Today is the day, according to the old Julian calendar [introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC], when millions of Christians belonging to the old churches of the East celebrate Christmas. Millions do in the Middle East, particularly the Copts in Egypt [9 millions!], and many other millions do it in the Western world, their current countries of residence and refuge, to where they were forced in the last century or so, due mainly to persecution in the Middle East. Many are still in the Middle East, but their basic right of free worship is denied, because they are under the control of fanatic jihadists in Iraq and Syria.
While there is so much talk in the Western press about the plight of Middle East Muslim refugees, there is SO little talk about the plight of Christians. This is surprising and cannot be easily explained. If we take the US as an example, is it because the vast majority of Christians are either Protestant or Catholic, and only a fraction belong to the Eastern churches? Is it because of the fear to seem anti-Muslim, participating in the existing wave of Islamophobia, a phenomenon which is the inevitable, though unacceptable, result of jihadist terrorism? Or is it because the current Obama administration seems to be overly preoccupied with the issues created by Muslim refugees on the expense of other suffering Middle Easterners?
Whatever the explanation, it may be secondary in importance to the fact that the Middle East, the birth place of Christianity, is becoming an hostile environment to the Christian believers. Christian emigration from the Middle East is not a new reality. It started in the 1870's from then as now civil war-plagued Syria and Lebanon. This was a wave of emigration, which coincided with similar moves of millions of Europeans who chose the new world, but the fact is that almost the entire move out of the Levant was of Christians, whereas Muslims stayed on.
The situation today is that there are 12 million Christians of Lebanese-Syrian descent out of the Middle East, mainly in South America [Brazil, Argentina, Colombia] and the US, while only four million are still in Lebanon and Syria, a country where there are two million Christians, members of more than ten different denominations [mostly Greek Orthodox], and the majority of them seem to be on the side of the Bashar Assad regime, or what is left of it. They do not necessarily admire the "great leader," but for them the choice between Sunni fanatics and Alawite-dominated tyranny is one between death and forced conversion as opposed to an unpleasant dictatorship.
In Iraq, the situation of Christians is even more dire, and there again the problems are old. It was in 1933, right after the formal granting of Iraq's independence, when the Iraqi army celebrated the event in style, by committing the horrific massacre of Assyrian and Chaldean Christians in Simele, Northern Iraq.
This was a grim reminder to old, Aramaic-speaking Christian communities of the shape of things to come to the new independent state. It was then, when Christian emigration from Iraq started, with large communities of Iraqi Christians in the US, in places like Chicago and Detroit and others.
Another massive wave of Christian emigration followed the gradual retreat of the invading American army after operation "Iraqi Freedom" in 2003. Yes, there is no way to exempt the then administration from bearing some responsibility for the systematic burning of churches and harassment of Christians. The current mayhem in Mosul, a home of ancient Christian communities, is therefore just another, though terrible, chapter in a long history of persecution.
Then there is Israel and the Palestinian territories, particularly the sad fact that the Christian population has alarmingly dwindled for a long time, far before the wars of 1948 and 1967. This story does get its share of press coverage, particularly around Christmas, and with it the inevitable sense of "Jewish ethnic cleansing of Christians." Well, the professional anti-Israel propaganda machine will miss no chance to blame the Jews for every problem, but Arab Christians know better. An interesting development in Israel is the growing solidarity of Arab Christians with the State of Israel.
Last but not least is the case of Egypt, where 10 percent are Christians, the original population of the land prior to the Islamic conquest and mass conversion which followed. The British High Commissioner of Egypt in the late 19th Century, Lord Cromer, once famously said that there is no difference between Muslims and Christians in Egypt, just the day in which they pray. Go and tell that to the Muslim Brotherhood [MB]. In the one year of the Morsi MB administration, unspeakable horrors were committed against Christians. Current president Al-Sisi, on the other hand, met the Head of the Coptic church and extended his blessings to the Christian community. The current American administration does not like the Al-Sisi government, still toying with the notion that the MB administration was illegally removed from office. That is not a good signal to those Muslims, and there are many who want to show a different face of Islam to their Christian compatriots.
On this day of Eastern Christian festivities, it is important to make sure that their tale of faith, suffering and endurance is told to those who either genuinely do not know, or intentionally ignore it.