who teach Jesus is God are deceivers and anti-Christ.]
“Kaya ang tunay na anti-Cristo, ang mga Papa ng Iglesia Katolika Apostolika Romana. At ang tunay na ampon ng anti-Cristo ay ang mga Katoliko.” [So the true anti-Christ are the Popes of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church. And the true adopted (sons) of the anti-Christ are Catholics.]
“Ang Iglesia ni Cristo ay nagdaos ng pamamahayag sa Lunsod ng Davao. Nagsalita roon si Kapatid na Felix Manalo at ang kasama niyang mga Ministro. Ipinahayag doon ng mga nagsalita na ang Iglesia Katolika Romana ay hindi itinatag ni Cristo kundi itinatag ng Diablo." [The Iglesia ni Cristo held an evangelization in Davao City. Brother Felix Manalo had a speech there with his Ministers. It was proclaimed there by the speakers that the Roman Catholic Church was not established by Christ but by the Devil.]
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| Watch the Video at c-span.org |
Remarks. And sister diana, she'll push that button, that red button there for you. >> thank you. Thank you, chairman royce and distinguished members of the committee for inviting me today to share my views on ancient communities under attack. >>
sister, i'm going to suggest yomove the microphone right in front there. Just project a little bit. Thank you. >>
okay. Thank you. November 2009, a bomb was detonated at our convent in mosul. Five sisters were in the building at the time and they were lucky to have escaped unharmed. Our sister asked for protection from local civilization authorities, but the pleas went unanswered. As such, she had no choice but to move us.
On june 10th, 2014, the so-called islamic state in iraq or syria, or isis, invaded the nineveh plain. Starting with the city of mosul, isis overran one city and town after another, giving the christians of the region three choices, convert to islam, pay tribute to isis, leave their cities, cities like mosul, with nothing more than the clothes on their back.
As this horror suppressed through all of the nineveh plain, by all 6th, 2014, nineveh was empty of christians and sadly for the first time since the seventh century a.d., no church bells rang for mass in the nineveh plain.
From june 2014 forward, more than 120,000 people found themselves displaced and homeless in the kurdistan region of iraq, leaving behind their heritage and all they had worked for over the centuries. This uprooting of everything that christians owned, body and soul, stripping away their humanity and dignity.
To add insult to injury, the initiative is that iraqi and kurdish governments were at best modest and slow. Apart from allowing christians to enter the region, the kurdish government did not offer any aid either financial or material. I understand the great strain that these events have placed on baghdad and erbil.
However, it has been almost a year and christian iraqi citizens are still in dire need for help. Many people spend days and weeks in the street before they found shelter in tents, schools, and homes. Thankfully the churches stepped forward and cared for displaced christians.
Doing her very best to handle this disaster. Buildings were open to accommodate the people. Food and non-food items were provided to meet the immediate needs of the people and medical health services were also provided. Moreover, the church put out a call and many humanitarian organizations answered with aid for thousands of people in need.
Presently, we are grateful for what has been done. With most people now sheltered in small containers or some homes, though better than living on the streets or abandoned buildings. These small units are few in number and are crowded with three families. Each with multiple people, often accommodated in one unit.
This is, of course, increasing tension and conflict, even within the same family. There are many who say, why don't the christians just leave iraq and move to another country and be done with it? To this question, we would respond, why should we leave our country, what have we done? The christians of iraq are the first people of the land.
You read about us in the old testament of the bible. Christianity came to iraq from the very earliest days, through the preaching of st. Thomas and others of the apostles and church elders. While our ancestors experienced all kinds of persecution, they built a culture that has served humanity for ages.
We as christians do not want or deserve to leave or be forced out of our country any more than you would want to leave or be forced out of yours. But the current persecution that our community is facing is the most brutal in our history.
Not only have we been robbed of our homes, property, and land, but our heritage is being destroyed as well. Isis has continued to demolish and bomb our churches, cultural artifacts and sacred places, like a fourth century monastery in mosul. Uprooted and forcefully displaced, we have realized that isis plans to evacuate the land of christians and wipe the earth clean of any evidence that we ever existed.
This is human genocide. The only christians that remain in the nineveh plains are those who are held as hostages. To restore and build the christian community in iraq, the following needs our urgent. Helping us return. Coordinated efforts to rebuild what was destroyed through slaughter, and electrical supplies and buildings including our churches and monasteries.
Incouraging enterprises that contribute to the building of iraq and interreligious dialogue.encouraging enterprises that contribute to the building of iraq and interreligious dialogue. This could be through school and academic projects. I am but one small person. A victim myself of isis, and all of its brutality.
Coming here has been difficult for me. As a religious sister, i'm not comfortable with the media and so much attention. But i am here, and i am here to ask you, to implore you for the sake of our common humanity, to help us, stand with us, as we, as christians, have stood with all the people of the world and help us.
We want nothing more than to go back to our lives. We want nothing more than to go home. Thank you and god bless
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| Assyrian Christians, who fled unrest in Syria, carry a cross outside St. Georges/ Cathedral in Jdeidah in Beirut. Aramaic-Speaking Assyrians are being driven from Syria and Iraq by war and the militant Islamic State group (Anwar Amro/ AFP/Getty Images) |
BEIRUT — Suhail Gabriel was in bed when Islamic State militants stormed his village in eastern Syria, firing machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Gabriel rushed his wife and daughter onto his motorcycle and sped through the early-morning darkness, he later recalled.
“We left in our pajamas,” Gabriel said. “We didn’t even have time to put on clothes.”
He was among the thousands of people from an ancient community of Christians, known as Assyrians, who fled 35 farming villages in Syria’s Khabur River area in February because of attacks by the extremist Sunni Muslim group. The militants desecrated churches and religious symbols during the offensive and kidnapped about 250 of the Assyrians, including women and children.
Over the past decade, Assyrians have joined waves of Christians who have fled Syria and Iraq because of war and persecution by extremist Muslims. But the latest attacks have added to concerns that this unique Mesopotamian people are in danger of disappearing from the region.
Assyrians in Iraq and Syria belong to the last communities of significant size to speak the language of Jesus: Aramaic. Many of Assyrians are being forced to move outside the Middle East, where it becomes less likely that the tongue will be maintained, said Eden Naby, a Middle East historian and expert on Assyrian culture.
Aramaic is the oldest continuously written and spoken language in the Middle East, she said. It was once also used by other religious communities, including Jews. “Assyrians remain the last Aramaic-speaking of people of the world. So the disappearance and displacement of these people pretty much spells the closing chapter of Aramaic use in the world,” Naby said.
Assyrians, also referred to as Chaldeans or Syriacs, consider themselves ethnically distinct from Arabs and Kurds, tracing their roots in the region to 6,500 years ago. They speak a modern dialect of what was the lingua franca of the Assyrian Empire.
Assyrians were among the earliest people to convert to Christianity, and they mostly belong to four Eastern Rite churches, whose founders are said to have included the 1st-century apostles Thomas, Thaddeus and Bartholomew.... CONTINUE READING
