www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Detroit Church will be a Mosque

I think the primary issue is that every parish is an apostolic outpost of the kingdom of God. To concede territory to the "enemies of Christ" (we all recall the Muslim profession of faith, do we not?) is seen as a captilation of the kingdom. That is not to say that we should not show kindness to our Muslim brothers and sisters. But to give them one of our Temples has a deeper symbolic meaning.

I would have the same reaction if a Catholic or Orthodox church was sold to the Freemasons or to the KKK.

Gordo

Well, if the Muslims wish to demonstrate that they are ready to engage in decent behaviour toward the Christians, here are a few suggestions:

a) restore Hagia Sophia to Christian use (in practice this would mean furnishing it again for the Byzantine Liturgy and allowing the various Churches which use that Liturgy to use the premises in some sort of rotation, while keeping the place available to visitors, art lovers, historians and so forth the rest of the time).

b) remove all restrictions on Christian clergy and religious dressing properly and recognizably in public. .

c) make it clear - by unambiguous legislation - that people who choose to leave one religion and join another may not be murdered, attacked by violence, deprived of their children, etc.

d) remove all restrictions on the public visibility of Christian places of worship (and on Jewish places of worship).

e) make it clear by unambiguous legislation that Processions on Pascha, Great Friday and the feast day of the Church are permitted, and in addition that other Processions are regulated but not prohibited - this particularly applies to funeral processions.

That list is not complete, but it will do for a starter. I can already hear the outraged hysterical screams.

With apologies to Yuhannon, I am well aware that the Churches of the Middle East would not encourage the presentation of such a list. The reason is only too simple: the Christians of the Middle East are sitting ducks in the shooting gallery, which is why so many of them are leaving the Middle East. Like many of us, I can easily remember the days when Church leaders in Eastern Europe assured us that Communist persecution was purely imaginary.

Father Serge

Respectfully Father, I agree with all your points except the first, namely:

Although I can see why you, as an Eastern Catholic priest, might advocate this (it would after all at least afford you the possibility of one day celebrating the Divine Liturgy there yourself), I however find the basic notion outlandish. The Hagia Sophia should be returned to the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople and his flock, no other.

I mean seriously, do we really need another Church of the Holy Sepulcher with its brawling clerics/monastics on our hands?

Allowing �various Churches which use that Liturgy to use the premises in some sort of rotation� sounds nice on the face of it I suppose, but put the shoe on the other foot � would you in turn advocate Anglican, Old Catholic, Western rite Orthodox, etc. usage of the premises of St. Peter�s (or St. John Lateran if one wants to get technical) on a rotating basis simply because they use (or claim to use as the case might be) the Roman Liturgy? Somehow I think not (I know my Irish RC great grandparents would both spin in their graves at such a notion).

Let us rather simply advocate (and pray) that the Muslims return completely the Christian patrimony under their yoke - each to its rightful patriarchate � Hagia Sophia to Constantinople, St. John of the Desert to Antioch, etc. (and while we�re at it, I imagine the Copts might like to see the RC return of the relics of St. Mark from Venice to Alexandria & the care of Pope Shenouda III).


~Isaac

Shlomo Abuna Serge,

I will answer each of your points:

a) restore Hagia Sophia to Christian use (in practice this would mean furnishing it again for the Byzantine Liturgy and allowing the various Churches which use that Liturgy to use the premises in some sort of rotation, while keeping the place available to visitors, art lovers, historians and so forth the rest of the time).

Why should we Middle Eastern Christians care about the Hagia Sophia? To most of us, it is the seat of the Church that tried to repress us, and is controlled by a secular government, that is made up of Turks, which most Arabs do not like.


b) remove all restrictions on Christian clergy and religious dressing properly and recognizably in public.

Within the States of the Arab League, only in Saudi Arabia is there a restriction on Christian clergy and religious dressing in public. And within the Islamic Conference, only a few states have offical restrictions on clergy, and that goes for all not just Christians.

c) make it clear - by unambiguous legislation - that people who choose to leave one religion and join another may not be murdered, attacked by violence, deprived of their children, etc.

Agreed, but then we have to get the US to stop supporting dictators in the region who promote Islamic radicalism.

d) remove all restrictions on the public visibility of Christian places of worship (and on Jewish places of worship).

See Answer above.

e) make it clear by unambiguous legislation that Processions on Pascha, Great Friday and the feast day of the Church are permitted, and in addition that other Processions are regulated but not prohibited - this particularly applies to funeral processions.

Again, this is where we as citizens can have our government put its money where our mouths are. Both Israel and Egypt get 2/3 of all our foreign aid. If we required of both of them that if they do not permit religious freedom for all, then we will cut them off; they would change there tunes.

With apologies to Yuhannon, I am well aware that the Churches of the Middle East would not encourage the presentation of such a list. The reason is only too simple: the Christians of the Middle East are sitting ducks in the shooting gallery, which is why so many of them are leaving the Middle East. Like many of us, I can easily remember the days when Church leaders in Eastern Europe assured us that Communist persecution was purely imaginary.

And in actuallity we Christians in the Middle East have produced such a statement which I posted on this forum a while back. Here is a link to it again for you and others to read. It is titled: THE CHRISTIAN PRESENCE IN THE MIDDL...E CATHOLIC PATRIARCHS OF THE MIDDLE EAST [al-bushra.org] . It was signed in 1992 in Cairo, and since then we have implemented many of proposals, including have a Christian television, Telelumiere, which goes out to all Arab states, and two radio stations, Radio Charity and Radio Alleluia. We are also part of the Catholic Media Council (CAMECO), which helps Catholic Media throughout the world.

You are correct about us, being sitting ducks, to an extend, but that only to a small extent. Many Christians are going to Lebanon, and Syria where we are a substancial minorities. Further, Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, and Oman have moved exgressively to have their Christian presence increase by donating land for us to build new Churches. As a matter of fact the Apostolic Nuncio for the Holy See in the region is a Maronite Eparch, Mounjed El-Hashem.

What many here seem to not know is that we Maronites as well as the Antiochene Orthodox have never had a dahimmi attitude. The Ba'athist party was founded by an Orthodox Christian, and many Christians were involved with the party in both Syria and Iraq.

Also, for those who do not know here are the local Catholic Churches in the Arabian Gulf region. Do note that many times we do share the same building, but are still separate parishes.

Qatar

Our Lady of the Rosary Roman Catholic Church;
Our Lady of the Rosary Maronite Catholic Church;
St.Thomas Syro-Malabar Catholic Church; and
St.Marys Syro-Malankara Catholic Church.

Kuwait

Holy Family Cathedral Roman Catholic Church;
Holy Family Maronite Catholic Church;
Holy Family Chaldean Catholic Church;
Holy Family Syro-Malabar Catholic Church;
Our Lady of Arabia Roman Catholic Church;
Our Lady of Arabia Chaldean Catholic Church;
Our Lady of Arabia Syro-Malabar Catholic Church;
St. Therese Roman Catholic Church; and
St. Therese Syro-Malabar Catholic Church.

UAE

St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic Church;
St. Francis of Assisi Maronite Catholic Church;
St. Francis of Assisi Syro-Malabar Catholic Church;
St. Francis Of Assisi Syro-Malabar Konkan Catholic Church;
St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church;
St. Mary's Maronite Catholic Church;
St. Mary's Chaldean Catholic Church;
St. Mary's Syro-Malabar Catholic Church;
St. Mary's Syro-Malabar Konkan Catholic Church;
St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church;
St. Joseph's Maronite Catholic Church;
St. Joseph's Syro-Malabar Catholic Church;
St. Joseph's Syro-Malabar Konkan Catholic Church;
Church Of Mother Of Perpetual Help Roman Catholic Church;
Church Of Mother Of Perpetual Help Syro-Malabar Konkan Catholic Church;
St. Michael�s Church Roman Catholic Church;
St. Michael's Chaldean Catholic Church;
St. Michael�s Church Syro-Malabar Catholic Church;
St. Michael�s Church Syro-Malabar Konkan Catholic Church;
St. Mary's Church of Al Ain Roman Catholic Church;
St. Mary's Church of Al Ain Syro-Malabar Catholic Church; and
St. Mary's Church of Al Ain Syro-Malabar Konkan Catholic Church;

Oman

Saints Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Church;
St. Anthony Roman Catholic Church;
Holy Spirit Roman Catholic Church; and
St. Francis Xavier Roman Catholic Church.

Bahrain

Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church;
Sacred Heart Maronite Catholic Church;
Sacred Heart Chaldean Catholic Church;
Sacred Heart Syro-Malabar Catholic Church; and
Sacred Heart Syro-Malankara Catholic Church.

Yemen

St. Francis Roman Catholic Church;
St. Francis Ge'ez Catholic Church;
Missionaries of Charity in Taiz;
Missionaries of Charity in Hodeidah; and
Missionaries of Charity in Sana'a.

I listed all of these nations because the Churches and missions there are only within the last 30 years. We are growing, and the states listed have given us the freedom to do so. If you need I will be more than happy to give you even more informaiton.

Poosh BaShlomo,
Yuhannon

i think this is very very disgraceful, but Catholics have only themselves to blame. sadly i think the parish closings will only keep happening. we have gone from beautiful vibrant parishes to its members relinquishing their city nieghborhoods by moving out into the suburbs and this was a big mistake. in the suburbs they built box-like churches which do not inspire anyone. surely secularization and materialism can not be blamed for this, but the failure to support their church.

Dear Yuhannon,
Thank you for your detailed response. To continue the discussion:

a) I certainly hold Turkey in no high regard either. But there are quite a lot of Middle Eastern Christians (Greek-Catholic and Greek Orthodox) who hold Hagia Sophia in very high regard indeed. Moreover, the pressure on Christians to admire the Moslems is almost world-wide.
Besides that, I would most seriously recommend against a discussion of what Church tried to repress which Church. Where Islam is concerned, we Christians are all in this together. So I shall venerate the icon of St. John Maron (if I can find an icon of him) and Saint Charbel and I trust you will do the same for Saint Maximus the Confessor and Saint John of Damascus.

b) The problem is not restricted to the States of the Arab League � Turkey can deny it until the cows come home on roller skates, but Turkey is a �secular state� with a decided preferential option for Islam. A century ago, the place was at least one-third Christian; thanks to the benevolence of that �secular state�, less than one percent of the population is now Christian. No prizes for guessing what religion they are these days.
c) We seem to have no disagreement � I�m no supporter of US policy in the Middle East.
d) Ditto
e) Again agreed, though I vastly prefer Egypt to the Jewish State � and before anyone rushes to call me a religious bigot, please note that �the Jewish State� is exactly what the World Zionist Organization calls the entity in question.

As I have written on the Forum, Syria is a lovely place in many ways and Christians are doing relatively well there. I did say �relatively well�; conversions to Christianity are nearly impossible (even in cases that look as if they might be safe, the prospective convert is told to go to Europe to get baptized). Still, I�d much rather be in Syria than in either Saudi Arabia or Turkey.

Thanks for the list of new Churches in the Gulf States. But why does the list not include either the Greek Orthodox or the Greek-Catholics? And how does it happen that a remarkable number of parishes in the same places have the same dedications? Seems to my simple mind that this would cause a bit of confusion.

Hope I�ve not been too nasty!

Fr. Serge

This frankly makes me sick. This isn't the first time it has happened.

http://www.faithelevators.us/polish_national_cathedral.html

Unfortunately Ilian, I can top that disgraceful story. Cardinal Salvatore Pappalardo of Palermo, as a token of good will gave the Moslem community a Catholic Church which was then converted into a Mosque. Also, I'm pretty sure this is the second time a Catholic Church in Detroit has been converted into a Mosque in recent years.

Cardinal Pappalardo was widely rumored to be a Freemason.

Another interesting tidbit is that Palermo used to be known, back in its Arab Muslim days, as "The City of A Thousand Mosques."

Logos Teen

And Marsala means the harbor of Allah. The island was under Moslem rule from 827-902 AD, but you probably already knew that.

I will not add to Yuhannon's or Father's comments except to dwell on a simple point: that of course much of what we say of the Christians in the area requires that we speak of things within a scope of relativity* and recognise how the prevalent situations vary from one place to the next**. Lebanon and Syria are certainly then, from this angle, havens for their native Christians (and, especially with Syria, also in the case of Christian refugees from Iraq and Turkey), where the practice*** of religion is concerned (I without any hesitation prefer the experience of practising Christianity over here then across the Atlantic), but their basket-case economies (repeated often to become cliche at this point, but nonetheless true) and regional instability, alas, are prolonging the haemorrhaging we have seen of these countries' Christians. Having lived in the Levant and in Saudi Arabia, experiencing both ends of the spectrum, it is easy to appreciate the differences. Turkey on the other hand is a place where the spirit of Father's list can be delivered in full force to society and the government, and the Copts, though a good-sized minority in Egypt, in percentage of population similar to that of Syria's Christians, still have to cope in their country to a point where the position of these Levantine co-religionists becomes even more enviable. To point out a difference in attitudes -- and maybe a Copt will surprise me with an answer contrary to what I would expect -- I wonder whether in Coptic monasteries, you will find Muslim pilgrims who come bearing gifts such as sheep, this being the case in Said Naya in Syria.

Yuhannon's positive report on the liberal Gulf countries is also correct, and remember that these countries have no native Christians.

I wonder whether anyone of you has read William Dalrymple's 'From the Holy Mountain'. It's a recommended book for those who would like to follow the author on his visits to the Christian communities throughout a good portion of the Middle East starting from Turkey down to Egypt.

*So of course it is natural in this region to take for granted that, amongst other things, societies remain far from the model of a radically individualist society where people shop freely for religion (or even care to) and convert away from the majority's faith with little consequence.

**What was mentioned before varies in degrees; e.g. in Lebanon, converting to Christianity will not necessarily bring about the more extreme of detrimental consequences one expects to be standard fare in other places, though it could of course elicit a fierce reaction from one's family, whether in the form of cutting off family ties or disowning. I do remember from long back that one young Muslim adolescent would regularly come to 'youth' (I cannot digest the word) meetings in the church to learn and inquire about Christianity, and to consider it for himself.

***You find things such as processions that cause the streets to become congested and crowded on feast days to the point of stopping all traffic on roads. In my experience with funeral processions, you can even find Christian Byzantine hymns being played out loud from a megaphone fixed atop whatever slow-moving vehicle leads the mourners in procession (and to underscore the point of relations, can find yourself after a Melchite funeral service, heading over to the basement of an Orthodox church for the `aza, where the Greek Catholic bishop can come to offer his condolences to the mourners). And where clerical attire is concerned, I have given up hope in our case as Catholics of seeing value in demanding permission to don clerical attire where such is prohibited for the simple fact that freedoms enjoyed are rarely appreciated, for I can say that over here, whatever lack of proper clerical attire can be observed on the part of priests is owing not to restrictions of any sort, but to the neo-Catholic fetish amongst our clergy here for plain collars, trousers, and jackets!

From the news article, there appears to be 3 parishes in the City of Detroit encompassing mostly Polish Roman Catholic communities: Our Lady Help of Christians, Transfiguration, and St. Ladislaus. (There are 309 parishes under the Archdiocese.)

Due to migration to the suburbs, Our Lady Help of Christians lost most of its parishioners. There are 2 remaining parishes for the Polish communities and Transfiguration, the nearby parish, absorbed most, if not all, of Our Lady Help of Christians parishioners.

It's an administrative act on the part of Cardinal Maida and his archdiocesan council(s) to merge and consolidate the adjoining parishes after Our Lady Help of Christians has lost a significant membership. On the whole, the Archdiocese did not lose membership. It lost a parish with no sufficient source for support.

As to the impending sale of the Church building and other properties, it is certain that the relics and other religious artifacts will be be duly taken care of.

I don't know how the Arabs and Turks came into this picture. The immigrants involved are Bangladeshi Muslims and some Indian Muslims. The Archdiocese of Detroit does not have a monopoly of the neighborhood: its Polish Roman Catholic residents just found the need to migrate to the suburbs and these Asian Muslims moved in to fill the vacancy. There is no immediate need for evangelization here. Let it be, let it be!

By the way, Bangladesh (fka East Pakistan) is a predominantly Muslim country. Of its total population of around 148 million, more than 83%, or roughly 123 million are Muslims (Sunni). Also, India, although predominantly Hindu, has much more Muslims than Christians in its more than a billion population.

Although Bangladesh adopted Islam as its "official" religion in 1988, freedom of worship continued to be allowed. Thus, the (Roman) Catholic Church has been able to maintain the Archdiocese of Dacca (Dakha) with 5 suffragan dioceses and approximately 300,000 Catholics.

The only Eastern Church which has a significant presence in the Detroit area is the Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle of Detroit for the Chaldeans, under the Most Reverend Ibrahim N. Ibrahim. The Chaldeans have their Church on 25603 Berg Road, Southfield, MI 48034, a Detroit suburb. Cardinal Maida could have informed the Chaldean Eparchy about the availability for sale of the Our Lady Help of Christians properties.

Amado

Shlomo Abuna Serge,

a) I understand your point about Hagia Sophia, but I would hope you can see why we who are Antiochene and Alexandrian Christians would not, and it would not be an important issue to us overall.

Yes we should all work together, but to us, who our co-religious are treated in Eastern Orthodox lands is also, and for the most part they are treated no better there, than they are in many Muslim lands.

b) My point on focusing on the Arab states is to show perspective. Many Eastern Europeans are focused on how the Turks treated them. But for us, Arab nationalism was started by Christians to liberate our lands, and therefore our relations with Muslims is different.

As to the why many parishes have the same name and location I posted in the paragraph just before the list the following:

Do note that many times we do share the same building, but are still separate parishes.

I did not list any Orthodox Churches since I only know about what the Catholic Church is doing in the region. As for Melkite Churches, they do not have many co-religous in the Arabian Peninsula. Here is a list that I was able to find was that in Kuwait the Melkites worship in a rented house. Sorry.

Poosh BaShlomo,
Yuhannon

Some people will do anything for cold, hard cash. This story reminds me of the betrayal of Christ to his enemies by Judas.
-Wolfgang

Though our (Byzantine Arabs) sights are not really set so hard on Agia Sophia, it is still recognised as part of our heritage and even if our Christian consciousness is more localised and centred on the collective, relatively cohesive Christian community presence in the country which we form with our co-nationals from the different Christian confessions than it is on the worldwide entities that are each faction's respective communions, I would say that any significant, improbable development -- that looks quite unfeasible today -- in the matter of Hagia Sophia would reverberate strongly with us, but I would still think that Slavic Byzantine Christians have a more intense focus on Constantinople than anyone else as it remains for them the mother church that brought to them the Christian religion, and the patriarchate under which a good deal of their ecclesiastical histories feature. We on the other hand, like the Suryanis, remain rooted firmly in consciousness to our apostolic origins, and yet, despite the rite being forced upon us centuries ago, are staunchly and proudly Byzantine, especially since that rite owes much of its development and codification to the original Antiochian rite that existed prior.

Right-o there, thank you. The online Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic fora have always seemed to me to be Slavo-(and to a lesser extent Helleno-)centric (in addition to being primarily American) in their core membership as well as general outlook. Paradigms (political, social, religious, and otherwise) such as those under which Middle Eastern Christians operate(particularly those present in the Middle East and not in the diaspora) nary factor in due to the large absence of active members of such a background. Otherwise, we wouldn't for example find much of the online stage so easily dominated by pro-Israeli and pro-American-foreign-policy positions (animated with enthusiasm) with respect to Middle Eastern matters, which appear to me to be derived heavily from a fixation with this general outlook mentioned, especially where this outlook translates into opinions on the usually conveniently Internet-absent Middle Eastern Christians, as well as on those Christians' very opinions of said policies, their societies, and relations with Muslims (of course, they are not uniform and will vary, covering a range).

I would hate to factor a modern political concept such as nationalism (an influence, yes) into considerations as to what primarily underlies whatever traditionally kept polarisations between the different religious communities at a better level than elsewhere in the world where Islam and Christianity have met (though this certainly did not preclude the taking place of violent events if we stop to consider such things of relatively recent history such as the 19th century massacres). I would venture to think that factors such as eventual cultural* and lingual assimilation over the centuries, the good stretch of time under Muslim rule when Christians were still a majority, the plethora of religious communities that existed in these lands (and hence friction between different factions of one religion), and the multi-confessional millet system of organisation under the Ottoman administration are some of those things that helped to form the groundwork upon which members of the different religious sectors of society developed in interacting and living with each other.

I might be able to get in touch with someone in Kuwait of that religious background who would know more.

*Of course, people didn't recognise a sharing of a common Arab identity as a people in the nationalistic sense (considering that such a culture is more accurately Levantine and contrasts with cultures elsewhere in the Arab world), but in many cases, 'these Christians' -- I would focus on the Byzantines, who are not (though they have been traditionally considered 'Rum') an 'ethnic' or 'national' church as the Copts for example are -- were not exactly ethnic 'others' to the local Muslims, as Greeks or Slavs to Turks (or Ukrainians to Poles to Russians etc. to recall to mind inter-Christian conflict in Eastern Europe). If anyone was an outsider, it was the Turk, not the Christian (though support from outside Christian powers would have tarnished this perspective somewhat) and despite this not taking precedence in his mind, it was a fact to the Arab Muslim as well, even if he felt an allegiance to the caliphate and did not harbour a sense of an Arab national identity.