The Congregation of St Georges Church, Baghdad

It was good to remember our Saviour on the day we call his birthday. But sadly this year it was not a good day for vulnerable Christians in difficult places around the world.

“We see injustice in the ever more seriously threatened Christian communities of the Middle East,” Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury (the leader of Anglicans worldwide) preached in his Christmas sermon.”They are attacked and massacred, driven into exile from a region in which their presence has always been essential.

“We see terrible news in South Sudan, where political ambitions have led towards ethnic conflict. On Saturday I was speaking to a Bishop under siege, in a compound full of the dying. God’s passionate love for the vulnerable is found in the baby in a manger in a country at war. If that was His home, today it must be our care”.

On Christmas day, Welby’s prediction of threat came true. His friend Andrew White, who is a minister in Baghdad in Iraq, reported a Christmas day Massacre:

“It was to have been a day of great rejoicing amongst the Christians of Baghdad. Amidst such terrible recent atrocities Christmas was to be a real day of hope. As Christians left church Christmas morning there was a huge bomb, scores of Christians were killed and injured. This bomb was soon followed by another with many more deaths and casualties. This was Christmas day in Baghdad.

“The sad reality is that though unreported the last few weeks there has been a major increase an the number of attacks against Christians. I came home to spend Christmas day in Liphook with my family. I have spent all day trying to track down our in people Dora the place in Baghdad where today’s massacre happened. The sad fact is that even when not in Baghdad the work never stops,” writes White.

“Some of the increase in violence may be in part due to the upcoming elections but we are facing a major increase in religious sectarian violence. On the whole this has been between Sunni and Shea but atrocities against Christians are also sadly on the rise. As a result we have had to call an urgent forthcoming reconciliation meeting. We not only want this meeting to be about the violence in Iraq but threat of violence in the whole Middle East region. We are therefore planning a major meeting sponsored by Universal Monotheism. This meeting will be held in Cyprus in the next few weeks and will not only include Iraqi Jews, Christians and Shea and Sunni Muslims it will bring them together with Israeli and Palestinian Jews, Christians and Muslims. This will be a unique meeting, which has never taken place before. There is a huge amount to do but we will not give up!”

Its likely that the Sudanese Bishop Welby spoke to above was the Anglican bishop in Bor. Jesse Zinc, an Episcopalian priest who visited South Sudan in 2013, reports a Boxing Day conversation:

“I spoke on the phone this morning with the Rt. Rev. Ruben Akurdit Ngong, bishop of the Diocese of Bor in the Episcopal Church of Sudan and South Sudan. (Bishop Ruben was my host in Bor for most of the month of April.) The connection was poor and we only managed to talk for about ten minutes but I managed to gather some information.

“Since December 19, Bishop Ruben has been seeking shelter in the UN compound in Bor, along with a reported 17,000 others. He reported that there is sufficient water in the compound but insufficient food.”

The Christians in the Middle East and South Sudan need our prayers and whatever support we can give them.