The Islamic State has converted the most important church in Mosul, dedicated to St. Ephrem, to a mosque in order to celebrate the capture of the city a year ago. The cross that soared on the dome had already been uprooted, desks and furnishings had already been sold. The NGO "Aid to the Church in Need" reveals that the Islamic State has desecrated 45 churches in Mosul. All of the 60,000 Christians living in Mosul have fled, and the only trace left behind is imprinted on their homes: the infamous black "N", the sign with which Isis has branded the "Nasrani ', the followers of the Nazarene. "Property confiscated by the Islamic State," reads the writing on the wall.
In London, Christians have not been driven away from their homes. Yet, over 10,000 churches have already been closed in the United Kingdom and 4,000 will be shut down by 2020. It is the time of the investigation featured by the British weekly The Spectator, whose cover: "The Last Christian", showed an old lady as the only faithful congregant in a magnificent cathedral. "It is often said that the congregations of Britain are shrinking, but this does not come close to expressing the level of the disaster that is facing Christianity in this country," read the opening words of the Spectator story. “It will come to an end in 2067”.
Within a generation the number of church goers will be three times lower than that of Muslims who go to mosque on Fridays.
Between 2001 and 2011, the number of Christians born in Britain fell by 5.3 million: that is, 10,000 every week. "Our cathedrals will survive, but it will not be true cathedrals because they will not have bishops," says The Spectator. Anglicanism will disappear from Britain by 2033.
These projections are based on the best available statistics. Between 2012 and 2014, the percentage of Britons who identify themselves as Anglicans declined from 21 percent to 17 percent - a decrease of 1.7 million people. In the same period, the number of Muslims in Britain has grown by almost one million, according to a survey by the respected NatCen Social Research Institute. Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, the most outspoken of all the others, has just warned that the English Christianity “in a generation will be extinct”.
The study "Religious Trends" explains that the church-goers in the United Kingdom are disappearing so fast that within a generation the number will be "three times lower than that of Muslims who go to mosque on Fridays."
It is a religious revolution which coincides with one of the worst crises ever faced by the church. Christians may become the minority in ten years, while, on the other hand, there is a rapid growth of Muslims. "Christianity is decreasing from generation to generation," according to David Coleman, professor at the University of Oxford. "And 'the opposite for Muslims, including the younger generation which is the more religious of the above". According to many experts, the crisis of the church is an unstoppable phenomenon.
London as Mosul. With one important difference: Iraqi Christians have fled Nineveh so as to not renounce to their faith and submit to Allah, while in the placid UK, disappearing is happening by choice.
In England many churches and cathedrals have become mosques. To name only a few, the Central Mosque of Brent, the New Peckham Mosque and the Mosque of Didsbury in Manchester.
In Cobridge, the Madina mosque, up until two years ago, was a Catholic Church dedicated to St. Peter and property of the Archdiocese of Birmingham. But time was accomplishing what the Islamic State has done with its own fanatic hands in Mosul. The statue of Jesus at the Grange Street Church is already invisible, submerged by grass.