Persecution of Christians
From Dr Michael Pravica
Sir: Regarding Anthony Browne’s ‘Church of martyrs’ (26 March): one of the foremost examples of Christian persecution which was not mentioned in his otherwise excellent article relates to the current situation in the Nato-occupied Serbian province of Kosovo. There more than 130 churches and monasteries — some over 1,000 years old — have been systematically destroyed; thousands of Christian Serbians (among others) have been killed or gone missing; and more than 250,000 Serbians have been ethnically cleansed from the province, all at the hands of Albanian Muslim extremists bent on eradicating any trace of the 1,300year presence of Orthodox Christian Serbians in this territory. Yet Nato, which is comprised of mostly Christian-majority nations, has turned a blind eye toward this massive persecution of Christians.
Michael Pravica Henderson, Nevada
From Fr Leo Chamberlain
Sir: A Christian must welcome Anthony Browne’s article. Most of us on this snug island haven’t noticed that the bloody century just completed has been, among its other ghastly distinctions, an age of persecution of Christians.
It is a pity, however, that Anthony Browne chooses to show his atheist objectivity by suggesting that the Christian acceptance of martyrdom may be a kind of masochism. The willingness to sacrifice life itself is something different, and not to be reduced to the sadder categories of modern psychology: it is, as he half indicates, a participation in the folly of the Cross, something that differentiates Christianity from any other faith.
Fr Leo Chamberlain St Benet’s Hall, Oxford
From Jack Cohen
Sir: I subscribe to the contention of Anthony Browne that Christians are persecuted in much of the Muslim world. But when he claims that the Christians are ‘threatened with violence and legally discriminated against because of their faith ... more than any other religion,’ he is unfortunately wrong. Persecution of Jews in the Muslim world has continued unabated for centuries. While Browne bemoans the persecution of Christian minorities in Iraq, he ignores the fact that there are now no Jews in Iraq, even though Jews inhabited Iraq for at least 3,000 years and there were about 350,000 of them as recently as 1948. Unfortunately the Christians are being persecuted now since they have no strong protectors, but that has been the situation of the Jews since the beginning, and at least there is some protection afforded Christians from the Western countries, while the remaining Jews in the Middle East, living mostly in Israel, have to contend with growing violence and discrimination.
Jack Cohen Netanya, Israel
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