ABSTRACT
At a time when events in the Middle East dominate world headlines and so much time and effort is spent trying to unravel the religious, ethnic, political, economic and social challenges of the region, one group is consistently absent from debate about the future of the area. This is the native Christian population who, throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, have felt increasingly marginalised and besieged by the hostilities around them. Both Muslims and Jews have a tendency to view them as fifth columnists there to promote a pro-western agenda to the detriment of ‘native’ interests and this totally disregards the fact that these are people who have always lived in the Middle East, and culturally and socially have no affinity with the West. It also demonstrates how Western Christendom has become divorced from its origins in forgetting that this population is living in the region, sharing a cultural heritage with and, in some cases, speaking the language of Christ himself. This is an issue that needs to be underlined, and it is hoped that this book will allow both specialists and general readers some degree of understanding into the daily realities of these Oriental Christians who spread geographically from the Eastern Mediterranean to the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
