United Christian Communities' Blog

 Archbishop Elias Chacour, is the Melkite Catholic Archbishop of Akko, Haifa, Nazareth, and all Galilee   In an interview with the Boston Pilot on a visit to the US he said: : “So, I come here not as a tourist, not to enjoy time, but to work. Every evening and every day I have one or two meetings with big crowds… And I share with them the story and I ask them to accept giving us their friendship and their solidarity, which means I invite them to choose either sides, Jews or Palestinians, but never to allow themselves to become one-sided for their choice. The other side deserves also their attention because the conflict (in the Holy Land) is not a conflict of right and wrong, it’s a conflict of two rights that collude together. . . .

Well, to update you about the situation on Christians in Israel is a very tricky thing. Whatever I say might be partial, and someone else can say “No, it’s not true.” All I can tell you is part of the truth that I’m living. And the emigration, unfortunately, it’s continuing. But we do everything we can to slow it down, if not to stop it.  Some years, like last year and this year, it has been stabilizing a little bit. How long that will go on all depends on what will happen around us in the Arab countries, to discourage people to stay or to encourage them to leave.”

The Boston Pilot noted that: “Born in 1939 in the village of Biriam in Galilee, Archbishop Chacour and his Palestinian Christian family were forcibly removed from their homes by Jewish authorities when he was 9 years old. Remaining in the region as refugees, the Chacour family became residents of the state of Israel when it was established in 1948.”

The Archbishop also said: “We are trying with all of our activities — whether the schools, all the youth meetings, family meetings, group meetings — to convince them that if they stay in Israel, it should not be for the land, for the political might, or for the economy; it should become because of the message they carry for Jews and Muslims. And to speak out clearly about the importance of forgiveness, and the importance of sharing, and the importance of making concession. When you are right — not when you are not right — you are powerful. That’s how we pave the way towards reconciliation. When that will happen, I don’t know, God knows.”

Read the full interview at  http://www.thebostonpilot.com/article.asp?ID=13623

YNET news reports that:
Off the track beaten by most Holy Land tourists lies one of the richest archaeological sites in a country full of them: The walled port of Akko, where the busy alleys of an Ottoman-era town cover a uniquely intact Crusader city now being rediscovered.  Etched in plaster on one wall was a coat of arms – graffiti left by a medieval traveler. Nearby was a main street of cobblestones and a row of shops that once sold clay figurines and ampules for holy water, popular souvenirs for pilgrims.

 In 1291 a Muslim army from Egypt defeated Akko’s Christian garrison and leveled its remains.
 
The existing city, built by the Ottoman Turks around 1750, effectively preserved this earlier town, which had been hidden for centuries under the rubble.
 
“It’s like Pompeii of Roman times – it’s a complete city,” said Eliezer Stern, the archaeologist in charge of Akko. He called the town “one of the most exciting sites in the world of archaeology.”
 
The newly excavated area, part of a Crusader neighborhood, is set to open later this year.
 
Today, old Akko is a picturesque enclave jutting into the Mediterranean, home to 5,000 Arab citizens of Israel who live in dense warrens of homes that are themselves historic artifacts. Most residents are poor.
 
In 2001, Akko became a UNESCO World Heritage site.  Akko has existed for at least 4,500 years, but reached the height of its importance with the Crusader conquest in 1104.
 
A French bishop, Jacques de Vitry, reached Akko after a perilous sea journey in 1216. He was appalled. Akko, he found, was “totally depraved.” Murders took place constantly, the town was “filled with prostitutes,” and residents – many of whom he believed to be outlaws who had fled their own lands – were “utterly devoted to pleasures of the flesh.”
 
Also open is an underground passage constructed by the knights of the rival Templar order, leading from their own fortress to the port. Some used it on the day Akko fell to escape to Europe-bound vessels as their city, and the two-century-old Crusader kingdom, collapsed around them.

Read the complete article at http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4087137,00.html

United Christian Communities is proud to announce the conclusion of the “2011 My Galilee Leadership Program.” 

Undertaken in conjunction with The American Cultural Center of Nazareth, the two-week leadership program partnered Christian university students from the United States with Christian university students in the Holy Land and encouraged them to explore and deconstruct the stereotypes, prejudices, and social issues facing their respective societies and their relationship to each other. Through a series of dialogue sessions, cultural excursions, and meetings with prominent individuals in politics and society, the Americans and their Holy Land counterparts came to develop a greater appreciation for each other and the nuances of the challenges facing that particular part of the Middle East.

The program was the opportunity for the American delegates to stay with the families of their Christian partners and to provided a valuable opportunity for both the sides to build the kind of bonds that can overcome the misconceptions that abound about both societies and to create lifelong connections.

The program gave the participants the opportunity to meet prominent individuals, community leaders, clergy, business people and elected officials and to engage various issues affecting Christians living in the Holy Land.

The delegation met with prominent individuals such as, Ramez Jeraisy, the mayor of Nazareth, Dr. Victor Batarseh the Mayor Bethlehem, , Sheikh Abdelmajid Al-Amarneh the Grand Mufti of Bethlehem, William Shomali the in-coming Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Prof. Hossam Haick from the Technion, Mr. Muhammed Shamiyeh , Senior Assistant to the Director General of the Knesset and Brother Robert Smith, the Vice President for Academic Affairs at Bethlehem University, Dr. Maray Taisseer, General director of the Golan For Development of the Arab Villages, Rev. Issa Elias the Press spokesman of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Honorable Reem Naddaf Magistrate Court Judge and the Rotary Club international of Nazareth

When not in Arabic class, meetings or dialogue sessions, there were many visits to sites of interest, such as the beautiful Bahai Gardens in Haifa, the summit of Mount Precipice in Nazareth overlooking the lush Jezreel Valley, the souks of the Old City in Jerusalem, The Knesset, Acco, Bethlehem, Haifa, the Techneon, the Golan heights, Kana Village and the Dead Sea. Through the combination of these excursions and more formal events and meetings, the American and Holy Land delegates were able to form a connection that is sure to last.

It is our intention that this bond will continue to be nurtured by the program’s participants now that the formal program has ended, and that this bond will serve as the foundation for future understanding and cooperation between both peoples.

Come and See, which calls itself The Christian website from Nazareth, reports that Bishop Giacinto-Boulos Marcuzzo, the Catholic Bishop of the Galilee, “says the Christian community is in danger of dying out in Nazareth, an Israeli Arab city where Christians believe Jesus spent his youth. Bishop Marcuzzo says many of Nazareth’s minority Christians began emigrating more than a decade ago largely because of tensions with local Islamists who tried to build a mosque next to the city’s main church. Israel terminated the mosque project in 2003 and Nazareth has been calm ever since. But, Bishop Marcuzzo says several threats remain to one of the region’s oldest Christian communities, whose first church was built in the 5th century AD.

Bishop Marcuzzo says the emigration of Christians from the Israeli Arab city of Nazareth is endangering the survival of the Christian community in a place of biblical importance to Christianity.  The bishop says the main cause of that emigration is a campaign by Islamists to boost their political power in Nazareth at the expense of Christians and moderate Muslims. “Our problem is not religious, but it’s the political situation of insecurity, of non-peace, of non-justice, of non-equality among the people,” said Marcuzzo.”

At the same time CatholicCulture.org reports: “The mayor of Nazareth Illit (Upper Nazareth), a suburb of the city where Jesus was raised, has refused to allow Christmas trees in the town’s Arab distict. “Nazareth Illit is a Jewish city,” declared Mayor Shimon Gapso. He characterized the request to put up Christmas trees in the town squares as “provocative.”

And Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, reports that “The mayor of Upper Nazareth told a Nazareth-based Arabic newspaper that his town will never be a mixed Arab-Jewish city, despite the fact that 16 percent of its residents are Arab [many of whom are Christian].  In an interview, Mayor Shimon Gapso also told the weekly Kul al-Arab Upper Nazareth was “a city for Jews” and he wanted more Jews there. ”

The following are excerpts from an article on the BBC. You can read the full article at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12888421

By Robert Pigott BBC News religious affairs correspondent

They could be the earliest Christian writing in existence, surviving almost 2,000 years in a Jordanian cave. They could, just possibly, change our understanding of how Jesus was crucified and resurrected, and how Christianity was born.

A group of 70 or so “books”, each with between five and 15 lead leaves bound by lead rings, was apparently discovered [by a Bedouinin a cave ]in a remote arid valley in northern Jordan somewhere between 2005 and 2007.

The Jordanian government claims they were smuggled into Israel by another Bedouin. The Israeli Bedouin who currently holds the books has denied smuggling them out of Jordan, and claims they have been in his family for 100 years. Jordan says it will “exert all efforts at every level” to get the relics repatriated.

The director of the Jordan’s Department of Antiquities, Ziad al-Saad, says the books might have been made by followers of Jesus in the few decades immediately following his crucifixion.

The books, or “codices”, were apparently cast in lead, before being bound by lead rings. Their leaves – which are mostly about the size of a credit card – contain text in Ancient Hebrew, most of which is in code. If the relics are of early Christian origin rather than Jewish, then they are of huge significance.

Philip Davies, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament Studies at Sheffield University, says the most powerful evidence for a Christian origin lies in plates cast into a picture map of the holy city of Jerusalem.

“There is a cross in the foreground, and behind it is what has to be the tomb [of Jesus], a small building with an opening, and behind that the walls of the city. There are walls depicted on other pages of these books too and they almost certainly refer to Jerusalem.” It is the cross that is the most telling feature, in the shape of a capital T, as the crosses used by Romans for crucifixion were. “It is a Christian crucifixion taking place outside the city walls,” says Mr Davies.

Margaret Barker, an authority on New Testament history, points to the location of the reported discovery as evidence of Christian, rather than purely Jewish, origin. “We do know that on two occasions groups of refugees from the troubles in Jerusalem fled east, they crossed the Jordan near Jericho and then they fled east to very approximately where these books were said to have been found,” she says.

“[Another] one of the things that is most likely pointing towards a Christian provenance, is that these are not scrolls but books. The Christians were particularly associated with writing in a book form rather than scroll form, and sealed books in particular as part of the secret tradition of early Christianity.”

The archaeology of early Christianity is particularly sparse. Little is known of the movement after Jesus’ crucifixion until the letters of Paul several decades later, and they illuminate the westward spread of Christianity outside the Jewish world.

Never has there been a discovery of relics on this scale from the early Christian movement, in its homeland and so early in its history.

The Christian flight from the Holy Land is not a new or recent phenomenon. From: Long History of the Chilean Palestinian Community on the Palestine Chronicle Website http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16724

Palestinians first started to immigrate to Chile in the late 1800s. Many of the first migrants were motivated by economic interests that ranged from business interests for some, to a way out of poverty for others.

Since that time, Palestinians have become an integral part of Chilean society, in which many now hold influential business and political positions.

Although most of the Palestinian community in Chile hails from this era, the fact that an established community already existed in Chile encouraged many Palestinians to seek refuge there. The community can be traced back to Palestinians who fled the forced Ottoman military conscriptions of World War I. Two more waves of immigrants came after the 1948 Nakba and the subsequent 1967 occupation, during which Israel took control of all of mandatory Palestine.

The total number of Palestinians in Chile is from anywhere around 250,000 to 400,000, depending on the source. The vast majority of those within the Palestinian community in Chile are Orthodox Christians who come from Beit Jala, and other towns and villages in the Bethlehem district. Even less is known about the number of Palestinians who came as refugees; it would, however, be safe to say it is in the thousands.

The following is an excerpt from an article by Dr. Ghassan Rubeiz ( is an Arab-American commentator on issues of development, peace and justice. He is the former Middle East Secretary of the Geneva-based World Council of Churches. You can read the full article at http://www.english.globalarabnetwork.com/201101158659/Opinion/middle-east-christians-have-a-role-in-nation-building.html

Facing threats, Christians in the Middle East need not run for cover abroad. They are at home. They are not suffering alone. The poor is the largest minority in Arab society.

News of “Muslim terror” against churches and Christians are bound to give the distorted impression that religious persecution in Arab countries is widespread and systematic. Despite rising incidents of politically-motivated attacks on the Christians of Egypt and Iraq, inter-communal relations in the rest of the region have not changed radically.

Middle East Christians need ample inspiration to stay calm and composed in facing sectarian stress. In societies where the majority of people feel oppressed by poor governance, effective advocacy must be national in scope and secular in Character.

. . .

Instability has local as well international dynamics: erosion of political freedoms, colonial military intervention and rise of fanatic “reform” movements. For the al-Qaeda-inspired insurgents, “War on terror” is processed as “a Christian war on Islam”. Guilt is established by association: fanatics view local Christians as political agents of the Christian West. Christians become targets for revenge against an imaginary global Christian world. Disturbing minorities is a way to arouse panic in society and send a message that the insurgent retains power. Those targeting Christians in Iraq are among the same disruptive elements that have been targeting Shiites, Sunnites and Kurds.

Ongoing wars leave their scars on identity. Middle East Christians should not be oblivious to souring East-West politics: deteriorating Arab-Israeli relations, an open ended Iraq war, an unresolved Lebanese civil war and an unsettled north-south war in Sudan. In each of these conflicts, religious identity has been manipulated and treated as social barrier.

To slow the demographic hemorrhage of Christians, US Policy in the Middle East must start to creatively address the basic etiology of conflict with Islam and Muslims. With ideas, not weapons, America can support democracy abroad.

In the past, American missionaries supported the people of the Holy Land Christians through schools and hospitals. Today, in foreign assistance, the American soldier, the detached expert and the security agent have largely replaced the teacher, the pastor and the doctor. And the missionary approach has changed from enabling people through social service programs to evangelical and political intervention. Proselytizing has replaced skill-building, politics has replaced care and theological warfare has replaced interfaith dialogue.

Christians of the Middle East can help or hinder their cause by the manner they respond to living under autocratic regimes. These regimes wax and wane in their policies of tolerance for minorities. It is important for Christians not to forget that they are not the only group suffering. If Christians wish to contribute to nationwide struggle for freedom and justice, they must organize in solidarity with other groups, not as Christians, but as citizens.

The following was posted on ComeandSee.com, a Nazareth website, on 13 March, 2011

On Friday night, March 11, 2011, five family members from Itamar settlement were found killed in their residence in the West Bank. The police suspects that a Palestinian terrorist entered the house and stabbed the whole family. The terrorist killed the father, the mother, and three children. The shocking news is that the children are 11 years old, 3 years and 3 months old. This cruel inhuman violent action must be condemned and rejected by all Palestinians. Terrorism is not the best path in our torn country.

Biblical ethics require that we show commitment to the following elements. First, we are committed to biblical love. God wants us to love all the people including our enemies. Jesus has told us, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” . . . “do good to those who hate you” (Matt 5: 44; Luke 6: 27). Love opens the channels of communication. We must talk to our enemies instead of killing them. Second, we are committed to justice just like the persistent widow (Luke 18: 1 – 8). She troubled the unjust leaders by insisting on justice. If an unjust judge listened to an insignificant widow, how much more will the Just God listen to the cries of His children. Justice is either administered by God directly (Rom 12: 19) or by God’s agents who have the authority to punish the evil doers (Rom 13: 4). Revenge and spilling the blood of innocent children is never the Christian way. It must be condemned. Third, we are committed to human dignity. All people are created in the image of God (Gen 1: 26 – 27). Everyone’s dignity is derived from the dignity of God himself and we must see the face of God in every human being. Anyone who kills another human being must be punished because a human being is created in God’s image (Gen 9: 6) and attacking another human being is an attack on God himself. Killing the children of Israeli settlers is as evil as killing Palestinian children. Both are an attack on God himself. Fourth, we are committed to non-violence. Jesus has taught us:
You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles (Matt 5: 38 – 41).

The text wants us to resist evil with good (Rom 12: 21). We are called to resist physical abuse, looting our possessions, and abandoning our freedom of choice. Whenever an evil person strikes we must engage the striker instead of acting like him or her. Whenever the looter steals we must consider the value of the stealer in the eyes of God and value it more than the possessions. Whenever our freedom is lost due to oppression we must walk the second mile in order to reveal the love of God. Violence breeds violence but peace-making is the path of a better world. Fifth, we are committed to protecting the children. It is unacceptable to take the lives of Israeli children in the name of a political program or ideology. This is utter evil. Children must have the right to develop to the fullest, to be protected from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation, let alone brutal massacres. We have to build a better future for our Palestinian and Israeli children. Bloodshed is not the right path. Sixth, we are committed to defend the oppressed. Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed”(Luke 4: 18). The oppressed ones need freedom from the devil as well as from his agents who use evil to spread a kingdom of violence instead of a Kingdom of Justice and peace. Seventh, we are committed to share the land with Israelis in a fair and just political solution. God has called both Palestinians and Israelis to live in this land. A Jew is a gift from God and a Palestinian is also a gift from God. Unless we rejoice in God’s gifts we will continue to exclude each other and kill one another. Let us stand together for Justice and peace for both Palestinians and Israeli Jews. Last but not least, I send my sincere condolences to the relatives of the killed family in Itamar and I pray that our country will be healed from the spilling of innocent blood.

Rev. Yohanna Katanacho, Ph.D.

Agence France-Presse reports that The Palestinian Authority has launched a campaign to place Bethlehem, Jesus’s traditional birthplace, on to UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO’s) list of world heritage sites. The effort will focus on gaining recognition for the “Birthplace of Jesus: Church …of the Nativity and the Pilgrimage route” according to the Palestinian tourism ministry.

The Underground, a website that describes itself as offering “Pop culture from a Christian perspective”, reports that human rights activists recently asked the Egyptian government to free hundreds of refugees from Eritrea and other African countries who have been kept hostage for one month in a desert prison.

According to the article 250 refugees have been tortured, are chained at the ankles, undergo electric shocks and lack food and water. The human rights group point out that many of the hostages are Christians who fled persecution from their country of origin, paying $2,000 for passage to Israel. However, instead of being taken to Israel, they found themselves kept in containers in the Sinai Desert by Bedouin human traffickers who are demanding up to $8,000 for a hostage’s release.

While the activists filed charges against the traffickers in Cairo, they are also appealing to the international community to pressure Egypt to strengthen measures to free the refugees.

The Underground reports that the Christian refugees often flee Eritrea and other countries and try to enter Israel in order to escape persecution and imprisonment. Eritrea, which is in the U.S. State Department’s list of “worst violators” of religious freedom, has denied persecuting anyone for their religious beliefs.