Fear in The First Churches

By Richard N. Ostling

An Arab Christian woman living outside Bethlehem did not dare make Easter eggs this year. Reason: "Our Muslim brothers consider any signs of celebration a violation of the intifadeh." In West Beirut some churches canceled Palm Sunday processions through Muslim streets or shifted Easter midnight Mass to 3:30 p.m. so that worshipers could be home by nightfall. "How can we celebrate Easter?" asks a refugee from inter-Christian fighting. "We have never been this low."

Such Holy Week tribulations underscored the long-range fears of many Middle Eastern Christians that their religion may be headed for eventual extinction in the very lands that were Christianity's cradle. Originating on the eastern rim of the Mediterranean nearly 2,000 years ago, the newborn faith spread rapidly to Syria, and thence the apostle Paul took it to his native land, present-day Turkey. Others went southward to Egypt, making Alexandria the first center of Christian culture long before Rome and Constantinople. The rise of Islam beginning in the 7th century ultimately made that faith predominant.

Some 10 million Christians remain in the Mideast. But for how long? According to Gabriel Habib, general secretary of the Cyprus-based Middle East Council of Churches, "Fear, human suffering and hopelessness" have caused so many Christians to emigrate that there is deep concern about the "continuity of the Christian presence and witness in this region." At an assembly of the church council in January, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant and Anglican leaders vowed, "We shall stay in these lands, according to the will of God. This is where we belong and where we are rooted."

Muslim cultural pressure is by no means the only cause of Christian decline, reasons for which vary country by country. Lebanon is convulsed by feudal warfare, pitting Christians against not only Muslims but, increasingly, rival Christians. Saudi Arabia has long forbidden any open Christian activity. By contrast, Islam is not the state religion in autocratic Syria and its 10% Christian minority will apparently be secure as long as Hafez Assad holds power.

Christianity's future is anything but secure in Israel and the occupied areas, despite the faith's strong roots there and the government's official commitment to religious freedom. Author Amos Elon has written that Jerusalem may soon become a mere "museum" for visitors, bereft of Christianity as a "living religion." A clergyman in the city's withering Catholic community agrees: "I am afraid that the day will come when we will have the Christian holy places without local Christians." Church experts estimate that Jerusalem has 9,000 resident Christians, one-third of the total at Israel's founding. The toehold was further weakened last week when 150 Jews moved into homes in the traditionally Christian quarter of the Old City, touching off a raucous street protest.

After years of relative harmony, friction between Christians and their fellow Arabs has intensified sharply with the recent rise of Islamic fundamentalism. "Life here is becoming unbearable," says a Bethlehem woman who plans to emigrate. "We Christians and Muslims have been living together peacefully for a long time, but these fundamentalists are completely different. We never felt the fear of Muslim domination before." Breaking into tears, her daughter adds, "Bethlehem is becoming a city of ghosts." "Of course I am afraid," admits a nearby merchant whose shop was hit by arsonists when he refused to observe a Muslim strike. He plans to move to South America. Speaking for many young Christians, a 22-year-old waiting in the long line for visas at the Canadian embassy in Tel Aviv says simply, "I have no future here." A top leader of the West Bank's outlawed Islamic Resistance Movement contends that future Muslim rulers would protect Christians -- if foreign religious agencies pull out. But many Middle Eastern churches, suspect due to their Western ties, would be hard put to survive without foreign clergy and cash.

Nowhere is the decline as striking as in Turkey, where the Ecumenical Patriarchs, "first among equals" in the world's Eastern Orthodox hierarchy, have held sway since A.D. 451. Today, when Patriarch Dimitrios celebrates the Eucharist on a typical Sunday in Istanbul, the service is conducted with virtually no congregation. In the 1920s, Istanbul was 80% Christian; now there are barely 3,000 Greek Orthodox communicants in the city of 6 million. Says one ranking churchman: "The young leave as soon as they can, since there is no future for them here."

Political repression compounds Christianity's other problems in Turkey. The secular regime not only forbids construction of new churches but also tightly restricts residence permits for foreign clergy. The country's only Orthodox seminary was closed in 1971, which means that the Patriarchate seems doomed to extinction, perhaps by the turn of the century, for want of new priests. Turkey's Armenian remnant is also denied a seminary. A mere 28 Armenian priests remain; only two of them are celibate and thus eligible to become future bishops. "All we can hope for," says a prominent Christian, "is that when and if Turkey joins the European Community, freedom of religion is made one of the requirements."

Egypt's 5.4 million Copts are the region's largest surviving Christian community. Though Egypt's churches fare better than those in most Muslim countries, there have been jailings of Christians who evangelize or violate the strict taboo against conversion from Islam. Christians are alarmed over last month's rash of Muslim assaults on their churches, homes and shops in Upper Egypt. "Antagonism toward Christians is becoming more entrenched," laments a Protestant minister in Cairo. Coptic immigrants to the U.S. complain that Egypt's Christians are barred from good jobs in academia, government, the media and many other fields.

If Egypt has the largest Christian population, Lebanon long had the most powerful one; until the civil war, which began in 1975, it was the only Arab nation dominated by Christians. But after years of political upheaval, all churches together can probably claim only 43% of the population. In West Beirut, 85% of the Catholic parishioners have fled the violence. Since the latest intra-Christian war broke out last January, one-third of the inhabitants have fled the formerly safe Christian enclave in East Beirut. At stake, says Maronite Catholic Archbishop Youssef Khoury, is nothing less than "the survival of our people."

The specter of Muslim domination underlies the Maronite Catholics' fanatical battle to cling to power. "We are afraid that the Christian community will disappear. That is why we are fighting," explains a taxi driver in East Beirut. In West Beirut a Greek Orthodox clerk who has long lived happily among Muslims nonetheless fumes that if Christians lose the presidency, "you won't see me in Lebanon for one more day. I've seen other countries where they are ruled by Muslims."

For all their intensity, such deep-seated fears among many Middle Eastern Christians seem to be based as much on feelings and perceptions as on facts. "Overt discrimination is rare" in most Muslim countries, contends Douglas duCharme, spokesman for the Middle East Council of Churches. He admits, however, that "there are limits on the role of non-Muslims in a society where 90% of the people are Muslim." A moderate Lebanese scholar agrees that the problem is not so much persecution as "a broader feeling that a handful of Christians are not really wanted in the Islamic world." Looking at the long term, church strategists realize that inexorable tides of history, belief and numbers are running against them.

With reporting by Jamil Hamad/Jerusalem and Lara Marlowe/Beirut, with other bureaus