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Familiar tragedy in Syria: The Orthodox shepherds of Aleppo are still missing

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Familiar tragedy in Syria: The Orthodox shepherds of Aleppo are still missing

Metropolitan Paul Yazigi had no way to know that he was about to vanish into the chaos of the Turkish-Syrian border during the violent rise of the Islamic State.

"If we want to be good children to God, then we don't thank Him only when He gives us [blessings]," he said, in one of his final sermons (translated from Arabic) before he was kidnapped on April 22, 2013.

"Also, when we are hurting, we say to Him: 'Your hand must be taking care of us, and we thank You.' …A Christian is a creature that gives thanks to God for all things one knows and doesn't know, for both the good and the hardships one faces in his life."

Sermons about faith and suffering are always timely in ancient churches.

The bishops of Aleppo, Syria – Metropolitan Yazigi and Metropolitan Yohanna Ibrahim of the Syriac Orthodox Church – disappeared 10 years ago while seeking the release of two kidnapped priests. Their car was surrounded by a pack of armed men, as they maneuvered through risky checkpoints near west of Aleppo. Their driver died in the gunfire, but a survivor later testified that the kidnappers were not speaking Arabic and appeared to be from Chechnya.

There were no ransom demands from the terrorists. The shepherds of Aleppo simply vanished, inspiring few headlines outside the Middle East.

The 10-year anniversary passed quietly this spring, after years of special prayers during Orthodox worship services around the world.

"I don't think anyone can assume, at this point, that they are still living. But there is a sense that we don't know enough about what happened to have a sense of closure," said Father Thomas Zain, dean of St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral in Brooklyn, New York.

"It's likely that they were kidnapped in Turkish territory, which added another level of complexity to the political situation." Many have concluded that the gunmen "didn't know who they had kidnapped. When they realized what kind of mistake they had made, they may have killed them immediately and moved on."

A joint statement from the two churches marking the anniversary was especially poignant since the leader of the ancient Antiochian Orthodox patriarchate is more than Metropolitan Yazigi's "brother" bishop – they are actually brothers from the same family.

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The 'secular city'? The religious marketplace in New York has grown more complex

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The 'secular city'? The religious marketplace in New York has grown more complex

Early in his church-planting work in New York City, the Rev. Tim Keller focused on what he called the Center City, which started in lower Manhattan, near Wall Street, and extended past Central Park.

The Presbyterian Church in America seminary professor camped in the old Tramway Diner under the 59th Street Bridge at 2nd Avenue, asking New Yorkers probing questions about their lives. He dug into the socialist Dissent Magazine to learn the city's secular lingo.

But New York was already evolving in 1989, when Redeemer Presbyterian Church opened its doors two weeks after Easter, said Tony Carnes, leader of the "A Journey through NYC Religions" website.

Changes began in the 1970s in the city's boroughs "with more internationals arriving from all over," including Global South cultures in which "no one doubts that faith is an important part of life," he said, reached by telephone. "It took time to see these changes affect Manhattan, but they did."

In 2000, Carnes' team found – through a face-to-face census with church leaders – 120 evangelical congregations in the Manhattan Center City. That number reached 197 a decade later, 251 in 2014, 308 in 2019 and are expected to near 370 in 2024.

"We know there are others, because we hear things all the time," said Carnes. "We just haven't found them all – yet."

For decades, researchers considered New York City a lab for the brand of secularism defined by Harvard Divinity School historian Harvey Cox, author of the influential "The Secular City" in 1965. In a famous quotation, he noted: "Secular Humanism is opposed to other religions; it actively rejects, excludes, and attempts to eliminate traditional theism from meaningful participation in the American culture."

However, at sidewalk level it's obvious that there are "two New Yorks," noted Carnes. While secularism remains dominant in mass media, academia and other parts of the cultural establishment, the reality is more complex in Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Staten Island and now parts of Manhattan.

It's hard to consider the Big Apple a truly "secular city," when considering the rising number of New Yorkers who are Muslims, Orthodox Jews, Hindus and evangelical and Pentecostal believers in Latino, Black, Asian, white and interracial flocks.

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Young Sufi singer continues to face death sentence in Nigeria – for song lyrics

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Young Sufi singer continues to face death sentence in Nigeria -- for song lyrics

This much is clear: Kano State authorities in northern Nigeria accused the Sufi Muslim singer Yahaya Sharif-Aminu of circulating social-media messages containing lyrics they said attacked the Prophet Muhammad.

 What did the song say? It's impossible to find direct quotations, although his accusers say he sang praises for his Sufi faith and, thus, spread false teachings about Islam.

 Did Sharif-Aminu actually send those WhatsApp messages? Again, it's hard to separate facts from rumors backed by mob attacks.

But this much is clear: Sharif-Aminu was found guilty of blasphemy in 2020 by a regional sharia court and sentenced to death by hanging. He remains imprisoned, while human-rights activists around the world – including the European Union parliament – keep urging his release and the end of blasphemy laws.

"You're not sure, in many of these cases, what the person is actually accused of doing or saying because key people are afraid to discuss the details," said scholar Paul Marshall, who teaches at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and lectures around the world. He is the coauthor of "Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide," with Nina Shea of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C.

The result is a deadly puzzle. Anyone who shares facts about blasphemy accusations may then be accused of spreading blasphemy. Depending on the time and location, any public opposition to blasphemy laws may be considered an act of blasphemy.

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The Pentecost massacre in Nigeria was the latest chapter in an old, old news story

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The Pentecost massacre in Nigeria was the latest chapter in an old, old news story

The massacre occurred during a Sunday Mass, but it wasn't an ordinary Sunday – this was the great feast of Pentecost, which marks the end of the Easter season.

What's more, the gunmen didn't strike in tense northern Nigeria, where Christian communities are isolated in a majority-Muslim region. This 30-minute attack was inside St. Francis Catholic Church, located in the safer southwestern state of Ondo.

While 40 worshippers were confirmed dead, including five children, the number was almost certainly higher since many families buried their dead privately. Another 100 were wounded.

The scope of this attack was "unique," especially in southern Nigeria, but "this violence … was not unique in its occurrence," stressed Stephen Rasche, senior fellow at the independent Religious Freedom Institute in Washington, D.C. "These types of murders are taking place weekly, almost daily, in Nigeria – murders of innocent Christians, being gunned down, slaughtered indiscriminately, throughout the north and, increasingly, into the central part of Nigeria and into the south."

Human-rights activists are trying to document the bloodshed. According to the nondenominational watchdog group Open Doors, the 4,650 Christians killed in Nigeria during 2021 accounted for 80% of such deaths worldwide – nearly 13 per day. Nigeria's Christian death toll has topped 60,000 over the past two decades.

Nevertheless, this year's International Religious Freedom Report from the U.S. State Department said the "Secretary of State determined that Nigeria did not meet the criteria to be designated as a Country of Particular Concern for engaging in or tolerating particularly severe violations of religious freedom or as a Special Watch List country for engaging in or tolerating severe violations of religious freedom."

It's understandable that news reports about Nigeria have faded, in part because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and pressing global economic issues, said Rasche, who visited Nigerian churches during this Holy Week and Easter.

Also, many Western leaders view atrocities in Nigeria as clashes between Christian farmers and Muslim cattle herders, with climate-change issues erasing safety zones between these groups.

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After the fall: Many religious believers in Afghanistan are in hiding, with good cause

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After the fall: Many religious believers in Afghanistan are in hiding, with good cause

There's a logical reason that Taliban forces have not been accused of destroying any churches in Afghanistan.

"That's the dirty little secret. There were no churches before the Taliban returned to power," said Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom and a human-rights activist for 30 years. "Christians were already underground because of the constant threats to their lives, so they didn't have any church buildings to blow up."

Everyone remembers the shocking videos when desperate Afghans chased a U.S. military plane on a Kabul runway, pleading to be among those evacuated. At least two people fell to their deaths after clinging to a plane during takeoff.

Ever since, there have been reports about the dangers faced by those left behind, especially Afghans with ties to the U.S. military, the fallen government or workers in secular or religious non-profit groups that remained behind to continue humanitarian work.

Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Ahmadis, Shia Muslims and members of other religious minorities are also living in fear.

"They are all on the run. They are all in hiding," said Shea, reached by telephone. "People are being hunted down and beaten and are threatened with death if they don't betray members of their families who are considered apostates" by the Taliban.

It's impossible not to discuss religious freedom during this crisis, she added. "Everything the Taliban does is about religion. Religion is involved when they hang people for violating their approach to Islamic law or when they attack women and girls who want to go to school. For the Taliban, this is all connected."

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Jan 6th U.S. Capitol riot or return of Taliban: Which was the top 2021 religion-news story?

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Jan 6th U.S. Capitol riot or return of Taliban: Which was the top 2021 religion-news story?

For journalists who braved the chaos, the Jan. 6th riot on Capitol Hill offered a buffet of the bizarre – a throng of Proud Boys, QAnon prophets, former U.S. military personnel and radicalized Donald Trump supporters that crashed through security lines and, thus, into history.

Many protestors at Trump’s legal "Save America" rally carried signs, flags and banners with slogans such as "Jesus is my Savior, Trump is my president" or simply "Jesus 2020." In this context, "Jesus saves" took on a whole new meaning.

Some of that symbolism was swept into the illegal attack on the U.S. Capitol.

In its poll addressing major religion events in 2021, members of the Religion News Association offered this description of the top story: "Religion features prominently during the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump insurrectionists. Some voice Christian prayers, while others display Christian or pagan symbols and slogans inside and outside the Capitol."

Consider, for example, Jacob Anthony Chansley – or Jake "Yellowstone Wolf" Angeli. With his coyote-skin and buffalo-horns headdress, red, white and blue face paint and Norse torso tattoos, the self-proclaimed QAnon shaman, UFO expert and metaphysical healer became the instant superstar of this mash-up of politics, religion and digital conspiracy theories.

"Thank you, Heavenly Father … for this opportunity to stand up for our God-given inalienable rights," he said, in a video of his U.S. Senate remarks from the vice president's chair. "Thank you, divine, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent Creator God for filling this chamber with your white light and love. Thank you for filling this chamber with patriots that love you and that love Christ. …

“Thank you for allowing the United States of America to be reborn. Thank you for allowing us to get rid of the communists, the globalists and the traitors within our government."

That was one loud voice. A big question that must be answered, in future trials and the U.S. House investigation, is whether it's true – as claimed by the New York Times – that the "most extreme corners of support for Mr. Trump have become inextricable from some parts of white evangelical power in America."

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Cries for help from Nigerian Catholics: Battles over land, cattle, honor and, yes, religion

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Cries for help from Nigerian Catholics: Battles over land, cattle, honor and, yes, religion

Another day, with yet another funeral.

Catholics in Nigeria had buried many priests and believers killed in their country's brutal wars over land, cattle, honor and religion. But this was the first time Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Sokoto Diocese had preached at the funeral of a seminarian.

A suspect in the crime said 18-year-old Michael Nnadi died urging his attackers to repent and forsake their evil ways.

"We are being told that this situation has nothing to do with religion," said Kukah, in remarks distributed across Nigeria in 2020. "Really? … Are we to believe that simply because Boko Haram kills Muslims too, they wear no religious garb? Are we to deny the evidence before us, of kidnappers separating Muslims from infidels or compelling Christians to convert or die?"

The bishop was referring to fierce debates – in Nigeria and worldwide – about attacks by Muslim Fulani herders on Christian and Muslim farmers in northern and central Nigeria. The question is whether these gangs have been cooperating with Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

The conflict has claimed Catholics, Anglicans, Pentecostal Christians and many others, including Muslims opposed to the violence. Prominent Muslim leaders have condemned Boko Haram and church leaders have condemned counterattacks by Christians. In recent years it has become next to impossible to keep track of the number of victims, including mass kidnappings of school children and the murders of clergy and laypeople, including beheadings.

"Religion is not the only driver of the mass atrocities," said Nina Shea of the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom, in December testimony before members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "Not all 40 million members of the Fulani ethnic group in the region are Islamic extremists. However, there is evidence that some fraction of the Fulani have an explicit jihadist agenda. …

"A mounting number of attacks in this region also evidence deep religious hatred, an implacable intolerance of Christians, and an intent to eradicate their presence by violently driving them out, killing them or forcing them to convert."

In a sobering Feb. 23 statement (.pdf here), the Catholic Bishop's Conference of Nigeria warned that the "nation is falling apart."

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World watches as fights continue to see who controls iconic Hagia Sophia in Istanbul

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World watches as fights continue to see who controls iconic Hagia Sophia in Istanbul

Art historian Andrew Gould had studied many copies of the exquisite mosaic of Jesus found high in Istanbul's 6th Century Hagia Sophia cathedral.

But that didn't prepare the architect and sacred artist for what he felt when he stood under the icon, illumined by the soaring windows in the south gallery that overlooks the main floor, under the central dome that is 184 feet high and 102 feet in diameter.

The Deesis ("supplication") icon – at least twice the size of life – shows the Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist with their heads bowed, framing an image of Christ Pantocrator ("enthroned"). The glass mosaic cubes were set at angles to create a shimmering effect across the gold background and the many-colored images, whether viewed in daylight or with lamps and candles.

Much of this icon was destroyed a century ago as workers probed to find priceless mosaics under layers of plaster and paint added through the centuries after 1453, when the Ottoman armies of Mehmed II conquered Constantinople.

Now, Turkish leaders want to convert Hagia Sophia – a museum for decades – back into a mosque.

"There is no more refined icon of Christ anywhere," said Gould, of the New World Byzantine Studios in Charleston, S.C. "Just in terms of information, we have copies we can study. … But visiting Hagia Sophia and seeing this icon under natural light, seeing it in the context of the sanctuary, was crucial to the development of my whole understanding of Orthodox art."

If the "Deesis" is covered again, along with other icons, "this is not something that can be replaced with photographs in art books," he said. "It would hurt artists and believers around the world in so many ways."

The current controversy is rooted in politics, more than lingering tensions between Muslim leaders and Turkey's tiny Christian minority, which has little power other than through ties to Greece, Europe and the United States.

Hagia Sophia became a museum in 1934, a symbol of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's drive to build a modern, truly secular state. Now, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sent many signals that he wants Turkey to return to Islamic principles.

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Religious persecution remains a controversial reality in our world today

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Religious persecution remains a controversial reality in our world today

Early in the Iraq war, Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana took part in a congressional fact-finding trip to meet with U.S. troops.

Some of the lessons he learned during his first trip to that troubled land had more to do with religion than with warfare. While meeting with local officials, for example, Pence watched the local imam rush to embrace a friend – the Catholic bishop in southern Iraq. A translator said the imam thanked the bishop for staying in touch after the recent death of his mother.

That was enlightening, said Vice President Pence, during the recent "Help the Persecuted" summit in Washington, D.C. But he also learned a crucial fact that day. 

"I turned to the diplomatic aide who was with me," Pence recalled, "and said, 'So there's a Catholic church in al-Basrah?' And he said, 'Yes, yes there is.' And I said, 'How long has there been a Catholic church in al-Basrah?' And he said, 'About 1,500 years.' "

That's a sobering fact, since Iraq's Christian population has fallen 80 percent since that 2004 meeting, said Pence. The Christian population of Syria has fallen 50 percent in the past six years.

"As you all know, no people of faith face greater hostility or hatred than followers of Christ," said the vice president. "In more than 100 nations, spread to every corner of the world … over 245 million Christians confront intimidation, imprisonment, forced conversion, abuse, assault or worse."

Nohere is this onslaught more evident than in the "ancient land where Christianity was born," he added. "In Egypt we see the bombing of churches during Palm Sunday celebrations. In Iraq we see monasteries demolished, priests and monks beheaded and the two-millennia-old Christian tradition in Mosul clinging for survival. In Syria, we see ancient communities burned to the ground and believers tortured for confessing the name of Christ. … Christianity now faces an exodus in the Middle East unrivaled since the days of Moses."

Pence has made similar remarks before, but these statements rarely gain traction outside the world of Christian media. The problem is that the words "religious persecution" – especially when linked to suffering Christians – remain controversial among some public officials and journalists.

In Britain, for example, immigration officials ruled against the asylum claim of an Iranian national who had converted to Christianity. Here's what made headlines: The Home Office backed this action with claims that Christianity is not a religion of peace, quoting Leviticus 26:7 ("Ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword") and the words of Jesus in Matthew 10:24 ("Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword").

Meanwhile, the Christian Broadcasting Network and other conservative groups have noted, in recent weeks, the deaths of an estimated 120 Christians in central Nigeria.