Church leaders call for bolstering Christian presence in Middle East

AMMAN — The 11th General Assembly of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) concluded its meetings on Thursday in Amman, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. 

Heads and representatives of the Eastern Orthodox, Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical churches took part in the meetings.

The assembly issued a statement, in which it voiced appreciation for the Kingdom’s role in safeguarding holy sites in Jerusalem and called for ending wars in the region. 

The church leaders stressed the need to block weapon supplies to terrorist groups and called for securing a peaceful solution to the Syrian crisis. 

In the statement, the assembly also called for providing the necessary support to help migrants and refugees, especially enabling the Christians who fled Mosul and Nineveh in Iraq to return. 

MECC also wished the Muslim world a happy Eid Al Adha.

The General Assembly of the MECC meetings were held this year during the time when the region is witnessing “serious and critical demographic changes” with increasing violence and extremism, the statement said. 

Innocent people are suffering as various crises are threatening their lives and stability, and thus the MECC general assembly “is hopeful” of initiatives by Islamic institutions that focus on rejecting extremism and violence and stress the importance of respecting difference, in addition to acknowledging the Christian component and its origins in Arab culture and the entire region. 

The MECC general assembly stressed the importance of denouncing all forms of extremism, terrorism and alienation, stressing its continuous efforts to ensure Christians’ resilience protect their presence in the region.

It also called for having MECC’s new executive committee form a delegation to visit religious leaders of different backgrounds and capitals of world powers to explain the condition of Eastern Christians and the attempt to find sustainable solutions. 

Also during the final session, the MECC general assembly elected four new presidents representing the four denominations.