AMERICAN airstrikes on Iran have left the region “dangerously volatile”, the Bishop in Cyprus and the Gulf, the Rt Revd Sean Semple, said on Sunday.
The US bombing of nuclear facilities in Iran overnight on Saturday further increased tensions in the Middle East, with Israel and Iran continuing to trade missile fire on Tuesday, even after a ceasefire was announced.
On Sunday, after the US strikes on Iran, Bishop Semple released a pastoral letter in which he acknowledged that it was “difficult to predict what may happen next”.
“For anyone living in the countries of our diocese there will be a deep anxiety today and in the days ahead about possible retaliation and prospect of a wider conflagration,” Bishop Semple wrote.
His diocese includes churches across the Gulf states, including Qatar. On Monday, Qatari airspace was closed in anticipation of attempted Iranian strikes on a US military base in the country.
The missiles were intercepted, and the attack was regarded by commentators as a symbolic retaliation, calculated not to escalate direct conflict between Iran and Israel and the US
Bishop Semple, who was consecrated last May, exhorted Christians in the region to pray for and support one another. “We are in this together, and must do all we can to support, encourage, and strengthen our Anglican family at this time,” he wrote.
“Where does one even begin?” the Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem, Dr Hosam Naoum, wrote in a pastoral letter to his Middle Eastern province, of which the diocese of Cyrpus and the Gulf is a part, on Thursday of last week.
He asked Christians in the region to “look to the Holy Spirit for empowerment to become bridge builders within our local and regional communities, seeking to promote understanding, mutual respect, and goodwill”.
The province of which he is Primate comprises Iran, Israel, and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, along with the Gulf states, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. “Many of our church members have endured direct attacks, while a greater number now face the ominous prospect of cross-border escalations,” he wrote.
“Peace-making during war is perhaps one of the most difficult things that we Christians are called to do. Where does one even begin?” Besides advising his readers to pray for one another and for global leaders, Dr Naoum implored Anglicans in the province, and the wider Communion, to “vigilantly guard against yielding to fear and despair.
“For this, we must again rely profoundly upon the graces of the Holy Spirit to both strengthen and empower us.”
On Wednesday, the Dean of St George’s College, Jerusalem, the Very Revd Canon Richard Sewell, called for renewed focus on the situation in Gaza, where there have been reports of killings at aid distribution points.
At least 46 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire at aid distribution points in southern and central Gaza on Tuesday, according to the UN, bringing the total reported deaths at aid points to over 450 since late May.
The rise in killings has occurred since the Israeli- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began operating, under heavy criticism from the UN. BBC News reported a spokesman for the UN Human Rights Office, Thameen al-Kheetan, as having said on Tuesday: “Israel’s militarised humanitarian assistance mechanism is in contradiction with international standards on aid distribution.”
Canon Sewell’s #FastforGaza initiative — in which he and others around the world are abstaining from food on Wednesdays — is an attempt to “keep the focus on horrendous situation which goes on day after day of developing malnutrition and starvation in Gaza”, he said.
“We should not tolerate a planned policy of hunger, and governments must be pressured not to normalise this.”
