In the United Arab Emirates, one of the countries served by the Anglican Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf, planes are parked March 16 at Dubai International Airport as smoke rises in the background after a drone struck a fuel tank early morning. Photo: Associated Press
[Episcopal News Service] The Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf is one of the geographically largest dioceses in the Anglican Communion, spanning from the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea to Yemen on the edge of the Arabian Peninsula. Much of that region is now engulfed by war.
Since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, even countries that are not parties to the conflict face constant danger and threat of destruction from airstrikes. In many of those countries, Anglicans and their faith communities are among those on heightened alert for Iran’s latest retaliatory bombardments.
“Our diocese has eight countries under attack at the moment,” the Rt. Rev. Sean Semple, bishop of Cyprus and the Gulf, said in a March 19 Zoom interview with Episcopal News Service from his home in Cyprus.
In recent days, Iran has struck energy infrastructure in Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Other attacks have been reported in Bahrain and Iraq. The Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf has a presence in each of those countries, including one church that sustained minor damage in an airstrike.
Semple noted the great pain and peril the war has brought to the neighboring Diocese of Iran and Diocese of Jerusalem, which includes Israel. As he and other Anglicans pray for the people in those dioceses, Semple also asked for support on behalf of the people in his diocese. All people in the region are pushing to survive this turbulent time.
“We would really value their prayers at this time, and we would like them to know there are faithful Anglicans who are maintaining the faith in very difficult circumstances,” Semple said.
Bishop Sean Semple, seen during a March 19 Zoom interview, leads the Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf.
He was joined in the Zoom interview by the Rt. Rev. James Magness, The Episcopal Church’s former bishop suffragan for armed forces and federal ministries. In recent years, Magness has helped launch and promote the American Friends of the Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf, a U.S.-based nonprofit that raises money for the diocese’s ministries across the Middle East.
The diocese’s clergy, Magness said, are ministering to congregations and communities “in some of the most challenging situations you could think of.” The nonprofit continues to collect donations for the diocese on its website.
The diocese has also worked to build ecumenical and interfaith relationships in a region not known for the kind of religious freedom that Americans take for granted. Semple said the governments of these countries generally have policies of religious tolerance, as long as the Anglican churches do not proselytize the mostly Muslim native populations. Instead, the Anglican congregations there are made up of expatriates — typically economic migrants or immigrants who have been allowed into the countries to bolster the workforce.
Most of the diocese’s worship services are celebrated in English, though some reflect the diverse languages of the worshipers, many of whom are originally from India, Southeast Asia and Africa.
For a long time in these Middle Eastern countries, “there has been a Christian presence that is tolerated, that is generally respected,” Semple said. “We have to equally respect our hosts.”
The diocese is part of the region’s Anglican Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East, which has been beset by violence for the past three weeks, amid U.S. and Israeli bombardment of Iran and Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel and U.S. military bases. The Israeli military’s attacks on Iran have included strikes in Lebanon, where Israel says it is targeting the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia.
“The situation here in the Middle East has been very difficult,” Archbishop Hosam Naoum said in a video statement March 5 to the Episcopal Parish Network conference. Naoum is bishop of the Diocese of Jerusalem and primate of the region’s Anglican province.
Naoum’s travel has been curtailed as he and other Anglican leaders in his diocese shelter during air raids and tend to their shell-shocked communities. Many in Semple’s diocese report similar experiences of life during wartime.
Semple told ENS he was recently on a Zoom call with the leaders of one of the diocese’s congregations. He declined to say where. “During the middle of our meeting, there was an audible boom,” he said. “Basically, they were under attack. Missiles were getting through the air defenses there and were landing nearby.”
Semple suggested ending the meeting so the local leaders could focus on their safety, but they insisted all would be fine as long as they moved away from windows. The meeting continued, with some sheltering in bathrooms, and no one was hurt.
A similar scenario sometimes plays out at worship services. “People are still coming to church,” Semple said, and if worshipers receive phone alerts about airstrikes during the services, they move toward the center of the worship space until the danger is over.
“That’s amazing,” he said. “There are people in a war zone with missiles raining down, and they’re still coming to church.”
Other congregations have chosen to move services online. Semple emphasized the online Evening Prayer offered daily by St. Christopher’s Cathedral in Bahrain at 6 p.m. local time (11 a.m. Eastern). The service is open to the world, he said, so all Anglicans are invited to join the livestream and show their support from wherever they live.
At the same time, some residents feel increasing trauma and psychological toll the longer the war drags on and the threat of airstrikes remains on people’s minds, Semple said. “There is, of course, grave concern: How long is this going to continue? Will the defenses hold for much longer? And no one has any clear answers.”
Despite that uncertainty, Semple said diocesan leaders and congregations are offering practical help to people whose lives have been shaken by the war, including those displaced or stranded. Anglicans are “people of love,” he said, and that drives the church’s ministry.
“And we’re people of hope. We’re doing whatever we can to live out the principles of a society where people of different faiths can, not just tolerate one another, but understand one another and work positively and productively together in society.”
– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.