Satellite images show the barbaric leveling of Saint Elijah’s Monastery, which is one of the oldest Christian monasteries in the Middle East, built around the 6th century. Saint Elijah’s stood on a hill in the town of Mosul for over 1,400 years, a stalwart reminder that Christianity is much older that Islam.
The Islamic State mandates the total destruction of all holy sites of every religion or culture other than their own. The Caliphate dictates that Islam is the only religion for all humanity.
From The Independent:
The site [Saint Elijah’s Monastery] was recently used as a place of worship for US troops in Iraq, but fell into Isis hands in June 2014. This month, AP reported, satellite images commissioned from the firm DigitalGlobe confirmed what local antiquities experts have feared for some time.“Our Christian history in Mosul is being barbarically leveled,” said Iraq-based Catholic priest Rev Paul Thabit Habib. “We see it as an attempt to expel us from Iraq, eliminating and finishing our existence in this land.”
Since no journalists are able to get access to Islamic State territory, it is only through these satellite images that the discovery of Saint Elijah’s destruction was possible. What is clear is that the terrorists not only used explosives, but later bulldozed to leave nothing but a concrete base.
Image analyst Stephen Wood explained the destruction:
The images showed “that the stone walls have been literally pulver
ized,” Mr Wood said. “Bulldozers, heavy equipment, sledgehammers, possibly explosives turned those stone walls into this field of grey-white dust. They destroyed it completely.”The monastery was destroyed between August and September 2014, two to three months after IS captured Mosul and ordered Christians who had not already fled to leave. — via The Independent
The U.S. Military had commissioned the monastery as a base until the historical value of Saint Elijah’s became known. The army cleared out and, with reverence, held Christian services there on Easter. Roman Catholic US Army chaplain Jeffrey Whorton is inconsolable at the destruction, remembering the Easter Mass there. Chaplain Whorton sums up the feelings of many sickened by Saint Elijah’s obliteration, saying, “Elijah the Prophet must be weeping.”
The Islamic State will stop at nothing to rape and pillage their way across the Middle East. With venom and hatred in their hearts, the terrorists of the Islamic State inflict their Caliphate, destroying all in its path. Saint Elijah’s Monastery is gone, but it will never be forgotten.
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