Eastern Christians: between memory and hope

Audio 48:30

By: Geneviève Delrue

Publicity

World Religions - Sunday March 22, 2020 - 10.10-11.00 am Paris time

In his book " Minorities of the Orient / The Forgotten of History " ( Editions of the Rock), the Arab journalist Tigrane Yégavian offers a new reading of the minority fact in the East by looking back on a century of history where Christians of Orient, in particular the survivors of the Armenian and Assyro-Chaldean genocide, will be sacrificed at the end of the Great War on the altar of realpolitik. This large historical fresco intends to deconstruct several myths: that of France, the eldest daughter of the Protecting Church of Eastern Christians; like that of the Kurds, protectors of minorities. Likewise, the author does not underestimate the part of responsibility which falls on these minorities in their unhappy destiny.

An ex-hostage of Daesh apostle of the meeting with the Moslems
Father Jacques Mourad , a Syriac Catholic priest from the Mar Elian monastery (destroyed in August 2015) was kidnapped in May 2015 by jihadists from the Islamic State. For five months, he experienced physical suffering, torture, depression, but also the power of prayer. His testimony " A hostage monk : the fight for peace of a prisoner of jihadists " (Éditions de Emmanuel ) received in the spring of 2019 the Grand Prize of the Literary Prize for the Work of the Orient which greeted a testimony burning with humanity, but also a new light on the future of relations between Christians and Muslims. Father Jacques Mourad lives in Iraqi Kurdistan. We met him during his visit to Paris.

(Replay of November 10, 2019)

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