Episcopal Press and News
Palestinian Crisis Threatens Continuing Christian Presence in Holy Land
Episcopal News Service. April 7, 1995 [95067]
(ENS) In the complicated mix of destinies to be shaped by the struggle between Palestinians and Israelis, one real casualty could be the future for Christian Palestinians, representatives of the Episcopal Church's Peace and Justice Network learned during a fact-finding tour of the Middle East.
"We as Christians in this part of the world are being sandwiched between extremist Muslims and extremist Israelis," said Bishop Elia Khoury, retired suffragan bishop of the Diocese of Jerusalem and a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The result is a trend toward emigration that threatens the continued presence of Christians in the Holy Land, he said.
As conditions for Palestinians in general suffer under restrictions imposed by Israeli authorities concerned about security, the already small number of Christians willing to stay dwindles.
"Who are the people who are leaving? They are the educated, ambitious people who can be leaders, leaving the community with no leadership," said Fuad Farah, general secretary of the YMCA in Nazareth. "They feel they are being cut off from everything. They have nothing to hang on to."
While there were 25,000 Christians living in Jerusalem before the Six Day War in 1967, "now there are hardly 8,000," said Khoury. "In three or four years' time, these Christians may not remain. When you come to the Holy Land, you will find stones, churches, shrines, without worshippers," he said.
"People ask me when I became a Christian," said Laila Diab, general secretary of the YWCA in Jordan, a former refugee whose family fled from Palestine in 1948. "My answer is that Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem and not in New York City. We have been here from the beginning."
"Many Christians in the west have more to do with the Israelis than with the Christians of the Holy Land," said Canon Riah Abu El-Assal of Christ Church, Nazareth, noting that conservative Christian denominations in particular tend to identify with and support Zionism. Calling Palestinian Christians "the forgotten faithful," he said they are now only 1.5 percent of the total population.
Though small in number, they can play a vital role in moderating a struggle that tends to become polarized between Muslims and Jews, he said. "We can become the bridge," Abu El-Assal said. "We can help people understand the need for reconciliation."
In part because of their dwindling numbers, Christians of different denominations tend to stick together in grassroots ecumenism, noted the Rev. Hanna Mansour, a deacon who serves St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in the West Bank town of Zebabde. "We've started a new movement here, an ecumenical movement because ecumenism here is a necessity," he said. As one example, Mansour said, his congregation will be celebrating Easter with the local Greek Orthodox congregation according to the Orthodox calendar, and the two congregations will, in turn, celebrate Christmas together on December 25.
"To work together, to be together, to pray together, to stay together, to think together, to learn together, and to build a certain unity between the churches, is a matter of life and death," agreed a Catholic colleague, the Rev. Manuel Emasslan.