Tehran has threatened to bar major German banks that are pulling out of Iran due to US pressure and steep administration costs from returning to the country.

The vice governor of the Iranian central bank, Mohammad Jafar Mojarrad, told the Financial Times Deutschland that the banks’ actions could have long-term consequences.

“We are not happy with the banks’ decision,” he said.

“There is no guarantee that one can return when the good times are here again.”

Mojarrad said that because business ties are based on trust, it would be “very difficult to re-establish trust when it has been abused.”

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We are committed to pray and support Archbishop Rowan Williams in keeping the unity of the Communion at this difficult time. We recognize the importance of maintaining our faith and the unity of the Church of Christ especially in this region where we face many challenges.

We accept and affirm the recommendation made by the Primates in their last meeting in Dar-es-Salaam and we fully endorse their communiqué.

We greet all the churches in the Anglican Communion in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit to the glory of God the Father.

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Bishop Azad Marshall from Pakistan was officially installed as Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Iran during an August 5 service at St. Paul’s Church in Tehran, a turning point for interfaith relations in the Islamic Republic.

More than two hundred people attended the three-hour service, which was marked by singing in Farsi and English by the House of Worship and Messiah Worship Choir and orchestra, according to the Anglican Communion News Service. The congregation included Anglicans, members of the Assemblies of God, Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and Muslims. The service was also attended by a senior official from the office of the President who spoke afterwards of the respect and freedom given to all religious minorities.

Among those attending the installation were Jerusalem Bishop Suheil Dawani; President Bishop Mouneer Anis of Jerusalem and the Middle East; Church of England Bishops Michael Nazir Ali of Rochester and Paul Butler of Southampton; Retired Jerusalem Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal; and Archbishop John Chew, Primate of South East Asia.

According to reports, Marshall said “Iran’s leaders want to open a new chapter with the Anglican Church, nearly 30 years after the Islamic revolution.”

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Update: There is a good picture here.

Evangelical leaders including a former ethics professor at a Southern Baptist seminary issued an open letter to President Bush challenging the notion that all American evangelicals are uncritically pro-Israel.

Signed by leaders including Glen Harold Stassen, a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary who formerly taught at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the letter addresses a “serious misperception” that American evangelicals oppose a two-state solution in the Middle East and a new Palestinian state that would include the majority of the West Bank.

The letter, addressed to the president but also aimed at other U.S. policy makers, came a week-and-a-half after a second-annual gathering of Christians United For Israel convened by San Antonio, Texas, preacher John Hagee. The meeting brought 3,500 evangelicals to Washington to hear from politicians including Sen. Joseph Lieberman, House Minority Whip and Southern Baptist Roy Blunt and Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain.

At the gathering, Hagee labeled former President Jimmy Carter Israel’s “enemy in America” and demanded the former president reveal sources of pro-Arab funding for his humanitarian Carter Center. Carter’s recent book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid drew criticism from Jewish groups alleging it was biased against Israel.

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Last month, Pope Benedict XVI addressed what he called “the delicate situation” in the Middle East. He told a Vatican meeting of the Aid Agencies for the Oriental Churches that “peace, much awaited and implored, is unfortunately greatly offended.” Although the pope’s words were meant to refer to strife in Iraq and Israel, they also may be taken to describe the delicate, oft-broken peace in Christianity’s own holiest site in the region.

Ever since it was built by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine in 335 on the hill of Golgotha, where his mother, Helena, claimed to have found the remains of the True Cross, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem’s Old City has enjoyed little peace. The historian Eusebius records that the original structure, “an extraordinary work,” was crowned by a roof “overlaid throughout with radiant gold.” But Constantine’s marvel was razed by the Persians in 614, reconstructed, and then destroyed again by Caliph Hakim of Egypt in 1009. Rebuilt by Crusaders in the 11th and 12th centuries, the building evolved into the motley collection of shrines, chapels and grottos that greet–and sometimes disappoint–the visitor today. The critic Edmund Wilson said it “probably contains more bad taste, certainly more kinds of bad taste, than any other church in the world.”

The architectural mishmash reflects the overlapping theological resonances of the spots contained under one roof. As Amos Elon notes in his book “Jerusalem: City of Mirrors,” the church marks the site of “Christ’s alleged prison, Adam’s tomb, the Pillar of Flagellation [to which Jesus was bound], ‘Mount’ Calvary [the Latin name for the hill where Jesus was crucified], the Stone of Unction [where his body was washed in preparation for burial], Christ’s sepulcher and the Center of the Earth, as well as the site of the resurrected Christ’s meeting with Mary Magdalene.” No wonder Pope John Paul II called it “the mother of all churches.”

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I participated in the Committee of the 100 leaders (C-100) of the World Economic Forum in Amman, Jordan. Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, chaired this committee. The Grand Mufti of Egypt participated for the first time. It was an excellent interfaith event.

I also participated in the Global South Primate’s Steering Committee Meeting from the 16th to the 18th of July in London, England. We produced a very important communiqué, that you can find it here.

I also enjoyed participating in the Wycliffe Hall conference in Oxford that focused on the Covenant and the mission of the Anglican Communion. This was an eye-opening opportunity and it was very helpful.

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When considering President Bush’s new plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, it would be wise to bear in mind that because political initiatives in the Middle East are cursed with such a high failure rate analysts sometimes use the odds as a substitute for craft.

After Anwar Sadat’s spectacular trip to Jerusalem in November 1977, the press, mistaking cynicism for wisdom, was skeptical. After all, in the first 25 years of its existence, Israel had had to fight Egypt four times. But the past was no guide to the future, for in the last 30 years the peace of Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat has been unbroken.

Yet, at the time, few people were able to see the way ahead even as it was clearly illuminated by the facts. Educated opinion was attentive to the vicissitudes of negotiation rather than to the structural imperatives that would eventually prevail.

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A vicar who has been working to secure the release of five British hostages in Iraq has fled the country after being denounced as a spy.

Canon Andrew White, who ran Iraq’s only Anglican church, left Baghdad amid fears for his safety.

The five Britons’ abductors reportedly threatened to kill them unless the vicar stopped trying to find them. The captives, four security guards and a consultant, were abducted on 29 May, from the finance ministry in Baghdad. They were seized by insurgents disguised as Iraqi police.

‘Serious threat’

Canon White left Baghdad after pamphlets dropped in Shia areas of the Iraqi capital reportedly branded the vicar as “no more than a spy”.

An unconfirmed report in London-based newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi said the leaflets accused Mr White of trying to broker deals against the kidnappers. The vicar, who was based at St George’s Church in Baghdad, arrived back in Britain on Wednesday morning.

The Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East, of which Mr White is executive director, confirmed he had left Iraq because of a “serious security threat”.

The full article is here.

The lessons of all these transitions from unaddressed discontents to religious fanaticism hold true for violent outbreaks down the centuries on virtually every continent and in all major faiths. When regimes insist that time must hold still and deny traditional or perceived rights, fundamentalist religion is always lurking nearby. At the beginning of “The Plague,” Albert Camus speaks of how a bacillus can lurk, dormant and undetected, only to reappear unexpectedly when conditions are right. Extremist religion has its own bacillus, and it has proven impossible to exterminate: There are no proven antibiotics for the plague of fanaticism. When political sanitation goes wanting, it strikes.

Yet, that does not mean religious extremism can be addressed strictly through political measures (or through diplomacy, that great Western superstition). The only chance to minimize the violence is to intervene early on to create political and social breathing space for restive populations. Once religious extremism has taken hold, the pattern cannot be reversed. This is an absolutely vital point for American leaders to grasp. If the banner of jihad (or a crusade) has been raised successfully, the peaceable kingdom is finished. Only shedding blood ruthlessly can eliminate or at least reduce the problem ”” the enemy enraptured by faith must become more terrified of you than he is of his god. Usually, you must kill him.

This matters vitally today as the U.S., disappointed by its experience in Iraq, threatens to return to its disastrous “Habsburg” policy of the latter half of the 20th century, in which the greatest democracy in history and the beacon of humankind supported a long parade of vile dictators and authoritarian regimes in the interests of stability.

The great strategic problem today isn’t instability. The current instability confronting us is the result of our insistence that outwardly stable Middle Eastern states were the highest geopolitical good in the region. The great enabler of Islamist terrorism has been the artificial stability imposed on the Middle East by local despots backed by foreign powers. Increasingly, populations saw no hope of meaningful change. Right on schedule historically, charismatic religious bigots stepped in to offer not only hope, but a divine dispensation. It cannot be repeated too often or too forcefully: When human beings see no hope of remediation on this earth, they become susceptible to the prophets of religious violence, to the argument that their God wants them to punish their oppressors. And their conversion is a one-way street.

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From here:

The government is blaming unrest on the United States. Most people know better, but reading about American spy rings, and U.S. financed rebel groups makes for entertaining reading. There’s not much other entertainment allowed in Iran.

from the Jerusalem Post:

At least 25 Palestinians were killed and 80 were wounded as Hamas fighters overran two of Fatah’s most important security installations in the Gaza Strip on Thursday. Witnesses said the victors dragged vanquished gunmen from the building and shot them to death gangland-style in the street in front of their families.

The headquarters of the General Security Service, commanded by Ramallah-based General Tawfik Tirawi, fell to Hamas gunmen. Hamas said documents it found there prove that the Fatah-affiliated security apparatus has close ties with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Hamas said it would show the documents on television in the coming hours.

Elsewhere, the capture of the Preventive Security headquarters was a major step forward in Hamas’s attempts to complete its takeover of all of Gaza. Hamas followed up that victory by demanding Fatah surrender another key security installation.

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An Egyptian Coptic Christian who was permitted to stay in the United States because of the probable threat of torture back home is now fighting deportation on a murder charge in Egypt.

The office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement has decided to deport the man, Sameh Khouzam, 38, of Lancaster, Pa., because Egypt’s government has given diplomatic assurances that Mr. Khouzam will not be tortured upon his return.

In fleeing to the United States nine years ago, Mr. Khouzam maintained that he was repeatedly detained and tortured because he refused to convert to Islam. He denies the murder accusation.

Human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union, argue that the use of torture in Egypt is so routine and well-documented that deporting Mr. Khouzam would expose him to harsh treatment and would amount to a violation of the Convention Against Torture.

Under the convention, foreign citizens cannot be repatriated to countries where they stand a reasonable chance of being tortured.

Mr. Khouzam’s lawyers have won a temporary stay of deportation in federal court until tomorrow. The A.C.L.U., which has taken his case, is trying to get the stay prolonged so that it might argue for Mr. Khouzam’s ultimate release. He is being detained in Pennsylvania.

“The fundamental issue is whether the United States government can circumvent its obligation under CAT by obtaining inherently unreliable diplomatic assurances from the government of Egypt,” said Amrit Singh, staff lawyer at the A.C.L.U.’s immigrants’ rights project. “It’s particularly outrageous when the record is replete with evidence that he has been repeatedly tortured.”

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–Our story starts with a small sandstone 10th-century Armenian church, on an uninhabited rock less than 500 yards wide, in a remote Turkish lake that changes colors like moods and sometimes bubbles like soda. If you had seen the ruins of it, as I did in 2000, you might cry. Its roof was gone. Its bas-reliefs, chiseled by master carvers a millennium ago, of Adam and Eve, of saints and kings, were wearing away in the wind. It was an empty husk that had not heard a Mass in more than 90 years.

In March, after years of painstaking restoration, Turkey reopened the church as a museum. Among the ambassadors and visitors at the opening ceremonies, I roamed the grounds. The building is now magnificent. Its roof is restored and its reliefs cleaned.

The Church of the Holy Cross is one of the holiest sites for Armenian Christians, who once made up one-third of the population around Van. They were driven out by the Ottomans in 1915, when some were suspected of supporting Russia-backed terrorist attacks. During World War I, the Ottomans were allied with Germany and Austria, fighting Russia, Britain and France. While most Turkish historians concede there was a massacre of Armenians (while pointing out that Armenians slaughtered Turks from 1890 to 1915 and that most Armenians were relocated, not slain), they hesitate to call it genocide. The Armenians do not hesitate–and sometimes compare it to the Holocaust. The Armenian Diaspora has emerged as a real political force in Western Europe, complicating Turkey’s plans to join the European Union.

The re-opening of the church was a peace offering by the AKP, Turkey’s Islam-oriented ruling party, but all did not run smoothly at first. After spending millions on the structure, the Turkish government refused to restore the stone cross on the steeple. Turkish journalists were quick to criticize. Ultimately, common sense prevailed.

“I cannot say we will have the stone-cross back there tomorrow, but I do not see any problem in that,” Culture Minister Attilla Koc said. He wanted time for an “academic council” to consider the issue. Mr. Koc’s answer might not sound “revolutionary” to our ears, but Turkish News columnist Yusuf Kanli declared it so. Many Christian churches have been waiting for decades for permission to restore their churches at their own expense.

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CANON Andrew White, the Chaplain of St George’s, Baghdad, and head of the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East, spoke on Wednesday of his fears and hopes for the five British men kidnapped in Iraq on Tuesday. Four of them are his close friends.

Speaking from Baghdad to the Church Times, he described the kidnapping as a “very, very complex and difficult situation”. He feared that it could be linked to the killing last week by the British of Abu Qadir (also known as Wissam al-Waili), the leader of the most militant wing of the Mehdi army, a Shia militant group.

The British men were seized near the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City, a Mehdi army stronghold. The five ”” a computer expert and four bodyguards ”” were taken from a finance-ministry building. Four worked for GardaWorld, one of many security firms in Iraq guarding VIPs, coalition contractors, and other officials. GardaWorld is a Canadian-owned business, but is staffed mainly by British people.

Employees of the company have given their services free to Canon White because of the importance of his work in Baghdad, and he described them as close friends ”” people with whom he shared his life. The fifth man is a contractor, working for a company providing technical advice to the Iraqi government.

The kidnappers wore police uniforms, and staged the capture without firing a shot, senior Iraq officials told the BBC on Tuesday.

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Stephen Crittenden: The plight of Christian minorities in the Islamic Middle East is one of the 20th century tragedies to which we pay least attention.

From the Copts in Egypt, to the Maronites, the Melkites in Lebanon, Orthodox and Chaldeans, the Christian population of the Middle East is a fraction of what it was, and more vulnerable than ever. Nowhere is the situation worse at the moment than in Iraq. And few groups are more vulnerable than the ancient Assyrian Christian community. In fact, this week the Italian journalist Sandro Magister, has warned of the end of Christianity in Iraq.

In early May in a heavily Christian suburb of Baghdad, a Sunni extremist group began broadcasting a fatwah over the loudspeakers of the neighbourhood mosque: the Assyrian Christian community had to convert to Islam or leave, or die. Their Muslim neighbours were to seize their property. The men were told they had to pay the gizya – the protection money Jews and Christians traditionally had to pay to their Muslim overlords – and families were told they could only stay if they married one of their daughters to a Muslim.

More than 300 Assyrian families have fled, mostly to the north into the Kurdish region of Iraq where they are not welcome either They are sleeping in cemeteries, they have no food, more than 30 of their churches have been bombed, their children are being kidnapped and murdered.

Rosie Malek-Yonan is an Assyrian-American. She is a successful film and television actor who has appeared in many popular shows including Dynasty, Seinfeld, E.R. and Chicago Hope. Her novel, The Crimson Field, is a fictionalised account of the little-known Assyrian genocide that took place at the hands of the Ottoman Turks during World War One at the same time that the better-known Armenian genocide was taking place. She recently directed a documentary film on the same subject. And last year she was invited to give testimony before the US Congress about the plight of Assyrian Christians in Iraq. Rosie Malek-Yonan spoke to me from her home in California.

Rosie Malek-Yonan: The Assyrian people are the indigenous people actually of Mesopotamia, before it even was Iraq. All of that area was Mesopotamia and is the original homeland of the Assyrians. They date back to over 6,000 years and were always concentrated in that region.

Stephen Crittenden: And Christianity was accepted by Assyrians, well virtually in apostolic times, right at the very, very beginning?

Rosie Malek-Yonan: Right. Assyrians were actually the first nation to accept Christianity as an entire nation, not just individuals, but the entire nation, and we built the first church of the east.

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