Middle East Churches

JERUSALEM, September 12, 2001–The Middle East Council of Churches, representing Catholic, Protestant, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches throughout the Middle East, sent the following message to friends and colleagues in the United States today:

Rev. Dr. Riad Jarjour
General Secretary
The Middle East Council of Churches (MECC)

Dear friends, our brothers and sisters in Christ in the United States, The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father’s love and mercy, and solace of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, surround and bear you up on this morning after the day of tragedy.

The world — we all — stopped, horrified. The massive scale of the violence particularly in New York but also in Washington has been beyond belief. Imagination cannot picture what may be its repercussions as anger yields to cries for vengeance. Almost instantly the images flooded out over the TV networks, horrific descriptions over our radios. Where we were first touched was in our human soul. We were caught up in the agony of individuals amplified manifold. And words are not enough to describe this even though that is all that we have at the moment.

I wish to express to our friends in the United States our profound condolences for the loss of loved ones. In gathering after gathering in America, Christians will lift up their hearts in prayer. We assure you that we too are gathering, and our prayers join yours. We ask for healing beyond understanding, we pray for courage beyond our outrage and fear. We ask for the grace, the steadfast poise of faith, to stand with integrity and minister in an ever more dangerous world.

We are devastated by the bestiality that can infect ordinary human beings and transform them into mass murderers and deranged suicides. Evil raised its head. Its taunting must be resisted. Evil does not overcome evil; it augments it. Christ taught us that. The democratization of terror and violence on a massive scale points to a profound distortion in the human spirit of our times. And as those who bear the Gospel of Peace, it is this distortion we must overcome. With you we mourn the innocent dead; we bewail our own loss of innocence, our loss of confidence, our loss of a sense of security. And we do so out of a Middle East that has known more than its fair share of death, disillusionment and fear over all-too-many decades.

But with you too we are determined that death shall have no dominion. Your hope and our hope will not be crushed. In the name of all the member churches of the Middle East Council of Churches, in the name of our presidents and staff, I stretch out to you our love and compassion in Christ’s name and for his sake. We break one bread and are one Body. Holding to that reality with a firm grip, you will rise above this tragic moment and, with you, we too will rise. Let us together seek the healing of the nations, and overcome this and all evil with good.

In Christ’s name and in his peace that passes understanding, Riad Jarjour, general secretary