BBC Radio 4 2016-01-22

BBC Radio 4 2016-01-22

Good morning. This week satellite images were released which showed that Iraq’s oldest Christian monastery has been destroyed by IS militants. St Elijah’s Monastery has stood on a hill near Mosul for fourteen hundred years. Its prominence may have sealed its fate, but already more than a hundred Christian churches and monastic buildings have been destroyed in and around Mosul. The villages of the area were home to substantial numbers of Christians until very recently. Faith isn’t dependent on churches, of course, but it’s no surprise that a priest from Mosul, now living safely elsewhere, said of this campaign of destruction “we see this as an attempt to expel us from Iraq, eliminating and finishing our existence in the land.”

Towards the end of last year I visited Albania for the first time. In living memory Albania saw what was probably the most systematic obliteration of religion - all religion - ever attempted in Europe. In 1967 this majority Muslim country - the only one in Europe - was proclaimed an atheist state. Hundreds of mosques were demolished. Some were turned into community halls. 95% of all church buildings were knocked down. The total removal of all religion and any memory of it was the sole aim and purpose. It didn’t work. Faith went underground. While faith isn’t dependent on shrines, once Albania tasted religious freedom again in 1990 mosques and churches were rebuilt. The relationships there between Muslims and Christians and between Orthodox and Catholics now appear much more open and tolerant than in many other places. Perhaps it was the very experience of persecution and adversity which has nurtured such generosity of spirit.

An illustration of such generosity was found in one part of the life history of George Weidenfield, the publisher, who died two days ago at the age of 96. He came to this country from Austria in 1938 as a young Jewish refugee. He was given a home and a chance in life by an evangelical Christian family in London. He never forgot what he owed them nor their respect for his Jewish identity. He became a key player in helping to finance and support Syrian Christians as they flee for their lives now. He put himself in their position. He understood their experience. Our world has seen many attempts not just to destroy religious buildings, but also the people who inhabit them. Neither faith nor the human spirit can be destroyed so easily. And acts of compassion, as the experience of George Weidenfield suggests, replicate themselves years later.