[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 13160]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 WORLDWIDE DAY OF PRAYER FOR CHRISTIANS

  (Mr. ROSKAM asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. ROSKAM. Madam Speaker, moments ago, the House opened in prayer. 
Today, I am rising in solidarity with those who are calling for a 
worldwide day of prayer for Christians suffering in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, 
and across the Middle East.
  Radical Islamists have a phrase: ``first the Saturday people, then 
the Sunday people.''
  Those who call for Israel's destruction are the same radicals who are 
persecuting Christians throughout the Middle East. Reported cases of 
Christians killed for their faith doubled worldwide from the previous 
year. Others have been kidnapped, forcibly converted, or exiled, while 
churches and holy sites have been destroyed.
  Iraq's Christian community has dropped from 1.5 million people in 
2003 to only 200,000 today, and in Mosul--home of one of the world's 
oldest Christian communities--ISIS militants have overrun the city. 
They are using this Arabic symbol and are painting it on homes to 
identify Nazarenes, or Christians, who are told to convert to Islam, 
pay a religious tax, or be executed. Now almost no Christians remain in 
Mosul, a city with a 2,000-year relationship with the Christian faith. 
The situation is also dire in Syria and elsewhere.
  Middle East Christians need our prayers, our support, and our voices, 
and I am proud to stand with those who follow the Nazarene.

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