.- Christians in the Middle East are heroic witnesses to the faith, and the U.S. must help ensure they can stay in their homelands in peace, a Maronite bishop who is a leading advocate for the region’s Christians says.
“I think the Christians there are the salt of the earth. And they really are Christ in the midst of the Middle East, with no place to lay His head,” Bishop Gregory Mansour of the Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn told CNA in an interview.
“In my mind, they’re the heroes of today. They’ve faced down ISIS, they’ve faced down evil, they’ve faced down apathy,” he said. “And it’s still these Christians who are educated, they’re gracious, they’re forgiving.”
Bishop Mansour spoke with CNA ahead of multiple planned advocacy campaigns for Christians of the Middle East.
The annual summit of the advocacy group In Defense of Christians will be held in Washington, D.C. Oct. 24-26. It will focus on “American Leadership and Securing the Future of Christians in the Middle East,” and will feature advocacy especially at the offices of members of Congress.
Special guests will include Catholicos Aram I, of the Holy See of Cilicia of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Patriarch Youssef Absi of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, and Patriarch Moran Mor Bechara Boutros al-Rai, Maronite Patriarch of Antioch.
In Defense of Christians has also planned an action campaign in the days leading up to the summit, where U.S. Christians can pray for persecuted Christians in the Middle East, advocate for them, and support aid organizations that serve religious minorities in the region.
Christians in the region have suffered for generations, but in recent years their plight has become especially dire. Even before the rise of Islamic State in 2014, Christians had been steadily leaving Iraq, and the Syrian civil war had already been boiling for several years.