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Violence against Christianity and vice-versa: An observation

The history of Christian faith has been embedded with violence, torture, persecution,
humiliation, oppression, suppression and annihilation against the followers of Christianity from
the dawn of Christianity to the present era where clashes and conflicts of ethnic, religious,
political and other denominations have contributed to suffer the people of Christian faith
throughout the ages.

Early Christians were hugely persecuted by the Romans and the Jews where Christian
missionaries as well as converts to Christianity have been persecuted from the early stages of
Christianity.

The schisms of the middle ages and especially the protestant reformation enthused and instigated
clashes and conflicts among the various Christian denominations whereas the persecution of
Christians continued by various groups, governments and authorities including the Islamic
Ottoman empire in the form of the Armenian genocide, the Assyrian genocide and the Greek
genocide as well as by the repressive communist forces such as Soviet Union and North Korea.

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ is one of the saddened history of the world religious arena where
the persecution in Lyon in the 2nd century was significant in which Christians were purportedly
slaughtered massively by being thrown to wild beasts under the decree of Roman officials as
they refused to renounce their faith.

The Great persecution conducted during the reign of Diocletian and Galerius at the end of the 3rd
century and the beginning of the 4th century where in the Sassarian Empire in the early stages of
Christianity, Christians and the Christian establishments like monasteries and churches were
demolished, destructed and humiliated.

Christians were persecuted during the middle ages by Persians and Jews in the Roman-Persian
wars wherein Christians had to combat religious discrimination and religious persecution under
Islamic regime of early Islamic revolution.

Native Christian communities are subject to persecution in several Muslim-majority countries


such as Egypt and Pakistan whereas Tamerlane instigated large scale massacres of Christians in
Mesopotamia, Persia, Asia Minor and Syria in the 14th century AD where most of the victims
were indigenous Assyrians and Armenians.

Ottoman Albania and Kosovo were the worst victims of violence against Christianity whereas
the annihilation of Christianity during the French Revolution is a conventional campaign in
France beginning with the onset of the French Revolution in 1789.

The anomalies and atrocities continued against the people of the Christian faith in China,
Mexico, India, Japan, Madagascar, Spain, Nazi Germany, communist Albania, Soviet Union and
other Muslim and non-Muslim countries like Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq,
Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia etc.

On the other hand, the victims of the Christian faith were also considerable and sorrowful in light
of the authentic and impartial history where the Christians remain unmatched and
uncompromising in annihilating and demolishing the non-Christian believers and their religious
establishments.

As well as Christianity was legal, more and more Pagan temples were destroyed; pagan priests
were killed and thousands of pagan believers were slain between 315 AD and 6th century.

As the peasants of Germany were unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes, between 5000 and
11,000 men, women and children were slain in the 13th century.

Besides, in the battle of Belgrade in 1456, 80000 Turks were slaughtered whereas 1019 churches
and 17967 villages were plundered by the knights of the order in the 15th century Poland.

Moreover, in the 11th century, Jerusalem was conquered by the Christians and there were 60000
victims including Jewish, Muslim, men, Women and children where in the battle of Askalan in
the 11th century 200000 believers of other faiths were slaughtered in the name of Lord Jesus
Christ.

In the era of witch hunting (1484-1750), according to modern scholars several hundred thousand
(about 80% female) were burned at the stake or hanged whereas in the 15th century, crusades
against Hussites , thousands were slain.

In the second crusade in 1147, several hundred Jews were slain in different locations in France.

When the 16th century ended, some 200000 Spaniards had moved to the Americas and by that
time probably more than 60, 000, 000 natives were dead where a total of perhaps more than 150
million Indians (of both Americas) were destroyed in the period of 1500 to 1900, as an average
two-thirds by smallpox, and other epidemics that leaves some 50 million were killed directly by
violence, bad treatment and slavery.

In addition, different extermination camps during the second world war run by the catholic
groups and the catholic terror in Vietnam was extremely surprising, terrific and breath-taking
where surprisingly, in just a few months, several hundred thousand civilians were butchered in
1994 in Rwanda massacres, apparently a conflict of the Hutu and the Tutsi ethnic groups
reportedly run and instigated by the catholic groups in Rwanda.

The latest heinous massacre occurred in Sri lanka in April, 2019 incurred a death toll of more
than 350 lives and it is a burning question how long the Christians , the world’s largest religious
community and perhaps the most tortured religious groups have to undergo such types of
barbarism, torture, mass killings, humiliation, oppression and suppression throughout the
centuries.

We obviously know that the role of religion is to save and protect the world and it is religion
which has preserved the world civilization mostly in terms of welfare, ethics, civility, goodness,
religiousness and righteousness.

Today, the world people and communities need to reconsider, re-experiment, rethink and re-
judge the meaning, sense and practice of religion with renewed and rejuvenated consideration,
thinking, experimentation and judgment in the light of wisdom, temperament, goodness and
ethics whereas the leaders of the world religions along with the believers have the utmost
responsibility, accountability and professionalism to initiate inter-religious and inter-faith
discussions among themselves in order to lessen mutual misunderstanding, mistrust, disbelief,
doubt and mismanagement in the socio-economic, geo-political, socio-cultural, national and
international arena.

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