Christian Slaughter

"My family and friends very much feel under threat. People from the area have said that extremists have gone through the streets shouting 'Alawites to the grave, Christians to Beirut'. They want to kick us out. They say that if Christians refuse to leave they will end up in the grave like the Alawites. (a Shia sect)
Nobody seems to care what is happening to us Christians in Syria. The government we had in the past was bad but at least we were safe. At least we could walk the streets. You'd never think you might be bombed by extremists. Not anymore. Now it's very scary. Now they are bombing churches. Look at what has happened to our churches in places like Aleppo and Homs. The extremists threaten us Christians when we want to celebrate major feasts like Christmas and Easter. They don't want us in the area at all."

There have been more Christians slaughtered in the last century than in all previous nineteen centuries before. The killers of Christians are today in various countries of the world but they have one thing in common, they practise the teachings of Islam. Islamic jihadists have been outdoing themselves in their zeal to rid Muslim countries of the polluting presence of non-Muslims. Christians in those countries long predated Islam, but their presence in the countries that Islam conquered have finally been reduced and are destined to come to an end.

Students mourn the 147 students killed in the Garissa school attack on April 3, Kenya

They can still, should they wish to, find a place of haven in a country which has welcomed and given full haven to Jews who also once flourished throughout the Middle East, as an even more ancient religious devotion to a monotheistic faith whose origins gave birth to its successors. In the saga of successive religions deriving from a common source declaring themselves the finished product, Christians once dominated and persecuted the Jews.

Now the third faith stream emanating from Judaism rampages against both Jews and Christians which Islam itself calls 'the People of the Book', those of the Abrahamic theocratic dynasty. A viciously lethal strain of 'pure' Islam erupted in the past century and it has grown progressively throughout Africa and the Middle East and Asia, to represent a strain of Islam inimical to the presence of other religions, and dangerous to those who have not surrendered to Islam.

Fourteen of the world's leading scholars representing a multi-year research project documenting the extent of Christian suffering appeared at a conference -- Under Caesar's Sword, that took place in Rome recently. Two Catholic patriarchs, Ignatius Yousef III Younan of the Syriac Church and Raphael Sako of the Chaldean Church in Iraq addressed the conference about what it is like to live in an area where the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant wreak havoc.

They speak of religious genocide, hurtling the Christians of the Middle East away from their ancient lands of origin to escape untimely death. Cardinal John Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria, spoke of burned churches, his flock slaughtered by Boko Haram. Yet he spoke of forgiveness and reconciliation, eschewing revenge.