Christians should be 'honest' with Muslim dialogue partners and explain that they have been persecuted in the Middle East for more than a thousand years, an Iraqi archbishop has said.
Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda of Irbil, Iraq, said that Muslims will have to acknowledge that the persecution of Christians in the region did not start with the Islamic State's rise to power in 2014.
'We experienced this not for the last four years, but 1,400 years,' Archbishop Warda said during a speech at Georgetown University in Washington, sponsored by the Religious Freedom Research Project of the university's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs.
The archbishop also blamed Christians for failing to 'push back' against the 'terrorism'. He said: 'We did not push back against the recurring periods of terrorism that inflicted cruel pain upon our ancestors.' According to the Catholic Herald he added that Christianity also needs to return to a 'pre-Constantine vision' of the church, recalling Jesus's words during his trial: 'My kingdom is not of this world.'
Christians should speak out, the archbishop said, because 'there is nothing left but to speak plainly'. He added: 'When there is nothing left to lose, it is very liberating.'
Archbishop Warda went on: 'We object that one faith has now the right to kill another. There needs to be a change and a correction within Islam.'
He continued: 'In the Middle East, we have moved from fear to terror to horror,' he said. 'Where next? ... Hundreds of thousands of innocent people have died.'
Warda noted that, 'We have been hearing courageous words from some Islamic leaders. It should be encouraged,' but warned that 'we should not be passive, or simply pray for the best'.
Archbishop Warda started the Catholic University of Irbil in 2015, with around $3 million donated by Italian Catholics. The institution has 82 students, including four Muslims, in undergraduate degree programmes in the arts and sciences, according to the Catholic Herald.
Warda said that for the estimated 200,000 Christians remaining in Iraq – down from around 1.5 million in 2003, before the US-led invasion of Iraq – 'ours is a missionary role, to give a witness to the truth of Christ'.
