Within a single week, two historic milestones took place in Amman: the European Baptist Federation celebrated its 75th anniversary and the Baptist World Alliance appointed its first Ambassador to the Middle East.
The Church at the Crossroads conference, organizers said, is aimed at moving US Christians from feeling bad about the war in Gaza to taking action to end it.
The audience marked the first by history’s first American pope with the Israeli head of state. Leo spoke by telephone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in July after an Israeli shell slammed into the only Catholic church in Gaza.
‘As an Armenian living in the Old City, it is deeply troubling to witness the gradual erosion of our Christian presence here,’ said Levon Kalaydjian, an Armenian Christian activist in Jerusalem.
Targeting a holy site ‘is a blatant affront to human dignity and a grave violation of the sanctity of life and the inviolability of religious sites, which are meant to serve as safe havens during times of war,’ the Church said in a statement.
On a rare solidarity visit, Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III and Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa asserted that Israeli authorities ‘facilitate and enable’ the presence of settlers who have intensified attacks.
Unless the international community acts decisively and swiftly, Al-Taybeh risks being overrun by Israeli settlers, its lands confiscated, and its people forcibly displaced.
The attack has raised fears of a mass exodus of Christians similar to what happened in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and the rise of sectarian violence.