Paul KeenanA priest who escaped Islamic State offers true Christian witness, writes Paul Keenan
“I was a prisoner, I was waiting for the day I would die, but with a great inner peace. I had no problem dying for the name of Our Lord; I wouldn’t be the first or the last, just one of the thousands of the martyrs for Christ.”
The words spoken are those of Syriac Catholic priest, Fr Jacques Mourad, uttered during his first television interview with Italian television after he had regained his freedom following five hellish months of captivity with ISIS militants in Syria.
To have survived as a Christian priest among the ranks of the most virulently intolerant grouping of modern times is extraordinary in itself; to have emerged relatively unscathed to return to his congregation the more so. As he related: “Almost every day there was someone who came to my prison and asked me ‘what are you?’ I would answer: ‘I’m a Nazarene, in other words, a Christian.’ ‘So you’re an infidel,’ they shouted. ‘Since you’re a Christian, if you don’t convert we’ll slit your throat with a knife’.”
Inspiring as it stands, Fr Mourad’s story was made all the more remarkable with updated reports last weekend that he had not, in fact, been released from captivity, but had staged his own daring escape.
Full story
Initial reports had come from religious spokespersons who confirmed the priest was free but who at that time had yet to gain the full story from his own lips.
Disguised as an Islamist, “I escaped on a motorbike with the help of a Muslim friend,” Fr Mourad now says, without offering further details so as to better protect both his helper while hoping to avoid further harm to those he was held captive with.
Observers of the ISIS phenomenon in Syria and neighbouring Iraq are presented with a striking example of the group’s capacity for anarchic harm in the case of Fr Mourad.
A priest who had served his community in the town of Al Quaryatan for 15 years, Fr Mourad was the very definition of a ‘frontline pastor’ as Syria degenerated into chaos and ISIS advanced on the nearby historical site of Palmyra – just 60kms east of his parish.
As the conflict surged, the priest not only tended to his terrified flock, but, via the Mar Elian monastery in Al Quaryatan, began to offer shelter and assistance – in cooperation with Muslim donors – to people of any faith fleeing west ahead of IS. If this were not enough to tax his abilities, Fr Mourad regularly offered himself as a moderator between the Syrian army and rebel groups. (The congregation at Mar Moussa monastery clearly chose well in naming him as leader, in succession to Fr Paolo Dall’Oglio, the Italian Jesuit kidnapped by ISIS in July, 2013.)
Just like his predecessor, however, Fr Mourad’s credentials cut no ice with the ISIS militants who came for him on May 21 and whisked him behind their frontline (as he worked to prepare for a refugee influx from Palmyra).
And here, Fr Mourad’s story becomes that of so many more Christians, still held by the accurately described ‘death cult’ that is ISIS (in addition to, let’s not forget, Muslims who do not meet the group’s self-defined ‘standards’).
Amid the reports of Fr Mourad’s experience is a figure of at least 200 citizens of Al Quarytan who have been abducted. And Al Quarytan is but one small town among many across Syria lying in the path of the so-called caliphate.
Something of the scale of the challenge facing small and all but forgotten communities who have dared to remain in the Syrian warzone was offered just days after Fr Mourad’s escape.
In London on October 13, Aid to the Church in Need launched a report on Christian communities worldwide. ‘Persecuted and Forgotten? A Report on Christians oppressed for their faith 2013-15’ found enough evidence to declare Christianity “the world’s most persecuted religion”. (See the ACN findings at http://www.acnireland.org/index.php/resources/persecuted-and-forgotten)
Yet, even with such a grim revelation, ACN felt compelled to point directly to the Middle East as the source of perhaps the greatest threat to Christian communities. As he unveiled the report, its editor, Dr John Newton referenced the ongoing “exodus” of Christians from the region, declaring that, in Iraq alone, “within five years the entire Christian people could be wiped out”.
Five years is a long time when one considers the pace of events now in Syria alone, where Russia is increasingly taking the fight to IS. At the time of writing, reports on the situation suggest that ISIS militants, demoralised by bombardments and airstrikes, have begun to disobey their commanders and have fled the battle zone in great numbers. Meanwhile, mystery still surrounds the fate of ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, reportedly wounded in an Iraqi airstrike as he was being driven to a meeting with some of his top commanders in the Iraqi city of Kerbala. What is known is that at least nine of those commanders were killed in the same raid.
Ordinary Syrians of all faiths will no doubt cling to such tantalising hints that the war against ISIS might at last be turning in the favour of a peaceful future for their country (whatever about geopolitics and ‘power games’, there is not arguing the need for ISIS to be obliterated).
However, for all the fast-moving coverage of the conflict, the war is not yet over, and the exodus, for those who can afford it, continues.
For those who cannot – specifically those hundreds of prisoners who shared their confinement with Fr Mourad – only the terror goes on.
The inspirational priest meanwhile, recovering now at Nebek in Syria, does not need international reports or breaking news coverage to teach him the reality on the ground.
Even as he builds his strength after five months of privation, it became clear that Fr Mourad is already back in action on behalf of his congregation.
Having reached out to an Orthodox priest, Muslim associates and members of Bedouin groupings, he has reportedly begun the process of locating his fellow Al Quaryatan captives ahead of efforts to bring them home.
There is Christian persecution in the world, but courtesy of Fr Mourad, we are reminded there is also Christian resilience.