A priest throws water during a mass inside the St. Mark’s Church in Cairo, Saturday, December 22, 2012.Shawn Baldwin/The Globe and Mail
As Pope Francis visits the Holy Land of Jordan, Palestine and Israel this weekend, he may pass a number of Christians at the airport bound for the exit.
The steady trickle of Arab Christians leaving the region has turned to a flood in recent years as those from the Holy Land have been joined by hundreds of thousands of others seeking refuge from conflict in Syria, Iraq and Egypt.
It's a big reason why Francis, spiritual leader of one billion Catholics, and Bartholomew, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and leader of the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians, are meeting in Jerusalem on Sunday, hoping to effect a reconciliation between their Churches.
Through unity and mutual support these Christian leaders hope to persuade Christians to stay in this region where Jesus first taught and his disciples spread his word.
"We are waiting for the message of the Pope," said Father Jamal Khader, spokesman for the papal visit, "a message to encourage the people to stay."
But there are few words, even from a pope, that can convince people to stay if the lives of their family members are at stake, as they are in Iraq and Syria where the threat comes from violent Islamic extremists.
Iraqi Christians may not have liked the dictator Saddam Hussein but they felt secure during his rule. Today, a decade after Saddam was overthrown, more than two thirds of the country's 1.4 million Christians have fled.
"They've gone and they're not coming back," said Andrew White, the pastor of the only remaining Anglican church in Iraq. "They won't even come back here to visit." Canon White's own daughter has moved to Canada with her fiancé, though her father, the man they call the Vicar of Baghdad, won't let go.
"We mustn't let it go," he said, referring to the Christian community that was founded in Iraq almost 2,000 years ago by St. Thomas the apostle.
In Egypt there are similar voices of determination. "We'll never leave here," said Eva Kerolous, the mayor of a small Christian town in southern Egypt. She echos Canon White's sentiments for a church founded also about 2,000 years ago by another apostle, St. Mark. Christians in Egypt are particularly proud that their country provided refuge to the infant Jesus and his parents when King Herod sought to kill him, according to Christian beliefs.
Despite threats from Islamic extremists and even several deadly attacks, the Christians of Egypt have been remarkably resilient. It's a quality they likely will need in the near future. Though they are relieved to see the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood from power and the likely election next week of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as president, any attempt to completely suppress the Islamists is almost certain to result in the kind of terrorist tactics practised in the deadly 1990s.
While the Christians of Egypt, Iraq and Syria have reason to fear for their lives, the Christians of Palestine face a different threat. It's not from radical Islam, though that is present to some degree, nor is it as life-threatening. Their discomfort comes from the poor living conditions that result from the Israeli occupation and the territory's poor economy.
The Israeli occupation of the West Bank has made life hell for many Palestinians, both Muslim and Christian. Israeli settlements have taken up much of the territory and Israeli roads, tunnels and the ugly security barrier that rings the district has cut across olive groves and farmers' fields.
Many Palestinians, who endured hardship and indignities, declared long ago they had had enough, but it is mostly Christians who have had the wherewithal to act. They are the ones who attended Western-oriented Christian schools; many hailed from more educated and affluent families, and even had relatives abroad. They got the visas to land in countries in North and South America.
In towns such as Bethlehem, Ramallah and Bir Zeit, where the populations once had Christian majorities, Muslims now dominate as thousands of Christians have emigrated.
To try to ensure that others stay, the Church is building apartments and offering them to Christians at reduced rents.
But that's not enough. In Beit Jala, the attractive Christian community adjacent to Bethlehem, people's farmland has been deemed expendable by Israeli courts that have accepted the argument made by officials that the security of Israelis – often those living in nearby settlements – is at risk unless a particular road or wall is built.
Interestingly, Israel's own Christian population has been stable for years though diminishing as a proportion of the total population.
Israel wants to make its Christians feel as comfortable as Israelis. They even have sought to distinguish Christians from Muslim Arabs, defining them in some laws as not being Arab at all; even encouraging them to enlist in the Israel Defence Forces alongside Jewish Israelis, so the country will feel more like their home.
Some Christian Arab Israelis have embraced this recent initiative, but most will tell you: treat them and other Arabs with respect and you'll stand a better chance of winning their loyalty.