The Voice of the suffering in Middle East

His Beatitude Ibrahim Sidrak, the Coptic Catholic Patriarch of Alexandria, heads the small Coptic Catholic Church, which has about 300,000 members. In an interview with the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), he shared his thoughts about his country, which has become a refuge for many Christians.   How do you explain that, unlike in many other Near East countries, we have not seen a mass migration of Christians from Egypt?  Historically, we have a large Christian community – probably 15 million! – who are integrated into Egyptian society. You can ask an Egyptian Muslim if his ...

A decrease in the influence of Islamist extremism in Egypt has made it possible for Christians to rebuild damaged churches and even consider building new ones.   The Egyptian government has lifted restrictions on the construction of churches, allowing the Coptic Catholic community to begin restoring St. George’s Cathedral in Luxor – destroyed by a fire in 2016 – and make plans to build more places of worship in the country, according to Coptic Catholic Patriarch Ibrahim Sidrak of Alexandria.   Patriarch Sidrak told Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that Islamist movements like the Muslim Brotherhood are ...

Many feared that the invasion of the Nineveh Plains would drive Christians from Iraq for good, but ten years after militants of the Islamic state drove them from their homeland, thousands of Christians have returned to houses rebuilt with the help of ACN, taking with them their love for the Church and the hope of the Gospel.  “Words cannot describe what we experienced 10 years ago. ISIS tried to eradicate us, but they failed,” said Nizar Semaan, the Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Adiabene in Northern Iraq, during an online conference organized by Aid to the Church in Need. “The ...

The Maronite Archbishop of Tyre, Monsignor Charbel Abdallah, whose archdiocese is one of the oldest in the world, told ACN that despite “finding ourselves in a state of war,” most people who had fled to Beirut or further north have now returned because they were short of money, and their relatives did not have the capacity to accommodate so many people. In the ten parishes near the Israeli border, which make up almost the entirety of the archdiocese, 70 percent of people have come back.

Archbishop Warda said that many Christians have either left or are planning to leave the country because of the ongoing economic hardship, and that young people “ask for jobs, not just to receive donations.” He explained that, even though persecution is no longer their main concern, “the pressure of being a minority is real.”

During the war, the churches in the area were subject to vandalism and their icons were stolen. The destruction of Darayya came at a huge cost to its historical diversity - the suburb of Damascus is notable for its historic Christian presence, dating back centuries. Some Christian traditions hold that Darayya is close to where the conversion of the Apostle Paul took place on his way to Damascus.