Surviving Jewel: The Enduring Story of Christianity in the Middle East

By Mitri Raheb and Mark A. Lamport

The Christian church was born in the Middle East and grew there for centuries. Its interaction with Islam turned Christianity in this once predominantly Christian region into a marginalized jewel, surviving at great peril within a difficult, even sometimes hostile, political and religious climate. Of course, the story of Christianity over the last 1,300 years is not solely one of conflict, marginalization, and persecution but is also about accommodation, interchange, and cooperation. This introductory book details the history of the church in its Middle Eastern birthplace through the past two thousand years. It is a story described as "a lost history" by Philip Jenkins, but it is here uncovered and placed on display. For those with eyes to see, the church of the Middle East is here revealed as a precious jewel, still catching the light.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: May 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9781725263215

Book preview

Book Introduction

Souraya Bechealany

"The surviving jewel": what a daring title! Through metaphor, this book takes over the past and the present of the Christians in the Middle East, without overestimating their value, nor reducing it. Yet, what makes these Christians added value? To whom are they so precious? What mystery wraps and allows them to survive? From whom and from what must they preserve themselves? Are they genuinely under threat? So many questions that this book attempts to answer.

A Gospel Page: When a Merchant Finds What’s Being Sought

I invite you to open the Gospel at a page. Here we are in Matthew’s Gospel, where Jesus is teaching the crowd through parables. Let’s listen to him: Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls; when he finds one of great value he goes and sells everything he owns and buys it (Matt 13:45–46).

It is about the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven that is not compared, following what some might assume, to a pearl of great worth, but rather to the dynamic that moves a man, a merchant, to seek this pearl and end up finding it. It is an active search that implies a tenacious drive, the absolute certainty of the find, and perseverance to the end. This drive that moves the merchant through his faith allows him to reach the aim of his quest: the precious pearl. To his surprise, the value of the sought-after pearl goes beyond his expectations. It is indeed of great worth. This discovery makes him sell all that he possesses to buy this extraordinary pearl. He sells the whole to acquire the singular. This singular thing is indeed worth the whole and much more. It is to this unique, sought-after, found, and bought thing that the kingdom resembles.

He who sets off to look for the kingdom does not need other acquisitions. He is this merchant who is ready to lose everything to earn the priceless. To choose the kingdom above all is the required attitude of the one who finds the pearl, the hidden treasure. The joy of its discovery triggers an unexpected bliss, it is the kingdom’s joy that surpasses all expectations. The kingdom, that is Jesus amongst us and in us, is the fundamental reason for this human quest. When he is found, the man, the disciple, leaves everything, abandons everything, father, mother . . . to earn him, that is, to follow him (Matt 19:29).

On a different note, the parable also implies that the one who is searching and who is forgoing everything to buy a pearl Since [he] regard[s] it as precious (Isa 43:4) is the Lord himself. For the Son of Man has come to seek out and save what was lost (Luke 19:10), a priceless pearl, a humanity present and hidden at the heart of each forgotten people and each afflicted disciple.

The Parable and the Christians in the Middle East

To introduce this book by bridging the metaphor of its title—the jewel, an enduring story of Christianity in the Middle East—on one side, and this biblical parable on the other side might unsettle some readers. Yet, the comparison is justified. To approach the reality of the Christians in the Middle East through a metaphor and a parable allows the reader to discover these Christians afresh. Such a metaphoric approach dismisses any dull, static, and museal reading of their rich history and critical present. Admittedly, the pearl does not identify to a jewel; the former is precious through the works of nature and the waters, the latter the combined effort of matter and human craftsmanship. Nevertheless, didn’t it take humans to seek out the pearl and others to cut it? It is to say that the history of mankind is constructed with time by the craft of men who carve into it their joys and sorrows. Thus, the metaphor and the parable inscribe the Christians in a precious heritage. It projects them into a life dynamic where they are taken, at times as the merchant, at other times as the jewel pearl, and to, a certain more dialectic extent, as both at once.

As merchants, these Christians, like their Master Jesus, can renounce everything—comfort, security, and stability—to seek out and find the priceless pearl-humanity that lies in the depths of all the afflicted Middle Eastern populations. That pearl is Jesus Christ and his kingdom. Some might understand this quest as an act of recovery or even proselytism. Beware of these reductionist interpretations since the way of the gospel is completely different. To look for the pearl is to be at the service of men and women of all affiliations and all denominations. It is to reveal to them the noblest parts they hold inside themselves: their precious jewels. The journey of this book will show that judiciously.

Merchants, these Christians themselves are also the pearl of great worth. These men and women come from a long history of 2,000 years. A history that is written with their strengths and weaknesses; their loyalties and disloyalties; their glories and failures; their wounds and blessings. Like a pearl of great value that is buried, covered, hidden under the rubble of life’s struggles, they are here, and they are surviving.

By now you must have figured it out: it’s about an enduring history; a history of men and women who carry on, who endure the struggles of time; a history that was, that is, and that is yet to come; the pages of which are still being written.

Merchants and priceless pearl-jewel, these Christians in the Middle East are both at once. Rooted in this region torn by wars and conflicts and moved by an eschatological strain, they are waiting for the true merchant, the Christ. He shall seek them out, find them, and comfort them during those troubled times, struggles, and persecutions. The Christ will redeem them and would cut them into precious jewels. Only then, and in their turn, will they make amends for the harm their brothers and sisters in the Middle East have lived. The enduring story is a history of hope and life.

When the Personal Experience Witnesses

This book is a travel in time. It will allow you to discover the Christians in the Middle East throughout history. It will open for you the doors of their homes; will make you discover the context where they were born and have grown, their pages of glory, but also their disarray and distress. It will propel you back to their heritage; will make you realize their serious historical disputes; will show you their current unstable existence, their here and now, and the uncertainties of their future. It will show you the sanctity of their ways as much as the disloyalty to their bi-millennial mission.

Through this book, many amongst you will better know these Christians and measure more their real value. This discovery will probably be conclusive.

Yet some of us know them more closely because they have shared their roots and their fate with us. I am one of those. I endure what they are enduring, and I delight myself in what makes their joy, their honor, and their dignity. I especially had the blessing to visit them as a pilgrim and a bursar-guardian, while serving as secretary general of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC, 2018–20). I have visited them where they lived, crossed their paths, walked into their footprints, exchanged fellowship with them. I have born witness to their daily life, to their joys and sorrows, to their fear and confidence. I know them by their names and through what they have chosen to reveal of themselves. I receive their faces and I pay a tribute to them. They are here and they are alive.

Hereby, a reality imposes itself. The future of these Christians is intrinsically tied to that of their fellow citizens. An analysis of their future situation that isolates them from their context will inevitably be lacking. It would be inaccurate to treat them as victims unbeknownst to their fellow Middle Eastern citizens—their persecution is known. Such a denial would betray the reality of history. We owe it to ourselves to be faithful to the truth. This necessarily requires a global approach to their reality. Yet, their context in the Middle East is very complex. It demands multidisciplinary approaches that consider all the historical aspects of their lives as much as their present. This guiding line forces itself on each researcher and seeker of meaning. The book that you are holding in your hands will reveal to you the appropriate and essential keys to such examination.

Oh, Reader, You are the Merchant, and You are the Jewel!

Merchants or priceless jewels, the Christians in the Middle East survive. They live through the ages and defy the centuries. They are recognized and mysterious; buried at times, conspicuous at others, sold and bought back; lost and found; merchants-researchers and seekers of God. In all cases, they are of high worth, they are unique if I dare say so, without any equal in the world. More than a jewel amongst others, it is The jewel that survives, The enduring story of hope and life!

By revealing who they are, this book shows you that you too are pearls of great worth. By preserving them you will preserve yourselves. For they say a lot about your mystery. To allow others to bury them will put you at a high risk of being yourselves sold at a low price! To lose them is to lose the reason for your existence. For you would have sold or forgone the Christ hidden in them, your cradle, your Christian roots, your foundations. You are called to follow the drive of the merchant to seek what you already know: look for them, find them, and redeem them.

Redeem them, how? It does not come down to me to give you the relevant instructions. I invite you to dive into this book and to let yourself be taken by their mystery. Make your way through to meet them. Forge a communion with them. Only then, from the depth of a bruised survival, theirs, and perhaps also yours, life will spring out as from a source that never runs dry.

Section One

The Story of Christianity Narrated in Historical Context

1

The Expansion and Dispute of the Christian Movement (First to Sixth Centuries)

Claudia Rammelt

From its very beginnings, the faith community founded on the message of the cross and the resurrection saw itself as a global movement that was not confined to existing boundaries. Faith in Jesus Christ started to expand after Pentecost as an inter- and transcultural confession both within the cultures and languages of the Roman Empire and beyond (Acts 1:1–13).¹ From the very first, it took on varied forms (1 Cor 1:10–17). This heterogeneous constitution provoked further processes of differentiation, which also implied struggles for power and hegemony, orthodoxy and heresy. A main reason Christianity’s heterogeneous shape contributed to a further increase in diversity is that the question of how to understand Jesus Christ arose in different contexts. Consequently, the plurality of the Christian faith became anchored in the structure of Christianity. From a certain point onwards, Oriental² Christianity existed in different confessions.

This chapter outlines of the processes with which the Christian faith moved through the ancient world, before exploring the developments that resulted in the rich heritage of those churches that are at the center of this volume, the churches that confessional studies discuss under the names of the Oriental-Orthodox churches and those of the Byzantine imperial church.

To the Ends of the Earth (Acts 1:8): Christianity Reaches the Cultures of the Orient

The Roman Empire held sway over vast parts of the Orient. Adjacent in the East was the empire known as that of the Parthians (from the third century BCE into the third century CE), later as that of the Sasanians (224/226–642). This realm likewise occupied large areas of what is often called the Orient. The pantheon of the Roman deities and likewise the religious diversity in the Parthian and Sasanian Empires, represented by fire altars or popular rites, do not suggest a religious vacuum that would have been filled by Christianity—to the contrary. Life in the Orient took place within a multitude of religious possibilities. Within the boundaries of the Roman Empire, an exceptional position was occupied by those Jewish traditions from which Christianity emerged—the community whose faith was rooted in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ and that expanded from its initial basis in Jerusalem. I wish to give an outline of this expansion as a process that reaches various places in the Orient and in which Christianity establishes itself within its respective