A 15-year-old Egyptian girl, Dina el-Gohary, has written an emotional appeal to President Obama asking him to use his influence to save her father, Maher el-Gohary, who is being persecuted for his beliefs. "Mr. President Obama, we are a minority in Egypt," Dina writes, according to a report from the Assyrian International News Agency. "We are treated very badly. ... We are imprisoned in our own home because Muslim clerics called for the murder of my father, and now the Government has set for us a new prison, we are imprisoned in our own country."
Dina and her father are Christian converts in a part of the world where conversion can mean death.
The Muslim-majority countries of the Middle East are among the world's greatest offenders against freedom of conscience. Religious liberty does not exist or is severely curtailed based on Shariah supremacy. Egypt is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which commits signatories to respect a variety of liberties, including religious freedom, but a court considering whether Mr. el-Gohary could legally change his religious affiliation ruled that Egypt was only bound to honor those provisions that did not contradict Islamic law, and "in the event of a contradiction, Shariah takes precedence."
From HERE.
7 comments:
Just wanted to point out that this article kind of contradicts your statements a couple of weeks ago about the Orthodox not evangelizing ;) The article says he joined the Coptic Church, which is Orthodox.
Hi David,
When I say Orthodox I mean Chalcedonian Orthodox, who do not evangelize anywhere in the Middle East. I have written several times on the missionary work and evangelistic work of the Coptic Orthodox Church, which I respect immensely.
If you look at the Chalcedonian Church in Egypt, under the Patriarch of Alexandria, you will not find this sort of ministry.
AD
I'd beg to differ -- not in Egypt, perhaps. But in Africa as a whole the Chalcedonian Patriarchate has done a lot of missionary work. (Honestly, I'm not trying to start an argument, by the way! -- just a discussion). In fact, my own Priest's daughter is a missionary in Tanzania right now -- under the Patriarchate of Alexandria.
David, I know about the history of Orthodoxy in Africa, but the original question was about evangelizing Muslims.
Right. Tanzania is one third each Muslim, Christian (including semi-Christian groups like Mormons and JWs), and animist. I don't know if there's any official statistics on it, but from what I've heard from people who have been there almost all of the people converting to Orthodoxy in Tanzania are Muslim or animist (or some combination of the two, more often).
My overall point was that I think we do more evangelization (both of Muslims and others) than you give us credit for. I'm sure you've heard, for instance, about the Holy New-Martyr Daniil Sysoyev, an Orthodox priest recently martyred in Moscow for his work amongst Muslims and Neo-Pagans there.
Hi David,
Yes, Fr Daniel is a big deal. It is so good to hear about priests like him evangelizing Muslims. There clearly are signs of life here and there (Russia, parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, Indonesia) when it comes to Orthodox mission to Muslims. But on the whole my point remains: the Eastern Orthodox are doing nothing at all in the Arab world, and that is much of their home base historically.
That our missions are very limited in the Arab world, I can, sadly, agree with. I think that many of the Christians (Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Assyrian) who have lived under Muslim rule for so long have deeply internalized dhimmitude. And, as for us who live outside the Arab world and haven't acquired a dhimmi mindset -- we have no excuse.
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