Head of French charity warns of existential challenges facing Eastern Christians
Monsignor Hugues de Woillemont warns that Eastern Christians face existential threats from migration, economic crisis, and war. He highlights L’Œuvre d’Orient's 170-year history, originally founded as “Œuvre des Écoles d’Orient” in 1856, focusing on education and solidarity. The charity now supports education, healthcare, social assistance, humanitarian relief, and heritage preservation for Christian communities in the East. The organization maintains a field presence through local offices and young volunteers to sustain its mission.
5 months ago
Eastern Christians are confronting three intertwined existential threats—mass migration, economic hardship, and ongoing wars—that jeopardize their historic presence in the Middle East. Monsignor Hugues de Woillemont, director‑general of the French charity L’Œuvre d’Orient, warned that these pressures are accelerating community decline, especially in the Holy Land, and called for concrete solidarity from the global Church and international actors 1.
De Woillemont identified migration as “the greatest challenge today,” noting that dwindling economic and security prospects push ancient communities toward disappearance 1.
He linked broader economic instability to weakened societies, stressing that Christians often bear the brunt of these crises 1.
Ongoing wars, which “Eastern Christians did not choose,” compound the vulnerability of these communities and threaten their ability to remain rooted in their homelands 1.
Since its 1856 founding as “Œuvre des Écoles d’Orient,” the organization now provides education, healthcare, social assistance, humanitarian relief, and heritage preservation 1.
Local offices and young volunteers work to amplify Eastern Christians’ voices to European decision‑makers and international institutions 1.
Education is positioned as a stabilizing force that can curb migration by enabling families to stay in their native regions 1.
De Woillemont urged prayers combined with tangible support for schools, clinics, and social projects 1.
He appealed to Western societies to better understand Eastern Christians and to lobby policymakers for sustained international assistance 1.
Twinning and volunteering programs are promoted as ways to forge lasting connections and impact young participants 1.
The charity anticipates faster population loss unless migration pressures are mitigated 1.
Protecting both tangible sites and “living memory” remains a central, yet increasingly difficult, task 1.
Declining global attention makes it harder to gather the resources needed for ongoing crises, prompting a need to broaden the support base 1.*
Eastern Christians confront existential threats from migration, war, and economic crisis
Eastern Christians today are often described in the language of “existential threat” because their communities can be struck at multiple levels at once: forced migration (people flee to survive), war and persecution (their life and worship are endangered), and economic collapse (work, schools, and local institutions break down). Catholic teaching—especially as applied to the Eastern Churches and to migrants—interprets these crises not only as political or humanitarian problems, but as matters that touch the dignity of the human person, the common good, and the Church’s duty to defend religious freedom and solidarity.
This analysis focuses on five interconnected dimensions, each grounded in Catholic sources:
Catholic teaching does not treat migration as a slogan. It acknowledges that decisions are usually shaped by complex “push-pull” factors, and that the Church’s role is to treat newcomers with love and respect in line with divine and civil law.
Crucially, the Church draws a moral distinction between different kinds of movement. The Catholic framework notes that forced migrants—refugees and asylum seekers—face life-threatening danger or persecution such that “ordinary channels” may be impossible, and therefore the human right to seek protection can be exercised even through irregular means in serious cases.
In Ecclesia in Europa, Pope John Paul II teaches that migration challenges societies and calls for openness within the “universal” vision of the common good, demanding a culture of acceptance that recognizes immigrants’ fundamental rights and keeps solidarity with the less fortunate at the center.
At the same time, that acceptance must respect the norms of law and can require “firm suppression of abuses” by public authorities. In other words, Catholic teaching rejects both:
In the sources provided, the existential aspect is vividly described in the suffering of Christians who emigrate “to save their life” because violent conflict and insecurity make continued life on their land untenable. The 2026 appeal specifically states that even when peace is publicly discussed, “arms continue to shoot,” lands are contested, and Christians emigrate; it also notes that schools may suffer because qualified teachers cannot cross borders to work.
That is a key Catholic insight: displacement is not only a border question; it is a destruction of the conditions that let human dignity and communal religious life endure.
Catholic moral teaching is explicit that war involves lethal force and causes loss of life and hardship even after it ends (homes destroyed, crops ruined, landmines and unexploded munitions remaining). The Church also recognizes the “just war” tradition in a limited way—resisting unjust aggression to defend the common good and protect innocent life—while stressing that the Church’s long history has tried to limit war’s outbreak and regulate how it may be waged.
The Catechism underscores the same direction: because of the evils and injustices war brings, “we must do everything reasonably possible to avoid it,” and the Church prays to be delivered from war.
US bishops similarly emphasize that war is never what it should be: it is a sign that something true to human dignity has failed, and nations must protect the dignity of persons and the right to life by using more effective ways to prevent conflicts and resolve them peacefully.
In the 2022 Holy Land appeal, the suffering of Christians is described as part of the Church’s experience “in the Middle East” and wherever the “freedom to live the faith is trampled.” It names persecution, hostile environments, indifference, and the violence of wars (explicitly including the situation in Ukraine).
In the 2026 appeal, the existential threat is sharpened: arms continue, people die, land is disputed, Christians emigrate, and education can collapse because the normal movement of teachers is blocked.
Catholic theology therefore treats war not merely as geopolitics but as a profound threat to the ordinary conditions for worship, education, family stability, and the continuity of Christian life.
Pope Leo XIV’s address to Aid to the Church in Need ties the struggle for freedom of religion to the possibility of peace at a deeper level than diplomacy. He teaches that religious freedom is not optional; it is rooted in human dignity and is a “cornerstone” of any just society because it safeguards the moral space where conscience can be formed and exercised.
When religious freedom is denied, he warns, communities experience a slow disintegration: fear and suspicion replace dialogue, and oppression breeds violence. Thus, religious freedom is presented as a foundational condition for reconciliation.
The same address explicitly states that the mission of aid is not to abandon persecuted brothers and sisters, but to remember them, stand with them, and work to secure God-given freedoms.
This connects directly to Eastern Churches, which—according to The Catholic East—have historically lived serious ecclesial life “in full seriousness” amid “indescribable suffering and tears,” including situations where Christians lose everything in flight, are taken hostage, or are imprisoned for believing in Jesus Christ.
The 2026 appeal links military and security breakdown to economic and institutional devastation: “many Christians of the Holy Land have all lost,” including the work that came from welcoming pilgrims. It further states that with contributions, schools can restart, new houses can be built, and—where destruction has been total—certain care can again be guaranteed.
This is a Catholic interpretation of “economic crisis” as something more than reduced income: it is the fracture of the institutions that sustain human and communal life, including education.
The 2022 appeal identifies a spiritual-historical cause: believers are confronted not only by violence, but also by the “globalization of indifference,” where suffering is normalized or ignored.
In Catholic social terms, such indifference undermines solidarity—the basic moral posture required for peace and reconstruction.
Both the 2022 and 2026 appeals insist that aid for threatened Christians is not a symbolic gesture. In 2022, the collection is said to express the awareness of being “rooted” in the proclamation that spread from Jerusalem, reaching everyone; the “widow’s mite” style offering allows brothers and sisters to “continue to live, to hope, and to offer a living witness.”
In 2026, the Pope asks for a “small gesture” that concretely helps Christians in “extreme danger” to “live one more day,” regain the possibility of hoping, and begin again. The appeal also explicitly treats giving as a moral conversion: without sacrifice and transformation, one risks becoming complicit in the harm done by those who destroy.
Even if the collection is oriented to the Holy Land, the moral logic applies broadly to Eastern Churches under pressure: the Church’s duty is to defend religious freedom, maintain hope, and support community continuity where believers are tempted to abandon their lands.
When migration crises become politically contentious, accusations often arise that humanitarian and religious services “incentivize” unlawful movement. The US bishops’ resource argues there is “no evidence” for that claim, and emphasizes that push-pull factors influence decisions; it also affirms the need to avoid unnecessary migration by creating conditions for dignified life in countries of origin.
So Catholic teaching does not frame aid as endorsing law-breaking; it frames aid as charity that respects law and protects human dignity, while also addressing root causes of displacement.
Catholic teaching permits defensive resistance under “just war” principles, but it insists on avoiding war and recognizing war’s profound costs. The goal is not bravado but protection of the innocent and containment of evil.
In Catholic terms, the existential threat facing Eastern Christians is not only that individuals may suffer; it is that communities lose the ability to live—worship, teach, work, and remain on their lands—while the surrounding world risks responding with fear, indifference, or injustice.
The Church’s response, therefore, combines: