London’s Westminster Abbey will be lit up in red tonight in an act of
solidarity with people around the world who are persecuted for their
faith.
It is one of a number of religious buildings that are joining the
#RedWednesday
campaign by the Roman Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).
As part of the campaign, one of London’s iconic red busses is taking
part in a faith-buildings tour today, to spread the “Stand up for Faith
and Freedom message”.
After setting off from Westminster Cathedral – the seat of Cardinal
Vincent Nichols, leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales –
the bus will call at the Imam Khoei Islamic Centre, St Paul’s Cathedral,
and the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St John’s Wood, and Westminster
Abbey before returning to the Cathedral where a gathering and service
will be held.
The Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Ignatius Aphrem II, has
travelled from Damascus for the event, which will also be attended by Dr
Sarah Bernstein, director-general of the Jerusalem Centre for
Jewish-Christian Relations in Israel, and Shaykh Dr Umar Al-Qadri Ameer,
head-imam of the Al-Mustafa Islamic Educational & Cultural Centre
in Ireland.
“We hope that the ACN red bus as it travels London on Red Wednesday
will highlight the very real and pressing issue of those suffering
because they are persecuted today for their peacefully held beliefs,”
ACN’s national director Neville Kyrke-Smith said. “We will invite all
those, whether Christian or other faiths to attend and show their
support for the right of a person to practise their religion in peace”.
In a Tweet this morning, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby
signalled his support for the day, saying: “In Communion this morning,
we prayed for all victims of religious violence around the world - and
for governments too.”
St George’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Stevenage, to the north of
London, is one of the buildings to be lit in red. “At a time in our
contemporary history when we must be most aware of rights and liberties
given by God and enshrined in various laws and international
conventions, it is unfathomable that some still suffer, are marginalised
and persecuted, for the faith they choose to hold, or even reject,” the
General Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the UK, Bishop
Angaelos, said.
The campaign was the subject of a short debate in the House of
Commons – the primary chamber of Britain’s Parliament – last week.
Moving the debate, parliamentarian Chris Green said that “The Christian
community in Iraq is one of the oldest in the world, dating back to the
first century. There were thought to be 1.5 million Christians in Iraq
before the invasion in 2003. However, that number is reported to have
fallen now to about 230,000.
Although many people have been persecuted
and have fled the region, that figure shows the targeted nature of the
persecution and, if it carries on in that direction, we will soon see
the end of Christianity in much of the middle east.”
Responding to the debate, minister Tobias Ellwood said that the
British government “will continue to fight for the freedom of religion
or belief internationally. We do so not only because it is right and is
enshrined in the universal declaration of human rights and in article 18
of the international covenant on civil and political rights but because
extending freedom of religion or belief to more countries and more
societies helps to make the world safer and more prosperous, which is in
all our interests.”
Tomorrow, ACN will publish its 2016 Religious Freedom in the World
report, which assesses the situation for different faith communities in
all 196 countries.