Lausanne World Pulse – Themed Articles – Persecution (Modern Ages)

By Thomas Schirrmacher
November 2008

Introduction
Martyrdom and the persecution of Christians concerned not only the early Church, but has accompanied all branches of Christianity throughout history. The history of the Church is also the history of her persecution. Of the twentieth century, Chuck Colson writes, “More Christians have been martyred for their faith in this century alone than in the previous nineteen centuries combined.”¹

Most of the persecution and killing of Christians can be attributed to one of three groups of persecutors: Islamic states, totalitarian secular states, and countries fighting Christian missionary work.

1. Persecution in Islamic Countries
From the foundation of Islam and the expansion of the early Muslim empires through the Ottoman Empire with its “satellites,” Christians were conquered, killed, enslaved, or suppressed as second-class citizens. Today, this kind of persecution is most obvious in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Northern Nigeria, and to a much lesser extent in more securalised countries like Egypt, Indonesia, Tunisia, and Turkey.

Constantinople was conquered and destroyed by the Ottomans in 1453, who then took over large areas of the Byzantine Empire with its Orthodox churches as they had conquered the regions of many old oriental churches, like the Copts in Egypt or the Syrian Christians.

Christians were deemed second-class citizens; however, policies of oppression changed from sultan to sultan—from severe and cruel persecution to subtle pressure through extra tax, lack of access to education, and riots. The height of the persecution was reached only at the end of the Ottoman Empire and the beginning of the modern Turkish Republic when Armenians were killed directly or through starvation and illness while on huge marches in 1895, 1908, and 1909 to 1916 (peaking in 1915).

Between 1909 and 1916, 155 million Armenians died. Similarly, Assyrian Christians faced persecution in 1895, 1933, and then again in the 1970s and 1980s. When all was said and done, 750,000 Assyrians had died. As of today, only four thousand Assyrains and forty thousand Armenians live in Turkey. When Turkey had to give back Smyrna to Greece in 1921, severe programs of persecution against the Greeks in Asia Minor resulted in the deaths of two million Greeks. In 1922, 120,000 Greeks were killed in Smyrna on one day alone. This put an end to a 4,000-year history of Greeks in Asia Minor. The overall percentage of Christians in Turkey also declined from thirty percent prior to World War I to 0.3% today.

2. Persecution by Atheist and Secular Governments
From the French Revolution and other right-wing totalitarian nationalistic governments like Mexico, national socialism in Germany, and some African despots like Idi Amin in Uganda, to left-wing totalitarian governments mainly in communist countries like the former Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, or Eastern Europe, Christians have been persecuted. Since 1989, the number of communist countries has greatly declined; however, this kind of persecution is still obvious today in China and North Korea, and to a lesser degree in Cuba and Libya.

Dr. Thomas Schirrmacher is professor of ethics and sociology of religion in Germany and Turkey. He is also president of Martin Bucer Theological Seminary, spokesman for human rights of the World Evangelical Alliance, and director of the International Institute for Religious Freedom (Bonn, Cape Town, Colombo). Schirrmacher has four doctorates (theology, cultural anthropology, ethics, and sociology of religions).