Washington D.C., Jun 16, 2017 / 03:12 am (CNA).- Ancient artifacts. Centuries-old legends. Prayers dating back to the time of Christ. An enemy seeking to destroy it all. And a team of dedicated scholars trying to save the memories before it’s too late.
It may sound like the start of the next Indiana Jones movie, but for the team behind the Christian Communities of the East Cultural Heritage Project, the reality of Christian communities disappearing from the Middle East is a pressing threat.
Faced with persecution at the hands of ISIS, more than a decade of war, and generations of economic struggle, these researchers are looking to record the memories and traditions of the Christian communities of Iraq before they are lost forever.
But instead of swinging through empty tombs or digging through rubble, these scholars are asking the community members themselves to engage in the rich Middle Eastern tradition of storytelling, sharing their memories and descriptions in their own native Arabic and Neo-Aramaic languages – some of them singing and speaking the same language Christ himself did.
Dr. Shawqi Talia, a lecturer on Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures at The Catholic University of America explained that his colleagues’ quest to preserve the history and culture of Iraqi Catholics is essential for passing on their meaning, not only to the next generation, but for the world.
Talia, himself an Iraqi Chaldean Catholic, told CNA that he wants young people “to know how life was and what life was all about for the Christians – not just up north but in Iraq as a whole – in the ’50s and the ’40s and the ’30s, and to know that our history goes back for 2,000 years.”
Yet as Christians from the Nineveh plain continue to leave their homeland due to threats of violence, Talia hopes Middle Eastern Christians in diaspora will see the stories, songs, histories and memories contained in the project not only as a record, but as a tool. He wants Middle Eastern youth to “work in order to keep this kind of heritage alive, not just for the Christians from that part of the world who are now living in diaspora, but because it’s the history of humanity – for all of us.”
This history is not just for the Christian communities of the Middle East, but for all Christians and the whole world to learn from and preserve – especially as the ancestral lands continue to be embroiled in conflict. “You can read something in a history text, but now you see it, and you hear it in person,” Talia said of the recorded interviews.
Preserving the past
The idea behind Christian Communities of the East Cultural Heritage Project – a joint partnership between the Institute of Christian Oriental Research and the School of Theology and Religious Studies at The Catholic University of America – was born over the course of years of conversations between Dr. Talia and Dr. Robin Darling Young, an associate professor of spirituality in the university.
“The reason that we started this project was that we wanted to put together materials that would make available to other people and to communities themselves records of various kinds of the life of Christian communities in the Middle East,” Darling Young told CNA.
Attacks by ISIS against Christian and other minority religious communities in northern Iraq heightened the sense of urgency in preserving this culture’s heritage and history.
Since 2003, violence in Iraq and Syria has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions more, including whole communities of Middle Eastern Christians. In the past 14 years, an estimated 1 million Christians have left their communities in Iraq, leaving less than 500,000 Christians in the lands inhabited by the faithful for 2,000 years.
To begin preserving their history before it completely vanishes, the group used Talia’s connections to the Chaldean Catholic community in the United States, particularly those in the Washington, D.C. area and in Southeast Michigan, where some 150,000 Chaldean Catholics have established new homes over the past century. Plans also exist to interview Iraqi Christian communities in Europe and elsewhere, as well as release a documentary funded by the Michigan Humanities Council.
After developing a detailed questionnaire, the team began to record interviews with members of the Chaldean communities in both English and Neo-Aramaic, a form of the language spoken by Christ. The researchers also collected photographs and documents to digitize and present online along with the recordings as part of a comprehensive online archive.
Ryann Craig, a doctoral student in the department of Semitics, explained that after consulting with oral history experts at the Library of Congress and elsewhere, the team sought to “draw out descriptions of communal life in their original languages” in the interview process.
“My challenge was to try to craft questions that would get people to answer in their native tongue.” One of the first questions, she said, was to ask community members to explain the meaning behind their family name and its importance in their home village. This same technique was also used in getting participants to sing special communal songs created for special occasions like marriages or births, as well as to describe childhood games, or record how family recipes were made and their importance.
Given the circumstances that have brought some Chaldean Christians to the United States, however, some interviews have captured a much different side of the Middle Eastern Christian experience: persecution and flight. Craig told CNA that some of the first interviews of the project were conducted with recent refugees, many of whom were still processing the traumatic circumstances leading up to their exodus.
“A lot of the questions we were asking just weren’t relevant for them,” she said of the questions about traditions and history on the group’s questionnaire. “At that point we just decided to let them tell whatever story they wanted to tell, and didn’t really prompt as much as we do with people who have been here for decades and feel more settled.”
In collecting both these stories as well as those from Chaldean Christians who moved to the United States decades ago for economic reasons, the group has been able to document a cross-section of Iraqi Christian life. Among those who came over in the 1950s-70s, the researchers have recorded histories by people from smaller Christian villages who spoke Neo-Aramaic and were very much connected to the Chaldean identity and more ancient traditions and ways of life.
Meanwhile, the majority of Chaldean refugees coming over to the United States as a result of violence and persecution are more likely to speak Arabic than Neo-Aramaic, and are also more likely to come from larger, more cosmopolitan cities. Still, among those persecuted, “there’s a profound sense of them being Christian, because they’re being persecuted for that reason.”
‘More than just memories’
Though Talia is not involved directly in the interview process, he stressed to CNA the importance of gathering oral histories due to their unique ability to capture the essence of what it’s like to be a Middle Eastern Christian.
Just as his mother painted the experience of growing up in her hometown for Talia and his siblings, so too do these oral histories transmit the feeling of being in the communities of northern Iraq. “When you see these memories put on audio or on video, you can feel as if you were, or are present.”
While Talia was raised in Baghdad, his mother came from a Christian village of around 5,000 people in the northern Nineveh plain, without electricity, but maintaining many ancient traditions in their daily lives, including use of the Neo-Aramaic language.
“It’s more than simply nostalgia,” he explained of the stories. “It’s more than just memories. It’s a way of life which has disappeared or is disappearing.”
For Talia, the importance oral history plays in Middle Eastern culture has all the more weight due to the uncertainty faced by many communities. Even those that have been freed from the hands of ISIS are often in ruins, and much of the Middle Eastern Christian community is now in diaspora. Talia wants to help ensure “that the community isn’t gone simply because it isn’t in the villages or the towns.”
The next generation
The preservation of their home cultures and traditions is also a major concern for young Middle Eastern Christians who want to know more about their roots.
Yousif Kalian is a second-generation Iraqi immigrant and a member of the Syriac Catholic Church. As an undergraduate student at The Catholic University of America, he was a young adult researcher on the Christian Communities of the East Cultural Heritage Project, and he has continued to work with the endeavor after graduation. He initially learned about the project while taking a class with Dr. Talia.
“I’ve always had an interest in the region from a professional point of view, on top of being Iraqi-American,” Kalian told CNA. He said that within both Catholic and secular culture in the United States, there is a lack of understanding about Middle Eastern Christians, as well as a culture gap between Middle Eastern parents or grandparents and their children or grandchildren. This, he said, has left a lot of questions about identity and culture among many of his Middle Eastern Christian peers.
Kalian sees this project’s blending of oral history and multimedia access as a way for young people to help change that knowledge gap.
“If you know anything about the Middle East, the oral tradition is the most prominent tradition there,” he said, pointing to the recitation traditions in Islam, Judaism and several Christian churches. Singing and storytelling are closely tied up with the identity of the people, he explained.
“I think not just preserving dates and numbers and facts, but really preserving the stories is the most important thing to preserve from Middle Eastern Christian culture,” Kalian stressed.
“We all grew up with stories. The monastery that my grandfather is named after was destroyed by ISIS in 2015,” he said. “And my grandfather’s name was Behnam.”
Saint Behnam and Saint Sara monastery was established in the 4th Century in the Nineveh plain, about 20 miles from the city of Mosul. In late 2014, ISIS fighters took control of the monastery, expelling the monks under threat of death. On March 19, 2015, the terrorist group released images of the destruction of the tomb of Saint Behnam and the surrounding buildings.
Yet, Kalian keeps the memory of the monastery with him, as a part of who he is. “The story goes that my great grandma couldn’t have a son,” he told CNA. “Kept having daughters, and in Middle Eastern culture having a son is a point of pride: he carries the name and the wealth and protection. So she went to St. Behnam monastery and was praying, ‘Please give me a boy, St. Behnam. I’ll name him after you if you give me a boy’.”
“Sure enough, she gave birth to a boy, and he survived,” Kalian said, “He survived, and she named him Behnam.”
“You can find a book on Christianity in Iraq, or you can find a book on this monastery. But stories like this: they’ll die with our parents or grandparents.”
“That’s why I think this project is so important: to get the recipes of the food that they cook and the history behind the food they cook, and the names of our parents and grandparents and where they come from, and these saints and stories and traditions…once we move here, to an extent it stays and is alive, but in another sense it gets lost,” he lamented. “That’s why I think that this project really is important.”
And he is not the only one who is excited about the chance to pass on these stories: his siblings and other friends from his Syriac Catholic community have been interested in having a template to interview their parents and grandparents, and a way to digitize their memories. Kalian himself hopes to interview his family members and priests to collect their oral histories.
“I think every young person, if offered the opportunity, would love to speak with their grandparents or parents, if you gave them a structure to find out more about their own history,” he said.
“If you make it an active thing to learn about your culture and not just have it be reading or watching documentaries. Being able to engage – having it be an active thing and have an active culture – will engage them more and therefore persevere our communities, our history, our culture and our language.”
Once completed, the Christian Communities of the East Cultural Heritage Project will be accessible at www.ccmideast.org and in the archives of the Institute of Christian Oriental Research at The Catholic University of America. Documentary video will also be distributed in Michigan at a later date.
Photos courtesy of The Catholic University of America.
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Hear Ye! Hear Ye!
A ‘Captain Obvious’ award for the Archbishop!!
Cardinal Gregory should spend more time increasing enrollment in his Church instead of expecting a man-made government to define what is right and wrong. God created His Church to define morality and He gave us the Word of God to change people’s hearts. We are not one with a man-made government—we stand alone.
Yes, I agree with you completely; but it becomes complicated and messy when we engage in the very secular and amoral (at best) political process, and hope to effect moral change. Lines become blurred as democracy expects, even demands compromises. The separation of Church and State has never been easy whenever the Church has been able to have a voice. Things are much clearer and, paradoxically easier during times of persecution.
On the most sacred day of Christians, Easter Day, after having declared Easter Day TRANSGENDER VISIBILITY DAY, On Sunday afternoon, Biden’s X account tweeted: “Today, on Transgender Day of Visibility, I have a simple message to all trans Americans: I see you. You are made in the image of God.” By contrast, DT is asking Americans to buy and read The Bible, The Constitution, The Bill of Rights… in the God Bless America Bible. He does not get a penny from the bying of this Bible. God bless DT for promoting such good things. Let God judge the other guy…
God will judge both on the same scale and I fear will find both severely lacking, and we can only hope for equal mercy.
Even in a liberal news source that I would not classify as “Catholic friendly,” they have noted that 80 priests have been killed in Ukraine, by Putin’s bombs or soldiers. 80 priests seems a bit disproportionate, as if there may be some targeted killings going on. If remotely true (80 priests killed, targeted or not) why is the church not making more noise about this? And if it’s “American Christian Culture” — why are Putin’s DT Stooges in congress withholding aid to Ukraine — with “Christian DT’s” encouragement. DT doesn’t think Catholics are Christian, or what?
Cardinal Gregory is a master politician. He appears to be trying to “manage” Biden, without confrontation, so now what? Refusal of Communion? Excommunication? Or perhaps sternly worded missives that really do not lead to anything?
Cardinal Gregory will admonish Biden, without any real disciplinary action. He did not get that red hat for nothing.
Is Cardinal Gregory a Cafeteria Cardinal?
My understanding is that the Episcopalian church has pretty much fallen off the cliff. Shoddy reasoning, on display here in the words of Episcopalian bishop Mariann Budde, may have something to do with that.
That’s mostly true Cleo.
The mainline US Episcopal denomination’s following a similar path to extinction as the CE. There are individual exceptions & more orthodox Anglican alternatives but as a whole it’s a bleak picture.
We had a sad situation with an historic Episcopal church. The congregation was mostly traditionally minded & after things like women clergy & SS “marriage” were okayed by their bishops they voted to align under an African Anglican diocese instead. Following that, all you know what broke out. After a lengthy legal battle the beautiful, historic church building was awarded back to the US diocese & the orthodox congregation moved out to an obscure building elsewhere.
The historic church is fairly empty on Sundays & will likely continue to see a shrinking & ageing congregation, while those old fashioned Episcopalians who were forced out are having families & attracting new members. Maybe one day they’ll return home to their old church. Who knows?
“Gregory said he would not be at all surprised to learn that Pope Francis has engaged Biden on the President’s embrace of pro-abortion ideology”.
I would – I would be VERY surprised.
I am bowled over by the depth of Wilton Gregory! He noticed this subtle aspect of the President’s approach to Catholicism? Wow! Let’s be honest: Wilton is a “cafeteria cleric” — he knows what he should be doing as Archbishop of Washington with the myriad of “Catholics” in his diocese who promote what Vatican II called an “unspeakable crime” but he won’t. He knows what he ought to do with regard to admission to the Eucharist of these “Catholics” — but he won’t. So, I guess if he’s going to lecture on cafeteria Catholicism (which, by the way, I didn’t know was out of style as a term), takes one to know one.
Maybe Wilton Gregory could tell us what Donald Wuerl has been up to these days.
I confess to a certain astonishment upon the conclusion of the interview with Cardinal Gregory. My own premonitions of Gregory had caused me to anticipate a rather more liberal position. I had entertained an anxious apprehension that His Eminence might, through a misplaced sympathy with certain contemporary currents of thought, be disinclined to offer a forthright critique of the current administration.
Thankfully, these anxieties proved unfounded. The Cardinal’s pronouncements were, I daresay, precisely what one would expect from a man of his stature, utterances seasoned with wisdom and a commendable frankness.
Now, with respect to Episcopalian Budde, her pronouncements, alas, were entirely predictable. They echoed the tenets of a theological system demonstrably at odds with the core tenets of the Christian faith. A system that diminishes the centrality and need of Christ’s sacrifice, a sacrifice freely offered for the salvation of mankind. The modern theology of “I’m okay and you’re okay.”
Not good! Something more sinister is going on here. The leftist, more accurately neo Marxist, in control are going all out to deemphasize or eliminate the American Christian culture. The Cardinal like so many Catholic hierarchy are either afraid to push back i.e. spineless or unfortunately tacitly agree. As said somewhere else “God will not be mocked”. I fear the consequences.
Curious. What is (or was) the “American Christian Culture” that the left is out to destroy? In 250 words or less?
At times a faithful sentence or two from a considered progressive prelate seems enlightening, even hopeful. Cafeteria Catholics however are the apparent majority of church going Catholics. Does calling Biden’s Catholicism the cafeteria kind have good effect besides feeling enlightened? Like Confucianism black can be white and white black.
Our day is distant, far more in doctrinal observance than chronology from 390 AD when Saint Ambrose ordered emperor Theodosius to publicly repent for excessive cruelty. And he repented! What would we expect if Cardinal Archbishop Gregory were to impose such a sanction on Biden? Perhaps ‘malarkey’ from the president. Although I wager a lot of those cafeteria Catholics would at least spill their caffe lattes. Maybe even driven to reflection.
Fr. Morello;
Your question “does calling Biden’s Catholicism ‘the cafeteria kind’ have good effects besides feeling enlightened?”
To the actual question I would have to say “not really” but I would point out that it IS important to make that point frequently enough so that people – Catholic and non-Catholic, practicing Catholic and non-practicing Catholic – don’t forget it. In addition to that – the fact that Cardinal Gregory is the one who made that point makes it that much more notable.
Archbishop Gregory correctly identified Joe Biden as a “cafeteria Catholic.” However there is a distinction to be made between the mostly anonymous Cafeteria Crowd who may or may not deeply ponder and respond to Church teachings and the highly ranked public officials like President Biden who holds his rosary in his hand while promising to reinstate Roe v. Wade. The President and his kind were blessed with the same free will as the rest of us made in the image and likeness of God.
They may use their free will to choose what is right or wrong. Biden has very publicly and strongly supported abortion. He is free (not right) to do so. However, as a so-called practicing Catholic, he is not in communion with his Church. He knows it; the bishops know it. He does not possess the formation of conscience to recuse himself from Holy Communion and the bishops do not want to suggest he should. We are in a very public stalemate. Why should any Cafeteria Catholic choose the harder road?
Why? Because if you self-excommunicate, you drink damnation! A very good reason, I would think. However we must allow the possibility of the sacrament of confession and the 70 times 70. We can never make a sure judgment of another.
It used to be called apostacy, but because certain people are more high profile than others it is excusable.
Pres. Biden offers a good life lesson and WARNING for those of us who profess and attempt to live our lives under the authority of the Catholic Church (The Church that Jesus founded!). POWER can corrupt! This man, a baptized, practicing Catholic, used to vote pro-life, and this would have “OK” for all Democrats in a not-so-long-ago past. But the opportunity to be Vice-President and eventually President has caused him to turn his back on Holy Mother Church, the Bible, the Blessed Mother and all the saints, and the Triune God–and throw his support to the cause of abortion–the killing of innocent human beings! (In addition, he openly encourages sinful sexual practices by honoring the LGBTQ+ movement, although the actual LGBTQ+ Day has always been March 31, so the President did not purposely try to turn Easter into a perversity.) I do hope Catholics will recognize that the Democratic Party that was once supportive of the Catholic Church and Christianity in general is no longer safe to support. No doubt, in some towns and cities in the U.S., there are Democratic politicians who are still pro-life and pro-Christianity, but eventually they will be forced by their Party to change their attitude or get out of the Democratic Party. Catholics need to abandon this Party no matter how grateful we are for its support of the “Little Man” in the past. I can’t say that the Republican Party is much better, but at least many Republican politicians are fighting against abortion and supporting pro-life activities. God help our nation to repent of our national sins and God help every Catholic to remain true to Holy Mother Church and Jesus Christ, our Risen Lord and Savior!
Having read Cardinal Gregory’s comments, I find myself thinking of Rip Van Winkle, waking up after a 20 yr. snooze. With few exceptions the American bishops have been asleep while pro abortion “Catholic” politicians become bolder and bolder in their support of radical abortion “rights”. And, of course, these politicians trumpet their Catholic identities, jingle rosary beads and show up on Communion lines where they are generally cordially received. And when they die, a lavish Catholic funeral awaits them (Ted Kennedy, Mario Cuomo). And the snoozing goes on.
Cardinal Gregory continues to offer Communion to these politicians in Washington. They are more than cafetria Catholics. They firmly, publicly and consistently reject basic Catholic teaching and energetically promote policies directly contrary to that teaching.
Does the Cardinal or Pope Francis really believe that the solution is an encounter with Biden & Co.? to walk them to help them discern evil? These politicians know very well what they are doing to get votes, to please the hard left, to get money for their campaigns and media approval. They are driven by money, power, ambition. Will our Bishops ever wake up and proclaim to them the teaching of Christ, “Sin No More’?
If Cdl Abp Gregory wished to affirm the Way, the Truth and the Life he would have simply said you cannot be a Catholic and proselytize for murder in the womb. Otherwise he speaks something other than Truth.
Gregory doesn’t get any credit for his milktoast millimouth “cafeteria catholic” line – Call Biden out…you and the rest of the spineless bishops say nothing.
The uncorrected scandal which Biden is giving continues. A ‘cafeteria Catholic’ is no Catholic at all. Gregory participates in Biden’s crime and deviance on every day that goes by and he does not publicly acknowledge Biden’s de-facto excommunication. Isn’t it obvious that Gregory has become complicit in desecration of the Eucharist by not exercising his authority, as Biden, in his old age, draws nearer to his personal judgment. Publicly excommunicate the man, for Heaven’s sake! He may die soon and take others with him! Justice demands it for his sake and the good of others.
Not content with declaring the most important day for Christians as “transgender visibility day” and adding that “transgenders are made in the image of God,” the figure head of the present regime has banned Easter eggs with any religious symbolism from the White House’s Easter eggs event. The regime’s effort to erase Christianity is relentless. By contrast, Dt is urging us to read the Bible, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, The Pledge of Allegiance, in a Bible the sales of which will not go to his pocket but to the creator of the hit song “God Bless the USA “and the makers of this Bible (“The God Bless the USA Bible,” which includes the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, etc.). With all his faults, DT is on our side. The other one is against. One is promoting Christianity and patriotism; the other is trying to destroy both.
The figure head of the present regime has banned Easter eggs with any religious symbolism from the White House’s Easter eggs event. The regime’s effort to erase Christianity is relentless. He had earlier declared the most important day for Christians as “transgender visibility day” and added that “transgenders are made in the image of God,” By contrast, Dt is urging us to read the Bible, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, The Pledge of Allegiance, in a Bible the sales of which will not go to his pocket but to the creator of the hit song “God Bless the USA “and the makers of this Bible (“The God Bless the USA Bible,” which includes the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, etc.). With all his faults, DT is on our side. The other one is against. One is promoting Christianity and patriotism; the other is trying to destroy both.
Although I think greater public condemnation of Biden’s anti Catholic actions are warranted by Cardinal Gregory, publicly calling Biden a “cafeteria Catholic” is a good start, something no one wants to be called. I think Gregory has met with Biden several times, and has been told not to approach the altar for communion. The incident in 2019 when Biden was denied the Eucharist in South Carolina I think is not a one-off anomaly. And since then the liberal press has reported “Biden goes to Mass”, but might be giving him air over and he’s not receiving. My guess is there are many priests in DC that have told the Cardinal they are not comfortable giving Biden Communion. Also, after Biden was denied in South Carolina, shouldn’t that have been a lightning strike wake-up call to any Catholic to repent? Since then however Biden has only tripled. Down on his pro abortion, gay trans rhetoric. I do believe however he’s not receiving at Mass.
Why is the head of this demonic regime not being excommunicated?
Another “Prefect” example of why the state of the State is in that state!