wfn.org | American Nun in Jerusalem Appeals to Orthodox Women

[JerusalemRelOrgs@aol.com]

For further information contact:
Mother Agapia
Russian Orthodox Convent
Jerusalem (Bethany)

or

Ms. Nikki Stephanopoulos
8 E. 79th St.
New York, NY 10021
Tel: 212.570.3530
Fax: 212.744.0215
Email: Nikki@goarch.org

JERUSALEM, April 24, 2002--A U.S. born Russian Orthodox nun, living and 
serving in Jerusalem, has written a stirring appeal to Orthodox women, 
especially in the United States.

She is Mother Agapia (formerly Sr. Maria Stephanopoulos) , daughter of Rev. 
Robert Stephanopoulos and Greek Orthodox Press Officer Nikki Stephanopoulos.  
Father Stephanopoulos is the Dean of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocesan 
Cathedral in New York.  Mother Agapia's brother is George Stephanopoulos.  
When Sr. Maria was tonsured to the small schema recently she received a new 
name. 

Her message follows:

AN APPEAL To The Orthodox Christian Women Of America 

Dear Sisters, 

I am a nun of the Convent of St. Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem (Gethsemane) and 
am responsible for the administration of the Orthodox School of Bethany, a 
school for Palestinian girls just outside Jerusalem.

We have a small boarding section and care for Orthodox children from Beit 
Jala and Beit Sahour, towns located next to Bethlehem.  Many of the sisters 
of our Convent are from Beit Jala.  I am not spreading propaganda but am 
simply reporting what has been happening to friends and acquaintances of mine 
-- Christian women, women with children, with elderly parents to care for, 
women such as yourself who are now suffering greatly here under siege from 
Israeli forces.

The situation has degenerated here so much, so quickly that I can't possibly 
recount all the horrors going on.  I'll start with the latest event.  Dr. 
Hala K. is an Orthodox Christian woman from Beit Jala.  Her husband, Dr. 
Nasser K. works at the Husseini Hospital in Beit Jala and is a former 
president of the Orthodox Club of Beit Jala.  

A few hours ago I got off the phone with Hala.  She had just returned from a 
clinic her and her husband have in Bethlehem, not far from Manger Square, 
near the Lutheran Church and the Syrian Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary.  
Hala and Nasser had received news that the clinic they operate had been 
damaged by Israeli soldiers, so taking advantage of the fact that the 
Israelis had lifted the curfew for a couple of hours and people were free to 
leave their homes, they raced to the clinic.  They did so even though they 
had to leave their children home alone (Israeli soldiers have entered their 
new home in the middle of the night three times in the last month, once 
stealing all the money from the house, and another time strafing the house 
with gunfire, miraculously only slightly wounding one of their daughters).  

When they arrived at the clinic, what they saw crushed them.  Hala, in a 
voice more full of shock and absolute amazement at man's inhumanity to his 
fellow man than any feelings of revenge or anger, described to me over the 
phone what she found:

The clinic is in a building that houses other professional offices, doctors, 
dentists, lawyers, etc.  As they raced to their offices they could see that 
the doors of all the various offices had been blown open.  They entered their 
clinic, the door had been blown open with some sort of explosive device, the 
waiting room had bullet holes all over the walls, the rooms were in a 
shambles, the soldiers had defecated on the floors and most of the equipment 
had been damaged. 

Most painful of all to Hala (she is trained as a gynecologist and in fact 
when she was first married she had an opportunity to study at Columbia 
University in New York City, but the newlyweds chose to stay in Palestine) 
was that the soldiers had destroyed her ultrasound machine, a machine that 
cost $20,000 and was used in her care for pregnant women.  During the last 
two weeks while the Bethlehem area has been under siege three of Hala's 
patients have delivered their babies - AT HOME, it was impossible for them to 
reach a hospital or for a doctor to reach them because of the Israeli tanks 
and jeeps in their streets. 

Fortunately in her cases the babies and mothers have survived though there 
have been complications.  There are reports that some newborns have died 
during these past two weeks in Bethlehem because they were unable to receive 
medical attention. Nasser and Hala have four children ages 5 to 16.

They now live in a beautiful new home on the eastern side of Beit Jala, near 
Talitha Kumi Lutheran School.  The last time I was able to visit them, about 
one and a half months ago, they were proudly and busily planting flowers and 
shrubs around their new home.  (Over the past year and half their original 
home in the center of Beit Jala near the Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas has 
been peppered with bullet holes, shattered windows and water tanks, and an 
outside staircase blown threw by an Israeli shell. 

Many of the homes on that street have suffered a similar fate. Nasser's 
elderly mother and a single sister are still living in a home in that part of 
Beit Jala, as is the family of three of our boarder girls and the elderly 
mother and a sister of one of our nuns.  For over two weeks now -starting 
Saturday March 30, the day before Western Easter, these people in Beit Jala, 
Beit Sahour and Bethlehem have been confined to their homes, as Israeli tanks 
and jeeps parade the streets. 

 From a number of sources there I heard that two days ago the soldiers 
provisions. Barely half an hour after the time of the supposed lifting of 
announced that people could leave their homes for two hours to try and buy 
area.) 
the curfew the soldiers began shooting tear gas into the people in the market 

I first came to know Hala after her original home which is near to the home 
of one of our nuns was damaged by Israeli gunfire back in October, 2000.  
During the past year and a half I did what I could to help the people of Beit 
Jala.  One project was to help Hala and a number of other Orthodox Christian 
women in the town who had voluntarily devoted their time to establishing an 
after school program for the children in Beit Jala.  They found a building 
they could rent and established a library and an area for games, music and 
arts and crafts activities for the kids. 

They are trying to keep the program going twice a week after school and every 
day during the summer.  During the time of the conflict here it has been hard 
to raise funds to hire a young person to co-ordinate the programs as well as 
pay the rent and fund the activities.  They only ask for five shekels (about 
$1) a month from each child, and often waive the fee for those that can't 
pay.  About 80 children participate in the program.  Needless to say there 
have been no activities for the last month because of the Israeli army 
incursion into Bethlehem.

 I have attached photographs of some of the women involved in the program 
(all have been confined to their homes for the last two weeks, lucky if once 
every two days the Israelis let them step outside for a couple of hours to 
run to a store for food and medicine), as well as some photos of damage done 
over the past year and a half by Israeli troops to homes of people in Beit 
Jala.

Two more bits of information I received today.

I was informed by a friend that a 24 year old Christian woman with a one year 
child was shot dead by Israeli soldiers this morning.  She was the relative 
of a woman we know who runs the Spafford Center, a facility for special 
education, some of our boarders take classes there.

This morning I was able to reach by phone Simon S., a friend from Beit 
Sahour, who has done many construction projects for our Convent and School as 
well as many other Christian institutions in the Jerusalem area.  An Orthodox 
Christian and the father of five children, including a teen-age daughter and 
two teen-age boys (more fluent in Greek than I (!), they attend the Jerusalem 
Patriarchate school in Shepherd's Field and have visited Greece twice), Simon 
is the kind of man that one would describe as "the salt of the earth." 

Besides the work he is hired to do he is always ready at any time to run and 
help any hapless nun who calls him, "Simon, the water pipe broke." "Simon, we 
can't fix the door handle." "Simon," and before you hang up the phone Simon 
is there to help. Not forty years old and as meek a man as you will ever 
meet, Simon was nearly killed during the last Intifada (late 80's to early 
90's) when Israeli soldiers dragged him out of his car and beat him badly. 
His only crime was trying to get home from work, but foolish him, the 
Israelis had said the curfew had already begun and what was he doing driving 
around. After that experience Simon's constant prayer and a hope that he 
often relates to us is that he will live long enough to see all of his 
children reach adulthood (the youngest is four).

Ever the eternal optimist when I spoke to Simon two days ago he was sure that 
things would be better and somehow he would be able to get to Bethany on 
Monday to do some work for us. Simon is scared now. I could only talk to 
Simon on the phone today -- he didn't make it to Bethany today and we don't 
know when he will. He sits huddled in his home in Beit Sahour (Beit Sahour is 
Shepherd's Field-here lived the shepherds who heard the angels announce 
Christ's birth and even today 2000 years later their descendants live in this 
town, men as gentle and hard-working as those shepherds of Christ's time) 
with his wife and children, praying that the Israeli soldiers will not enter 
his house or that some emergency will force him to leave the house. 

He knows to well what can happen. Saud El Hayet is a man like Simon, a kind 
man Simon called him, an Orthodox Christian man with five children from Beit 
Sahour .. .  Saturday Saud got in his car when the Israeli soldiers said the 
curfew had been lifted to try and get some provisions for his family.  As he 
was driving towards his home soldiers were on the road, Saud was scared and 
turned his car from the soldiers - they shot him dead. 

A 60 year old woman, a neighbor witnessed it all, and shocked by the horror 
of the act, died there on the spot. These are women and men just like you or 
I and NOW they are in dire need of your help -- as an Orthodox Christian 
woman living in the Holy Land I appeal to you to use all your resources to 
help them.

Get on the phone and ask your Congressmen and Senators why the United States 
government is backing this invasion of Israeli forces into sovereign areas, 
why so many innocent civilians are being terrorized in their homes, their 
towns and livelihoods being destroyed by the Israeli government all in the 
name of stopping terror?

Ask your representatives why are Israeli forces being allowed to damage 
Christian churches all in the name of fighting terror?  I know for a fact 
that many Palestinians have been seeking refuge in churches, not only the 
Church of the Nativity.  For the most part they are not "terrorists" but 
policemen and parishioners of these churches, husbands and brothers trying to 
defend their homes.

 From information we have, only seven of the men in the Church of the Nativity 
inside the Church.  Men taken in by the clergy because they know that they 
are people only trying to defend their homes from an occupying force.
could be considered dangerous or "wanted men" by Israel.  The majority, both 
Muslim and Christian, are men of the Bethlehem area, well-known to the clergy 

Once this bloody incursion finally ends many here will be in dire financial 
straits, not having work, and having many expenses as they try to rebuild 
their damaged homes, businesses, etc. I hope at that time the Orthodox 
Christian women groups in the US will be generous in providing assistance to 
their fellow Christians in the Holy Land who are suffering tremendously now.

And above all pray.  As I hear from friends from Bethlehem, Ramallah, etc and 
see the wanton destruction that has gone on, I and they have no rational 
explanation for why all this is taking place.  The destruction being carried 
out by the Israeli forces now makes no sense and will certainly not bring 
them any security.  My only comfort is that as I try to stay in contact with 
friends now under siege I marvel at how meek, humble and long-suffering they 
are in the midst of their trials.  I think of F.S., an acquaintance from 
Ramallah, an elderly man now, who is considered the dean of Palestinian 
lawyers, sitting penned in his home, listening in his home that lies just 
around the corner from the main street of Ramallah where his legal offices 
are, listening as the Israeli tanks and helicopters carry out the destruction 
of the town he has lived in for the past fifty years.

And when I call this distinguished, capable man barred by twenty-year old 
soldiers (most likely immigrants from Ethiopia or Russia) from walking the 
streets of the city he has known as home for far longer than those soldiers 
have been alive, he speaks meekly and matter-of-factly: no, no water running, 
just a little left in the tanks, but he is grateful, the Israelis gave them 
two hours to go out for food, though he laments, no fresh bread, the bakeries 
(those not destroyed) had no time to heat their ovens. And in his sweet, 
quiet voice the man who can outwit anyone in court knows no legal argument, 
no rational mind will help now, and he gently finishes our conversation, 
"Thank you for calling habibie (dear one), and pray, all we can do his pray."

So please you too pray for all the good people of Palestine, people that are 
no different than me or you. 

(signed) Mother Agapia

 -end-