architects, as we all know, were born-again Christians. One of the priests spoke loudly and with
considerable anger. “This loss of Christians is a very negative thing,” he said. “The countries which
encourage them to leave do not have their best interests at heart. They want to dissolve them in their
societies. The Orient is a mosaic of the different peoples, and the west does not like this. If the west really
wants to help us, they should help us to stay here and live in dignity. But as long as there is a crisis, our
people want to leave.” There was some discussion about the Gulf Arab support for Isis and Nusra, the new
version of al-Qaeda, and the Gulf Arabs’ desire to drive the Christians from the Middle East.
The west is not receiving us because theirs are Christian countries. They are secular countries ... In a couple
of generations, the Syriacs in the European countries will have disappeared
Among the priests was a certain Father Gabriel, tired and sick since he fled his Syriac church in Deir ez-
Zour in July 2012. “Nusra totally destroyed our church there and all our houses,” he said. “We thought we
would be able to return in about 15 days...”. Which is, I noted at the time, what the Palestinians –
Christians as well as Muslims – thought when they fled their homes in 1948. “The west is not receiving us
because theirs are Christian countries. They are secular countries.... In a couple of generations, the Syriacs
in the European countries will have disappeared.”
Father Saliba recalled how Isis had captured the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, burnt its churches and
libraries and established its “Islamic State”. “France said: ‘We will take the Christians in’, but we believe we
should live here.... Now Isis tries to destroy us so we will have no place in this country. We knew early on
that this was an existential challenge to our presence in the Middle East.”
But, I thought at the time, hasn’t the presence of Christians in the Arab world always be an “existential
challenge”? I recalled how in Lebanon, I had once been taken on a scholarly tour of the tiny Maronite
Christian parishes high above the Mediterranean, squat humps of churches in the hills north of Beirut, the
sun white on their stones, sometimes built over Roman temples, much as Muslims would later construct
their mosques within or around Christian churches. In many cases, the eyes of the saints and holy men of
Christianity on the ancient church frescoes had been gouged out; and local Maronite villagers told us that
this was the work of the Muslim invaders of the eighth century.
Christian worshippers attend Christmas mass at
the Mar Behnam and Mart Sarah Syriac Catholic
Church, which was damaged and defaced during
its occupation by Isis (AFP/Getty)Untrue, said the experts. Many monasteries converted to Islam and the monks themselves cut the eyes
from their own Biblical heroes in order to conform to the Muslim world’s refusal to countenance the
portrayal of a human face in a place of worship. French academic Christian Decobert believed that when the