Christianity, A History in the Middle East

Middle East Council of Churches

Beirut 2005

ISBN 9953-0-0343-2

933 pages

illustrated, with maps and index

US$ 80.-

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The Middle East Council of Churches is to be congratulated for publishing a beautiful volume about the Christian history of the Middle East. The 42 distinguished contributors have come from the many Christian traditions that the region is rich with, resulting in a very valuable and diverse description of the history of Middle Eastern Christianity.

Importance of Middle Eastern Christianity

Growth of church in the Middle East

Middle Eastern church history

Why it is important to read this book

Catholicism did not remain in the Middle East...

The MECC today

The idea for this book conceived in 1994

The English translation published in 2005

Introduction by Rev. Habib Badr.

A fantastic source of knowledge ... untapped.

Middle Eastern Christianity is important. Churches here were founded by Jesus' disciples. Early Christians endured persecution and demonstrated what their faith meant to them. Persecution officially ended with the edict of Milan in 311 AD. Only 14 years later the first Ecumenical Church Council was convened in Nicea (325 AD). This was the council of unification which had not previously been possible in the history of the church because of the persecution that had made such a gathering of bishops from all over the then Christian world impossible. At the first church council important decisions were made about the church canon and a creed was accepted that is still accepted today by practically all of the churches in the world.

The church in the Middle East grew, flourished in the fourth and fifth centuries and declined due to Christological struggles leading up to and following the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) which I would describe as the council of division, severing the ties between Western Christianity (Rome and Constantinople) and Oriental Christianity (Coptic, Syrian and Armenian Orthodox Churches).

Middle Eastern church history up till the year 451 AD is in fact the history of world Christianity. Sadly, however, non-Middle Eastern Christians are hardly aware of their own Christian roots in the Middle East. HRH Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan told me of his astonishment when he discovered on his many travels to the West how little Western Christians actually know about their own Christian roots in the Middle East.

It is therefore important to read this book. Read about the development of early Christianity and the shaping of Christian in its first centuries. Following the tragic schism at Chalcedon the book of course continues with the history of the different church families in the Middle East, the Syriac, the Maronites, Byzantine, Coptic, Nubian, Ethiopian and Armenian Church traditions. The book describes Christianity before Islam, the arrival of Islam and what this has meant for the churches during the ages. There are a lot of lessons to be learnt from the Middle Eastern Churches about living under Islamic domination. Lessons which were not always purely negative nor were they always completely positive. The Middle East Council of Churches has done well to describe the Crusader period from both a Western and Eastern perspective, the last perspective which is unfortunately little known in the West.

Catholicism did not remain in the Middle East after the expulsion of the Crusaders but a Catholic comeback took place from the 16th century onwards. Protestantism only entered the Middle East in the 19th century. The efforts of Western missionaries resulted in the establishment of Catholic churches of different rites as well as in many different Protestant churches that today play a major role in the Middle Eastern church family. There are not many Catholics or Protestants but their influence in the Middle East goes far beyond their scant numbers because of the many schools, hospitals and other institutions that were founded by Catholics and Protestants in particular.

The book also provides some excellent chapters on contemporary Middle Eastern Christianity and of course the development of Ecumenism which started with the foundation of the Near East Council of Churches in the 1960s which was later transformed into the Middle East Council of Churches in 1974.

The MECC is today made up of four ecclesiastical families:

• The Orthodox family (Greek/Byzantine)
• The Oriental Orthodox family (Coptic, Syrian, Armenian)
• The Evangelical family (Reformed, Episcopal, Lutheran)
• The Catholic family (Latin and uniate churches)

The idea for this book was conceived in 1994. The first Arabic edition came out in 2001. It was well received in the Middle East and a second edition followed in 2002. This success encouraged the Middle East Council of Churches to embark on a large translation project to translate the book into English and through this make Middle Eastern Christianity better known to a non-Arabic speaking public. That is quite a luxury. There are many books about Middle Eastern Christianity written in Arabic that, unfortunately, have never been translated. Books in the West are generally written by Western authors and it is therefore excellent that an effort was made to translate a book that primarily has contributions from Arabic speaking authors for a non-Arabic speaking public.

The English translation was published in 2005. But whereas MECC has been very successful at selling the book in Arabic (the second Arabic edition sold out quickly) MECC has sadly not been very successful at promoting the book among a non-Arabic speaking public. The Arabic editions were sold thanks to the excellent network of the member churches of MECC but MECC has no such network outside the Middle East and thus there are still 2500 volumes that have remained in storage at the MECC offices in Beirut. That is sad because this volume could do so much to help increase the knowledge of early Christian history that is common for all churches in the world. The book also helps to understand the position of Christians living under Islam and the need for dialogue with Islam.

Rev. Habib Badr writes in his introduction to the English edition that the events of September 11, 2001, have made the Middle East the center of the world's attention. “The whole region came to be erroneously and indiscriminately perceived as the source of world terrorism. Its complex make-up and intricate religious multiplicity became muddled in the eyes of the average reader of world events. The two thousand-year history and presence of Christians in the Middle East was overlooked. Islam in general became “demonized”, and the rich history of Muslim-Christian life together for centuries past was overshadowed by the horrible nature of the events of the recent present.” and “thus the story of Middle Eastern Christianity became even more important to tell.” A story that as Prince Hassan bin-Talal earlier remarked, is hardly known to a western public.

A fantastic source of knowledge remains untapped. Worse still, MECC is suffering from a financial crisis [AWR, 2008, week 49, art. 41 http://www.arabwestreport.info/AWR/article_details.php?article_id=21569&article_title=The%20Middle%20East%20Council%20of%20Churches%20approaches%20bankruptcy%20…%20Al-Bayyādī%20and%20Pope%20Shenouda%20meet%20together%20to%20discuss%20the%20crisis&ayear=2008&aweek=49&article_t_date=06-12-2008&article_p_date=2008-12-01&article_p_week=2008-12-07&t=s&char=0] and selling this book would help MECC to overcome many of the effects of this crisis. I would thus hope that churches, Christian institutions, libraries, scholars and students will buy and promote this book, both to further knowledge about Middle Eastern Christianity as well as to help the Middle East Council of Churches.

We have therefore dedicated a section on the Arab-West Foundation website to this book. This section includes:

A photo of the cover ,

Title page

Pages with project director, book committees, translators and editors,

Table of contents

Notes on Contributors

Foreword by MECC Secretary-General Guirguis Ibrahim Saleh

Preface by Afaf Deeb-Kandis, director of the MECC Studies and Research Program and director of this book project

Introduction to the Arabic Edition by the editorial committee

Introduction to the English Edition by Rev. Dr. Habib Badr, Near East School of Theology, Beirut and chief editor of the English editorial committee.