While the various Muslim sects, groups, tribes, factions and religions are battling it out and slaughtering each other in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt the historic Christian communities in these countries are also disappearing claims  a top Chaldean bishop.   “We are in the process of disappearing, just as the Christians in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and North Africa have disappeared. And even in Lebanon they now constitute only a minority,” Archbishop Yousif Mirkis, head of the Chaldean Catholic Archdiocese of Kirkuk, told the Catholic charity group Aid to the Church in Need. Iraqi Christians, despite being a minority, have long been important to the country’s social fabric by operating many schools, hospitals, and charities, in addition to their disproportionate representation as engineers, doctors, writers, and journalists. (snip) Before 2003, it was estimated that around 130,000 Christians lived in Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest...(Read Full Post)