By Margie Fenelon, the National Catholic Register.
ISIS destroyed another ancient Christian holy site last week. The latest casualty in their 26-year-long campaign to wipe Christianity from the face of the earth was the Mar Elian monastery in the town of Qaryatain near Homs, Syria.
They first kidnapped 230 people—including dozens of Christian families—after taking Qaryatain, releasing about 48 of them and transferring 110 to Raqqa province, the headquarters of the Islamist group. Then they bulldozed the monastery.
How many times has something like this happened? One hundred? More?
It’s getting to be old news, and yet, it should alarm us as much as if we were hearing it for the first time.
It also should motivate us to uncompromisingly own our faith.
When I read the accounts of the bombing and bulldozing of churches and monasteries in the Middle East – mainly in Iraq and Syria, but there have been others – and of the thousands of Christians kidnapped and slaughtered, I’m reminded of the Early Church.
Between the first persecution under Nero in 64 to the Edict of Milan in 313, Christians experienced 129 years of persecution. It’s unknown exactly how many Christians were killed during that time, but we can imagine the impact based on historical documents, inscriptions, and the catacombs.
It wasn’t easy being a Christian in the first three centuries.
Yet, they carried on. How?