Christians in the Middle East

Lord Bishop of Chichester Excerpts

Friday 9th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Chichester]

My Lords, I want to say a few words about the situation of one of the most ancient middle-eastern churches, whose ancestral homeland now straddles the border between Syria and Turkey. Before I do so, I say a particular thank you to the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, for mentioning the Wilton Park conference, in which I was a participant—as, indeed, was Bishop Angaelos, who is present in the Gallery, as has already been noted. I look forward to what the Minister has to say to us about that conference.

In saying what I want to, I declare some personal but non-pecuniary interests. I was previously the Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe, and the Church of England diocese with responsibility for Anglican congregations in Morocco and, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Patten, Turkey as well—about which I could tell the noble Lord quite a bit if he likes. My present diocese is twinned with some monasteries and communities of the Syriac Orthodox Church. One of my former students is a deacon and tutor in the monastic centre of Mor Gabriel and Tur Abdin, the Mountain of the Servants of God, in south-east Turkey. Another is now an archbishop of that church. A long-standing friend and colleague on the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches is a diocesan bishop in Syria itself. I have been honoured to host a number of Syriac bishops and laity in your Lordships’ House and on regular exchange visits.

It was in Syria that Saint Paul was converted. Antakya in modern Turkey was the ancient Antioch on the Orontes, the second centre of Christianity after Jerusalem and the hub from which the gospels spread. In Syria today remain those last communities where Syriac or Aramaic, the language of Jesus himself, is in not only liturgical but vernacular use.

On 3 May this year I was due to have departed these shores to lead a pilgrimage from the diocese of Chichester to our friends in Syria. A fortnight before our departure, after a few weeks of increasing uncertainty, Her Majesty’s Government said that no travel to Syria should take place. In the light of this advice, we had no option but to cancel the trip, much, I have to say, to the chagrin of our Syrian friends, who had already made considerable plans to receive us. I am not for one second questioning the wisdom of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but I ask your Lordships to understand the sense of abandonment felt by many of the ancient pre-Arab peoples of the land, and how easily we can compound the difficulties that they have experienced for centuries.

Constantinople was not the kindest of overlords. In the Ottoman Empire, Christians were second-class citizens. Under the Ba’athist regime and its Alawite rulers, they have had a degree of protection along with other minorities. This can make Christians in Syria quite confused about what best to hope for at the moment and very fearful of what might lie ahead. One senior bishop wrote to me only a few days ago. I say to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss: yes, they know about this debate and are hugely encouraged by the fact that it is taking place. He wrote about their desire,

“to strengthen our role in the multiple society. What we need is the concept of pluralism to be accepted by everybody and all citizens should work together for justice and peace”.

In that letter, he also drew particular attention to the intervention of the most reverend Primate in raising this debate and expressed his gratitude.

Across the border in south-east Turkey, some monasteries that have flourished since the third and fourth centuries are locked in legal battles with more recent arrivals over title to land. Some years ago, when the prospect for Turkey’s accession to the European Union looked rather more promising as a mid-term goal than it does today, the situation for the Syriac communities and other minorities improved for a while and increasing numbers of émigré families began to return. However, that is not really continuing now.

The point that I am trying to make is that although not normally thought of as a middle-eastern country, Turkey is pivotal. The policies of the Government and other western powers can have a direct impact on the situation of Christians, whose presence in Anatolia, I hardly need to remind your Lordships, predates the arrival of the Seljuk Muslims by the best part of a millennium, although the situation in Upper Mesopotamia, close to the Syrian border, was rather more complicated. The future of Turkey will also have profound consequences for neighbouring states and their religious numerical minorities. Many current middle-eastern problems reflect not only tensions within the Muslim and Arab worlds, such as that between the Ummah and nationalism, but meddling, whether well meaning or otherwise, by Europe and, recently, America. We must not compound these problems by thinking that we can solve other people’s problems, especially when we share some responsibility for them.

What we can do, however, is stand by in the sense of being alongside, not standing by apart from—that is an interesting, ambiguous expression—our brothers and sisters throughout the region, of whatever religion or none. This is the nub of it for us—we must demonstrate, in fact as well as in deeds, in our internal home policies as well as in what we grandstand around the world, that we really do believe in the indivisibility of human dignity. It is not perhaps something that our country is necessarily making a spectacularly good fist of in its own internal affairs at the moment. In return, the new Middle East, if it is enabled to emerge healthier and more confident from its present travails, may well have something to teach us about the significance of faith as a positive driver of policy—I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, who is not in his place, for what he said about this earlier—and about how faiths can live together in harmony not by privatising or marginalising religion but by embedding mutual respect in social and civil institutions.