Martyrs Of Sudan - In Remembrance

From the The Lectionary:

The Christian bishops, chiefs, commanders, clergy and people of Sudan declared, on May 16, 1983, that they would not abandon God as God had revealed himself to them under threat of Shariah Law imposed by the fundamentalist Islamic government in Khartoum. Until a peace treaty was signed on January 9, 2005, the Episcopal Church of the Province of the Sudan suffered from persecution and devastation through twenty-two years of civil war. Two and a half million people were killed, half of whom were members of this church.

From the proposal before the 75th General Convention

The Commemoration of the Martyrs of Sudan was provisionally approved by General Convention, June 2006


Wisdom 3:1-4

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment will ever touch them.
In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was thought to be a disaster,
and their going from us to be their destruction;
but they are at peace.
For though in the sight of others they were punished,
their hope is full of immortality.


PRAYER

O God, the One who is steadfast in the midst of persecution, by your providence the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church: Grant that we who remember before you the blessed martyrs of the Sudan, may, like them, be steadfast in our faith in Jesus Christ, to whom they refuse to abandon, even in the face of death, and by their sacrifice brought forth a plentiful harvest, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.


Today, in Iraq, the Christian community is disappearing through persecution. Many have been forced into exile, as others have been murdered, kidnapped, and forced to convert to Islam. Pray for the Christians in Iraq.

UPDATE: Here's a link to an article in the Guardian on the plight of the Christians in Iraq.

Iraq's Christian community is close to extinction as thousands are forced to flee their traditional strongholds in Baghdad.

....

Priests claim that half Baghdad's pre-2003 Christian population - estimated in the hundreds of thousands - has fled or been killed. They also claim that the Iraqi government is failing to protect them.