Christian persecution is as real today as it’s ever been. Our brothers and sisters suffering it need protection and rescue. They also need prayer. The International Day of Prayer is meant to give that to them.

Christians in the United States and Europe must continue to speak up for our Iraqi brothers and sisters in Christ. We must act now, or the oldest Christian community in the world could vanish during our time.

The Coptic Orthodox Church’s liturgy featuring daily readings from the Synaxarium about celebrated saints and martyrs encourage the faithful to suffer even unto death.

The Burmese military is the primary perpetrator of violence against Rohingya. Villages in Maungdaw township on the border with Bangladesh are almost completely empty because Rohingya fled the brutal violence. The United Nations is calling it a textbook case of ethnic cleansing, and Human Rights Watch believes it may constitute crimes against humanity.

Ian Johnson’s The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao provides a picture of the vibrant and varied religious faith in China, demonstrating that even after Mao Zedong’s campaign against religion and the devastation of the Cultural Revolution, religion has not only reemerged in some parts of China but is thriving.

While the Daesh genocide perpetrated against Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities is an extreme example of religious persecution, it sheds light on the perils religious minorities have been encountering more generally in the Middle East.

Despite the fact that Syria and Iraq have been struggling with humanitarian crises, the reality of Christian minorities in both countries may be worlds apart.

It is imperative that we understand that a Middle East devoid of Christians and other religious minorities would be a tragedy—a tragedy not only for Christians and others who have lived in the Middle East for centuries, but a tragedy for an outward-looking and tolerant Islam.

Islamic State drove them out of their villages and abused them for their faith in Jesus, but some Christians are returning to places like Queregosh and replacing the crosses ISIS destroyed.