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”.
This church has suffered mightily. Two years ago the senior lay leaders of the church disappeared on their return from a meeting in Jordan and were presumed captured or killed.
Lord, forget not your faithful who maintain the faith once delivered in the face of severe persecution, and comfort and strengthen your flock in Baghdad.
Lord, Look after your faithful ones. Protect them from all enemies both physical and spiritual. Send out your angels to keep watch in the night. For Jesu’ sake, amen.
Bad news. He is a very good man. Perhaps what did for him was less his attempts to intercede for the British hostages than his recent revelation that at an ecumenical meeting (!!) in Jordan he had been told by an Islamicist that ‘those who cure you will kill you’. He did not identify this man but did say: ‘On that day I met the Devil’. But indeed our thoughts should be even more with his faithful flock.
He has tried very hard to bring different elements including Shia, supported by the Grand Ayatolla Sistani, and Sunni together to talk, but unfortunately with the polarisation exacerbated by Iran things are looking bleak for this poor country and the remaining Christians.
One of my heroes.
Prayers.
#3 JS my suspicion as well – information contained in an email to supported but trumpeted by the Times.
From Canon Whites website, his description of St Georges:
[blockquote]St George’s Baghdad is the only Anglican Church functioning in Iraq. Apart from my involvement, it’s entire large and growing congregation is Iraqi. It is undoubtedly a church in one of the most dangerous places in the world, now surrounded with barbed wire and concrete barricades. It is a place where all of our original church leaders have been killed in 2005, yet new leaders have stepped forward and St. George’s continues to be a wonderful gathering of people of true faith.[/blockquote]