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Iraq: The most dangerous place in the world for Christians
by Scott Gilbreath ~ March 27th, 2009
Canon Andrew White, vicar of St. George’s, Baghdad, the only Anglican church in Iraq, says Iraqi Christians are still being killed and forced into exile. He does not condemn the invasion of Iraq and is glad Saddam was deposed, but the situation today is disastrous for non-Muslims.
I look around our church and most of our members (over 2,000) are women and children because our men have been killed or kidnapped. All of our members apart from me are Iraqis and all have suffered terribly. Last year alone, 93 of my people were killed. This year already, five of my people have been killed. All of my original church leaders were killed in 2005 and all Christians in the country who had the means have left and gone to Jordan, Syria or Sweden so that those left behind tend to be the poorer members of the community.
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Hundreds of Christians have been killed, forced to convert or made to pay jezerah tax. On the whole people have not even heard of these problems. I stand in church each week and look at the widows and children without parents. They are my people and I have to provide for them. There is no social security, they need food, clothes and healthcare. They have no money so we have to provide it. I thank G-d that by his grace through our supporters, I have always been able to do this. I might be an Anglican but we do not just give to our own we also give to the Assyrian, Armenian, Chaldean, Syrian Orthodox and to some of the Protestant groups. What we can give though is minuscule compared to the extent of the needs.
Christians have been in Iraq for almost 2000 years, but today they are an imperiled minority.
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March 29th, 2009 at 06:29 PM
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