“If we are attacked because of our common baptism, maybe we should also live this common baptism,” said Father Nikodemus Schnabel, abbot of the Dormition Abbey in Jerusalem. / Credit: “EWTN News Nightly” screenshot

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 19, 2024 / 14:47 pm (CNA).

Although interreligious dialogue among the Holy Land’s Jews, Muslims, and Christians has suffered as a result of the intensification of armed conflict in the region, a Benedictine abbot in Jerusalem said the situation has also led to tighter bonds among the Christians of different backgrounds who remain there.

“Our enemies have a more ecumenical thinking than we because they don’t divide us by denomination, they hate us because we’re Christians,” said Father Nikodemus Schnabel, abbot of the Dormition Abbey in Jerusalem, who has frequently been the target of spitting attacks by Orthodox Jews in the area.

Schnabel, a German citizen who was told by the German government to leave Israel because of the insecurity there, has not only decided to stay but also has begun to organize weekly Sunday lunches for members of different Christian rites and communities in Jerusalem, including Catholics, Armenians, Syrian Orthodox, Anglicans, and others.

The gatherings provide a time for Jerusalem’s diverse Christian community to share their struggles and encourage one another to persevere. In the words of Schnabel, the persecution Christians suffer serves as “a call to us to say, ‘OK, if we are attacked because of our common baptism, maybe we should also live this common baptism, this common vocation as Christians, more authentic.’”

“We stay voluntarily in this ocean of suffering as islands of hope,” Schnabel told EWTN Vatican Bureau Chief Andreas Thonhauser in an interview, aired below on “EWTN News Nightly.”

Data released by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics in December 2023 reported 187,900 Christians living in Israel, and the number has likely declined even further since then.