Prayer march for persecuted Christians at Lake Eola

A 2014 Pew Study reports Christians are the most persecuted group in the world. In 2013, a Vatican spokesman reported 100,000 Christians are murdered each year. Churches are regularly burned in Nigeria, Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Iraq. Christian pastors have been jailed and beheaded. 

Austrian human rights advocate and counter-jihadist Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff will be coming to Orlando to participate in a march against Christian persecution on May 17 at Lake Eola Park.

Noting that radical Muslims typically use the canard, “first the Saturday people, then the Sunday people,” Sabaditsch-Wolff stated “Perhaps it is time for the Saturday people to defend the imperiled Sunday people.”

That was the subject of a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by the Hon. Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, The Middle East War on Christians. Ambassador Prosor drew attention to the plight of ancient Christian communities in the Middle East and elsewhere threatened with extinction caught between warring radical Islamic extremist groups and ruling autocrats in the Middle East. He revealed that the only country in the region where Christian populations have increased is Israel. Further, Orthodox Christians in Israel have rejected the label of Arab Christians as inappropriate and now unabashedly have signed up as loyal citizens to serve in the IDF.

Christians are losing their lives, liberties, businesses and their houses of worship across the Middle East. It is little wonder that native Christians have sought refuge in neighboring countries—yet in many cases they find themselves equally unwelcome. Over the past 10 years, nearly two-thirds of Iraq’s 1.5 million Christians have been driven from their homes. Many settled in Syria before once again becoming victims of unrelenting persecution. Syria’s Christian population has dropped from 30 percent in the 1920s to less than 10 percent

Today, Israel is the only country in the Middle East with a growing Christian population. Its Christian community has increased from 34,000 in 1948 to 140,000 today; in large measure because of the freedoms Christians are afforded.

This local, yet international march will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the east end of Lake Eola Park, at the Forum opposite Panera Bread. It will proceed along the south end of Lake Eola on Rosalind, concluding at Trinity Lutheran Church, 123 E. Livingston. At 8 p.m., international speakers from Europe, Egypt, Syria and Pakistan will share their personal accounts of Christian persecution.