Aramaic Herald

Uganda I am planning a week long mission trip to Uganda. I have contacts there-Ugandan soldiers that I served with during the war. Please pray for me as I prepare from this journey.

"Christ's Language: Spiritual Insight from the Aramaic Language" This is the title of a book I am writing to publish on Nook. I hope to have in done before the end of October.

The Death of Muammar Khadaffi Qadaffi deserved to die for his crimes against humanity, especially in the Lockerby bombing in which 200 people were killed. However it was disturbing to watch a frenzied crowd drag an old man out of a sewage pipe and beat an old man to death while shouting "Allahu Akhbar!" Now we see the Al Qaida takeover of Libya unfold. Obama spent one billion dollars of our money to bring Al Qaida into power in Libya in an undeclared war. However, his death may serve as a warning to others. Perhaps, Mr. Assad, the dictator of Syria, is considering the possibility that he, like Qhadafi, may find himself, crying out "my sons, please to not kill me!" Then being beaten to death and strapped to the hood of the car and then paraded around the city. And somewhere in the chaos someone shot him in the head, to make sure he was dead. In the video I saw it looked to me that he was beaten to death by a mob.

The President of Afghanistan threatens war against the United States ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Afghanistan would support Pakistan in case of military conflict between Pakistan and the United States, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in an interview to a private Pakistani TV channel broadcast on Saturday. "God forbid, If ever there is a war between Pakistan and America, Afghanistan will side with Pakistan," he said in the interview to Geo television. "If Pakistan is attacked and if the people of Pakistan needs Afghanistan's help, Afghanistan will be there with you."

Islamic Sharia Law Declared Source of Libyan Legislation (AP October 23) The transitional government leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil set out a vision for the post-Gadhafi future with an Islamist tint, saying that Islamic Sharia law would be the "basic source" of legislation in the country and that existing laws that contradict the teachings of Islam would be nullified. In a gesture that showed his own piety, he urged Libyans not to express their joy by firing in the air, but rather to chant "Allahu Akbar," or God is Great. He then stepped aside and knelt to offer a brief prayer of thanks. "This revolution was looked after by God to achieve victory," he told the crowd at the declaration ceremony in the eastern city of Benghazi, the birthplace of the uprising against Gadhafi began.

"Moderate" Sharia Law I heard Rush Limbaugh on the radio say that our worthless liberal media was now describing Sharia law as "moderate." I thought he was exaggerating as he often does. That evening I was reading the news and made the unpleasant discovery that was Mr. Limbaugh was saying was unfortunately true. There is nothing moderate about Sharia law. The liberals media annoyed me until they started actually started to actively use their broadcasts to campaign for Obama back in 2008. Since then, I have viewed them as evil and extremely dangerous-and unfortunately powerful-they managed to get their man in the White House.

"All Troops out of Iraq by the end of the Year" or "Is Obama an Iranian Agent?"

Obama stood by and watched as the Iranians were slaughtered when they struggled to establish freedom. He made sure there that the pro-democracy movement there failed. (But he supported the Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Egypt and the Marxist "Occupy Wall Street" uprising.) Obama allowed the radical Islamist "Al Sadr" to return to Iran. Now, we are giving Iraq to Iran. This means that the territory of Iraq is going to double and Iran will control all of Iraq's oil wealth. This is what the American people wanted when they voted for Obama. I think it is very curious how that Obama's policies benefit the Mullah's in Iran.

The Baptist Tradition Recently, the Southern Baptist Convention put it up for a vote to change the name of the denomination. Both "Southern" and "Baptist" are to go-if the supporters of this resolution can pull it off-which I find doubtful. Now the man who introduced the resolution stated that he is a proud Southerner but feels that there are aspects of this title that we should move away from. I think he is very wrong. The fundamental problem is historical revisionism, which is anti-Christian polemics, and it is false. But Christians believe the anti-Christian propaganda. Let me give you an example about how we are being lied to. When I was a little boy, I lived in Tennessee. The "Trail of Tears" ran through the Nashville area in which I lived. The trail of tears is the path the Cherokees took when they were exiled to Oklahoma by President Andrew Jackson. Now, I agree that this was a wrong thing to do. But the historical narrative was that the Cherokees were victims. Just recently, the Cherokee Nation became embroiled in a controversy. "Black Cherokees" descendants of African Slaves owned by the Cherokee Nation were banished from the tribe. The US Government condemned this action. I don't agree with it-but I feel that the sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation should be respected-they have the right to determine who belongs to the tribe and who doesn't. I never heard of Cherokee owning slaves. I talked to a Cherokee and he said that the Cherokee treated their slaves very well. Yeah, right. That is what pro-slavery forces said before the Civil War. And I am sure it was true. First, slaves were property and an investment. Beating them and torturing them probably didn't occur often and when it did, it was sensationalized by abolitionist forces. (I can imagine pro-Slavery forces argued that slaves only took the jobs Americans were unwilling to do.) Abolitionists sometimes admitted that slaves were treated well (many were probably better off than many impoverished Anglos-slaves were provided with food, shelter and clothing that many poor whites had to struggle for). Abolitionists would argue-OK, many slaves are treated well-but that doesn't matter because they are human beings and a human being should never be considered property of another person. And that is true. So, we see the historical record has been tweaked to serve and agenda of the left. Cherokees are victims and blacks are victims, so we are going to white-wash their history. Baptists have a proud history-and we shouldn't give into political correctness but celebrate our heritage and our message-the Good New of Jesus Christ that God loves and Christ died for everyone, including Cherokees, Anglos and African Americans.

The Jewish Roots of the Early Church Fathers Part One

I started reading a book on the history of Western Civilization. In the preface, written by a different author, (the book had several authors), it stated that history doesn't repeat itself. (I was arguing with a pro-Muslim professing Christians. I said that Muslims invaded Europe several times and that we should learn from history. He argued that history doesn't repeat itself. If it was true that history doesn't repeat itself, Islam is an exception because it is a living political entity that has survived 1400 years-and its goals and agenda of global domination, hasn't changed.) Interestingly, the first chapter, speaking of Sumer, mentioned a barbarian invasion and said that we would see the same pattern of events during the decline of the Roman Empire. So, in a sense the author was arguing (a different author than the writer of the preface) that history in a sense, repeats itself. Another thing that the author of the preface said which wasn't entirely true was that the Jews were blamed for the Black Death. I had been reading another book that claimed that priests preached that God had sent the Plague to punish Europe for its sins. I also read that some people thought that cats were spreading the plague so they exterminated them-which worsened the problem, since the true culprits were the rats and mice, and the cats were keeping their population down. The Black Plague extended over one hundred years and spread over a large area. Now I am sure that over that time and throughout that area that some people somewhere suspected the Jews were the cause, but I think that the blanket statement "Jews were blamed for the Black Plague" is simplistic and misleading. What we have here is Jewish anti-Christian polemics. Some Jews passionately hate Christianity and their attack and vilify it. What this is is propaganda. Michael Brown is a Messianic Jew. He wrote a book chronicling Christian anti-Semitism and entitled it "Our Hands are Stained with Blood." Well, the same amount of anti-Semitism can be found throughout Islamic history. But there are very few books on that issue for reasons described above.

But, what needs to be remembered as well is Jewish and Christian cooperation. The first printed Hebrew Bible was a joint effort of Christians and Jews. The Jewish people probably would not have been able to have done it without Christian benefactors. Why the stress on the negative relations and total ignorance about what Christians and Jews have accomplished together. People also need to realize that a lot of Jewish literature has been preserved by Christians. Such as the Book of Maccabees. The Jewish version, an Aramaic tractate called Megollith Antioches, is obviously derived from the Book of Maccabees and is full of historical errors. So, important Jewish literature was preserved by Christians and not Jews. The Ethiopic Orthodox Church preserved the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees. There are many other examples.

Another important thing that Christians have done is to preserve the text of the Old Testament of Scripture. There are some mistakes in the traditional Hebrew Masoretic texts. But, we can arrive at the original reading by ancient Christian translations of the "Hebrew Scriptures." This includes the Greek Septuagent (actually translated by Jews but preserved by Christians), the Latin Vulgate, translated by Jerome with assistance by rabbis, and the Syriac Aramaic Peshitta, translated from the Hebrew by Messianic Jews but preserved by Aramaic Christians. These versions of the Old Testament preserved by Christians are an invaluable witness to the original text.

Foolishness of General Petreaus by "F. Rosenzwieg Lives"

"If you watch the cable news networks, you will see mechanics galore blowing hot air about this or that foreign policy issue or crisis of the day. Most come from a military, academic or diplomatic background. Sadly, the vast majority of this ilk of talking heads have shockingly little knowledge of the cultural, social, religious and historical contexts pertaining to their opinions on a given topic. A perfect example of a master mechanic is Gen. Patreaus, who has no real understanding of the thoroughgoing anti-Western mindset and supremacist worldview of Islamism, but is nonetheless lionized by the neocons as an American hero, when his vaunted tactics (cointerinsurgency doctrine instead of anti-terrorism) are ineffectual and likely have aided America's arch enemy in the greater Middle East, Iran." Amen

Sharia Law for Non-Muslims By Dr. Bill Warner Islam is a political system with its own body of laws called Sharia. Sharia law is based on entirely different principles than our laws. Many of these laws concern the non-Muslim. What does Sharia law mean for the citizens of this state? How will this affect us? What are the long-term effects of granting Muslims the right to be ruled by Sharia, instead of our laws? Each and every demand that Muslims make is based on the idea of implementing Sharia law in America. Should we allow any Sharia at all? Why? Why not? How can any political or legal authority make decisions about Sharia law if they do not know what it is? Is this moral? The answers to all of these questions are found in this book. About the Author: Bill Warner holds a PhD in physics and math. He has been a university professor businessman, and applied physicist. Dr. Warner s training in scientific theory and mathematics shaped how he analyzed Islamic doctrine. The first step was realizing that the Islamic texts had been made deliberately difficult to read and comprehend. A program, the Trilogy Project, was created to strip away the confusion in the texts. It became clear that Islam is not constructed on the same civilizational principles as the rest of the world. Simple statistical methods revealed that dualism and submission were the foundational principles of Islamic doctrine. Dr. Warner founded the Center for the Study of Political Islam (CSPI) and is its director. He has produced a dozen books, including a Koran, a biography of Mohammed and a summary of the political traditions of Mohammed. He also developed the first self-study course on Political Islam.

How Civilization Die (and why Islam is dying too) by David Goldman Thanks to collapsing birthrates, much of Europe is on a path of willed self-extinction. The untold story is that birthrates in Muslim nations are declining faster than anywhere else—at a rate never before documented. Europe, even in its decline, may have the resources to support an aging population, if at a terrible economic and cultural cost. But in the impoverished Islamic world, an aging population means a civilization on the brink of total collapse— something Islamic terrorists know and fear. Muslim decline poses new threats to America, challenges we cannot even understand, much less face effectively, without a wholly new kind of political analysis that explains how desperate peoples and nations behave. In How Civilizations Die, David P. Goldman—author of the celebrated "Spengler" column read by intelligence organizations worldwide—reveals how, almost unnoticed, massive shifts in global power are remaking our future. Goldman reveals: How extinctions of peoples, cultures, and civilizations are not unthinkable—but certain, How for the first time in world history, the birthrate in the West has fallen below replacement level, Why birthrates in the Muslim world are falling even faster, Why the "Arab Spring" is the precursor of much more violent change in the Islamic world, Why looming demographic collapse may encourage Islamic terrorists to "go for broke", How the United States can survive the coming world turmoil. The title of Goldman's book is How Civilizations Die, but the addendum, And Why Islam is Dying Too, may be more important. For there is almost no awareness that the Muslim world is following in the footsteps of western civilization. Indeed, a popular narrative among those who seek to revive Europe has it that Muslims will soon rule the continent. But while European Christianity eventually lost the fight with modernity, Islam has fared worse. Iran proves illustrative. "An educated twenty-five year old Iranian woman today probably grew up in a family of six or seven children, but will bear only one child." As of 2010, Iran's fertility rate stands at 1.7 children per woman. Decadence has enveloped the nation; drug use is rampant, and a sizable portion of the women work willingly as prostitutes. Paradoxically, this makes the Islamic world more dangerous, at least in the short term: "For in their despair, radical Muslims who can already taste the ruin of their culture believe that they have nothing to lose."

I have noticed in my travels that there is a decline in birthrates in certain Arab countries. Still, Egypt (or perhaps Cairo) is over-populated. Also, there is the Arab world and the Islamic world-they aren't the same thing. Also, you have the Middle East (which includes non-Arab Persia and large Kurdish minorities) and the rest of the Islamic world.(In Syria, it seems that the population of Kurds is exploding while the number of Arabs declines.) I see the eruption of Islamic violence spilling out of the Middle East and encompassing the world in what will be a major global war-the Last Jihad-which, I hope and I expect the Muslims to loose, but at great cost to the entire world in death and devastation.

Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025? by Patrick J. Buchanan America is disintegrating. The "one Nation under God, indivisible" of the Pledge of Allegiance is passing away. In a few decades, that America will be gone forever. In its place will arise a country unrecognizable to our parents. This is the thrust of Pat Buchanan's Suicide of a Superpower. The author traces the disintegration to three historic changes: America's loss of her cradle faith, Christianity; the moral, social, and cultural collapse that have followed from that loss; and the slow death of the people who created and ruled the nation. America was born a Western Christian republic, writes Buchanan, but is being transformed into a multiracial, multicultural, multilingual, multiethnic stew of a nation that has no successful precedent in the history of the world. Where once we celebrated the unity, the melting pot and shared experience, that the Depression and World War gave us, our elites today proclaim, "Our diversity is our greatest strength!"—even as racial, religious, and ethnic diversity are tearing nations to pieces. Rejecting the commitment to a God-given equality of rights for all as inadequate, our government is engaged in the manic pursuit of equality of rewards, as it seeks to erect an egalitarian utopia that has never before existed. Less and less do we Americans have in common. More and more do we fight over religion, morality, politics, history, and heroes. And as our nation disintegrates, our government is failing in its fundamental duties, unable to defend our borders, balance our budgets, or win our wars. Review by Father Charles Erlandson: Pat begins in his Introduction with a warning from Soviet Russia: that America is no longer truly a nation, which he defines as "a people of a common ancestry, culture, and language who worship the same God, revere the same heroes, cherish the same history, celebrate the same holidays, [and] share the same music, poetry, art, literature." Pat's thesis is clear throughout the book: America is disintegrating before our eyes. "What happened to the country we grew up in?" It's a question that I, as someone born in 1960 and someone who shares Pat's Christian beliefs, can identify with. Pat begins his argument in Chapter 1 with an economic argument. I heartily agree with his assessment that our debt is a huge problem and that we have, unfortunately, become a "food stamp nation." I also share his misgivings about the role of The Fed in leading to a weakening of the American economy. The most important statement Pat makes in Chapter 1 is that "the failure of our system is rooted in a societal failure." Pat turns to "The Death of Christian America" in Chapter 2. Like it or not, this is the root of all of the momentous changes in America in the past several decades. Whether you hate or love the loss of the Christian identity of America, this transformation is the cause of all the others: to a large degree religion creates culture. It's clear from what Pat writes here and what others have written elsewhere that America saw herself as a distinctly Christian nation until recent decades. In Chapter 2, Pat gives but some of the many measures of how we are now much less a Christian nation, from the prayers at Obama's inauguration to the relative collapse of evangelical Christianity to the disintegration of The Episcopal Church. Pat then gives some measure of how the "death of God has blown up our decent and civil society." The loss of a Christian American identity has not only created many social ills but has also precipitated what have been called the "culture wars." I teach a class on Worldviews, in which I try to help my students see precisely the kinds of connections Pat makes for us. Most Americans only deal with individual issues about which they have feelings and are unable to articulate the theology and philosophy that are the foundations of their beliefs. Once again, Pat leaves us with a powerful and succinct summary of the point he's making: "the cycle is inescapable: when the faith dies, the culture dies, the civilization dies, and the people die."Chapter 3 gives us a close up of the Crisis in Catholicism, as one particular measure of the increasing impotence of Christianity in America. This includes not only the disbelief of American Catholics and the decline in the numbers of priests, nuns, etc. but also the cultural bias so many have against Catholics. My sense is that this is because Roman Catholics are the biggest, most prominent church - and because abortion is such a high-order issue for many atheists and nominal Christians. In Chapter 4, Pat deals with The End of White America. He presents some attention-getting statistics from the New York Times: "whites would become a minority in 2042 and would fall to 46 percent of the population by 2050, comprising only 38 percent of U.S. population under 18." I can see the growth of the Hispanic population in the U.S. as a potentially positive thing. After all, as Philip Jenkins points out in "The Next Christendom," Hispanics are often devout Roman Catholics. But some of the facts that Pat presents has made me have to reconsider what the growth of illegitimacy, the allegiance of many Hispanics to Mexico, and other factors means for America's future. Chapters 5-10 are necessary ingredients for understanding why Pat Buchanan and others fear the ultimate disintegration of America as we've known it. The push for equality of outcome, the cult of diversity, a nation that doesn't replenish its population and other disintegrating forces all lend strong support to Pat's overall thesis. Pat's final note is a weak one. I agree with him that we should reclaim a Christian culture and traditional religion and morality. However, Pat offers no real advice on how we can do this! If he's right (and I think he is) that culture follows religion, then he should have offered more advice on precisely this point. In spite of a number of limitations I've mentioned, "Suicide of a Superpower" is a provocative, important, and well-written prophesy of where America seems to be headed.

The way we are headed I don't believe America will survive to 2020! I hated Phillip Jenkins book "The Lost History of Christianity" in which he defended Muslim genocide of Christians. It was shocking and disgusting. I have no use for Phillip Jenkins. Pat Buchanan is an anti-Semite and pro-Muslim, so I don't agree with everything he says-he also opposes the troops and the war against radical Islamic terror. I think that by voting for Obama, America voted for its own demise and set events in motion from which there is no turning back. I think that Mark Steyn in his book "After America: Prepare for Armageddon" is correct. These changes and crises are being felt now-not in the 2040s and 2050s!

Islam's Global War on Christianity by Patrick Poole in American Thinker July 5, 2007 From Nigeria to Indonesia, Christians are under siege in virtually every single country in the Muslim world, the victims of countless acts of discrimination, depredation, brutality, and murder that are so widespread and systematic that it can rightfully be called the new Holocaust. This time, however, the perpetrators of this Holocaust aren't wearing swastikas, but kufi skull caps and hijabs. Some of the oldest Christian communities in the world are subject to relentless attack and teeter on the brink of extinction at the hands of the "Religion of Peace": Palestinian Christians in Gaza and the West Bank; Assyrian, Syriac and Chaldean Christians in Iraq; Coptic Christians in Egypt; Evangelical and Orthodox Christians in Eastern Ethiopia and Eritrea; Armenian Orthodox Christians in Turkey; and Maronite Christians in Lebanon. Several of these communities date back to the beginning decades of Christianity and all have weathered wave after wave of Islamic persecution for centuries and more, but in the very near future some will simply cease to exist. In our lifetime, the only trace of their past existence will be in footnotes in history books (and probably only Western history books at that). Meanwhile, we in the West hear much from radical Islam's apologists how the US is engaged in a war against Islam citing of our military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are lectured on the inviolability of the Muslim ummah and justifications of defensive jihad. But an extensive search this past weekend of the websites of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, the Islamic Circle of North America, the Muslim American Society, the Muslim Student Association, the Fiqh Council of North America, and the Muslim Public Affairs Committee - the most visible institutional representatives of Islam in America - found not a single mention or reference of the religious persecution of Christians by their Islamic co-religionists, thereby making them tacit co-conspirators in the Final Solution to the Christian problem in the Muslim world. The global war on Christianity by Islam is so massive in size and scope that it is virtually impossible to describe without trivializing it. Inspired by Muslim Brotherhood ideology and fueled by billions of Wahhabi petrodollars, the religious cleansing of Christians from the Muslim world is continuing at a break-neck pace, as the following recent examples demonstrate. (See the blog…)

On the cover is a picture of the Aramaic/Chinese "Nestorian" monument.

Stephen Missick PO Box 882, Shepherd, TX 77371 www.aramaicherald.blogspot.com

Iraq: In the current issue of the American Spectator, Doug Bandow observes that centuries of dhimmitude have left Christians in the war-torn country without any means of self-defense. Washington policymakers have refused to lend assistance for fear of showing partiality, despite the murder of hundreds of Iraqi Christians, the kidnapping and torture of Christian clerics, the repeated bombings of Christian churches, the torching of Christian businesses, and the flight of close to half of the entire Iraqi Christian population since April 2003. Those who remain have been subject to the imposition of shari'a by the Shi'ite Mahdi Army and Sunni militias (al-Qaeda doesn't bother with such niceties, preferring to murder them immediately instead), including the recent published threat in Mosul of killing one member of every Christian family in that city for Christian women not wearing the hijab and continuing to attend school. (Be sure to remember that the next time an Islamist apologist claims that the hijab is a symbol of women's liberation.)

Egypt: Journalist Magdi Khalil chronicles in a new report ("Another Black Friday for the Coptic Christians of Egypt") the campaign of violence directed against Christian Copts almost weekly immediately following Friday afternoon Muslim prayers. Inspired by Islamist imams preaching religious hatred in mosques all over the country and protected by government officials willing to look the other way, rampaging mobs of Muslims set upon Christians churches, businesses and individuals, from Alexandria to cities all the way up the Nile. Coptic holy days are also favorite times for Muslim violence, which the Egyptian media likes to describe as "sectarian strife" - as if it were actually a two-sided affair.

Gaza: Ethel Fenig recently noted here at American Thinker ("More Gaza Multiculturalism") the systematic destruction of churches and desecration of Christian religious objects by Jihadia Salafiya following the HAMAS takeover of the Gaza Strip from their Fatah rivals and the imposition of Islamic rule. The head of Jihadia Salafiya told reporter Aaron Klein that any suspected Christian missionary activity in the area will be "dealt with harshly". (Ynet News)

Saudi Arabia: According to the Arab News, a Sri Lankan Christian man barely escaped with his life in late May when he was found working in the city of Mecca, Islam's holiest city, which is officially barred to non-Muslims. In December, an Indian man had been sentenced to death for accidentally entering the city, but was spared after the Indian embassy made an urgent appeal to the Saudi Supreme Court.

Pakistan: In Islamabad, Younis Masih was sentenced last month to death under the country's frequently invoked blasphemy laws, which were also used against six Christian women suspended from a nursing school after they were accused of desecrating a Quran. And as protests against Salman Rushdie's knighthood raged, a Muslim mob armed with guns, axes and sticks attacked Christians worshipping in a Salvation Army church in Bismillahlpur Kanthan. (Associated Press; United Press International; Mission News Network)

Bangladesh: Almost a dozen Christian converts in the Nilphamari district were beaten last week by Muslim villagers wielding bricks and clubs, and threatened with death if they did not leave town immediately. Local hospitals subsequently refused them treatment. Christians in the area have also been prevented from using the only potable water well in the area after a pronouncement by religious authorities at the mosque in Durbachari. This came after 42 former Muslims were baptized as Christians in the local river on June 12. (Compass News Direct)

Malaysia: Government authorities demolished a church building on June 4^th in Orang Asli settlement in Gua Musang in Ulu Kelantan, despite prior government approval of the project. The church was built on donated property after the entire village had converted to Christianity just a few months ago. Also in late May, the Malaysian high court ruled that Muslims who convert to Christianity must appeal to the religious shari'a courts to officially be deregistered as Muslims and reregistered as a Christians. (Journal Chretien; Associated Press)

Indonesia: Agence France Presse
reported last month on an attack by the Islamic Anti-Apostate Movement, who stormed a church service in a Protestant church in the West Java town of Soreang. The AFP report notes that more than 30 churches have been forced to close in West Java and dozens more throughout the country in recent years due to Muslim violence, churches which were among the few spared during the outbreak of hostilities during 1997-1998, where hundreds of Christian churches were burned to the ground and never rebuilt.

Turkey: The Christian community is still reeling from the torture and ritual slaughter of three Protestants at a Christian publishing house in Malatya in April by an armed Islamist gang, which was preceded by the murder last year of Catholic priest Andrea Santoro in Trabzon and the assassination of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in Istanbul in January. An additional six men allegedly associated with the same Muslim gang were arrested on May 30^th for plotting an attack on a Christian pastor in Diyarbakir. (Lebanon Daily Star; ADKNI)

Cyprus: The Cyprus Mail
reports that during a meeting last month in Rome the Archbishop of the Cypriot Greek Orthodox Church pleaded with the Vatican Secretary of State for the Pope's assistance to pressure Turkish authorities in restoring and repairing Christian sites and churches in areas occupied since the invasion of the island nation by Turkey in July 1974 and the ethnic cleansing of 160,000 Greek Christian Cypriots.