She was supposed to receive the “Peace Prize” at the weekend, but now the date has been postponed.
“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” is a Christian guiding principle according to Matthew chapter 25, verse 35. The commandment to love one’s neighbour applied to one’s brethren in the faith, not to all the people of that time. Today, it is usually applied to all conceivable nearest and nearest ones on the continents, no longer only to the people in the neighbourhood.
Monastic charity for all? But not for certain Christians? I could not believe my eyes when I had to read such sentences from a convent headmistress, which she gave to the newspaper Badische Zeitung in an interview. For example, a Christian who was persecuted and came to Germany via France was not granted monastery asylum by the kind woman. She had him sent away at the risk that France would not grant asylum because he had also entered France via a safe third country.
But there are open arms for Muslims who entered via Hungary and did not apply for asylum there. Also not receiving asylum or any other residence status here and therefore had to go back: “In 2016, a young man from Iraq and a young German woman who was supporting the man stood in front of the monastery door. He was desperate because he was to be deported to Hungary, where he had entered the EU for the first time …”, the abbess justified the way she opened her monastery to save the man from being “deported” to Hungary. Which is not true. No one is deported from Germany, but returned in more comfort than it was to arrive. He felt badly treated in Hungary, but there is still Austria between Hungary and Germany. Presumably he wanted to come here because of his bride or for some other reason. However, the immigration and asylum law is not yet a matter of wishful thinking.
This migrant’s family was surrounded by IS in Mosul, the Muslim man argues. His brother was killed there. What happened to the family was not mentioned in the interview. Mosul was indeed a contested city in 2015/16. The main targets of the “Islamic State”, however, were Christians rather than Muslims…
“Mosul looks back on 1600 years of Christian tradition. Until recently, the city was the seat of several archbishops of Eastern churches of Syriac tradition…. The cathedral of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and at the same time the oldest church in the city is the Cathedral of St. Thomas from 640 … of the Syrian Catholic Church. However, the cathedral of the latter was the 17th century Syriac Catholic al-Tahira Cathedral, which was almost completely destroyed in 2017 but is to be rebuilt. The Chaldean Catholic Church, in turn, had its episcopal see in the medieval Mart Meskinta Church until it was moved to the 18th century Chaldean al-Tahira Cathedral in the 1980s….
After the conquest of Mosul by ISIS and Islamic State fighters, the Christian inhabitants were given the choice of leaving the city, converting to Islam or being executed. The vast majority of Christians then left Mosul at the end of July, bringing the city’s Christian tradition to an end for the time being. According to Archbishop Louis Raphaël I. Sako, 25,000 Christians were still living in Mosul when ISIS took power; according to the BBC, there were even 35,000…
On February 2, 2015, Islamic State terrorists in Mosul blew up one of Iraq’s largest and oldest Chaldean Catholic churches, the Church of the Virgin Mary. In April 2016, the historic 19th century Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Hour was destroyed. (source Wikipeda)
Open Doors presented a memorable story from Mosul in 2017 with a report. A young man had joined the IS. Christians were expelled or cruelly murdered. He also participated in their expulsion. A few days after the forced exodus of Christians, while walking through the city, he saw men of his age hanging from four crosses, guarded by two IS fighters. Ten metres from the crosses, he looked up at the bloody men and heard one of them ask God to forgive the IS fighters. The others chanted in a weary voice, “Zeedo el-Maseeh tasbeeh – Praise Jesus Christ more and more.”
Traumatised, he left IS and was able to flee. His path led to Istanbul, where he heard the song of the four crucified people again from a group of people – and then joined the Christians. Converted, he returned to Mosul, as did many others. Back to a former stronghold of Christianity. For in Turkey, Christians are almost only to be found in the Istanbul area and behind monastery walls.
So it cannot be this man who knocked on the monastery door accompanied by his bride. Nor is it reported that this man converted to Christianity in the monastery that gives him so much charity. Is there any attempt at all in church or monastery asylums to convince Muslims that their faith is an aberration that is causing so much harm everywhere in Islamic states? I know of one organisation besides Open Doors that is successful in defusing human time bombs – the conversion of Muslims and even former Islamists.
But no, our churches and monasteries prefer to coddle Muslims and show fellow believers the door. Like this abbess, who is to stand trial this month. She has to answer for 30 counts of aiding and abetting illegal residence in Germany. She is doing this with other abbesses and nuns. Women simply have a bigger heart for migrants. Outside the convent walls, too, it is women, mostly single, who are the most active in the voluntary help circles and also tend to offer personal support to migrants. But they are not awarded the Göttingen Peace Prize as the abbess had hoped for the weekend, but they have postponed it. Other volunteers have lost their lives for or in spite of their willingness to help, as happened in Freiburg.
Why do persecuted Christians hardly ever manage to flee to us? To some extent, word has got around among them that sharing accommodation with Muslims is extremely dangerous and conflict-laden. They also know that only a few Christians are willing to accept other Christians. Or they are among the migrants after all and, frightened, do not reveal their faith.
Thus, hardly any victims of war and terror are given any help in Germany, but migrants from the milieu of perpetrators are all the more likely to be helped. Just like the many criminals who have made their way to Germany in the wake of the wave of migration. Some of them are known by name, most of them not yet.
Autor: Albrecht Künstle – https://haolam.de/artikel/Deutschland/44075/btissin-gibt-30-Migranten-Klosterasyl–einem-Christen-nicht.html