LEADERS of the world's Moslem communities have been called on to condemn last month's attempted assassination of Bishop Tehquani-Tafti in Iran.
At a meeting in I.ondon Dr Gerald Ellison the Anglican Bishop of London said the voices of the Christian Church throughout the world and of all civilised people should be raised as strongly as possible in condemnation of these outrages."
He told members of the Jerusalem and Middle East Church Association: "It would be especially helpful if the leaders of the Moslem community in the Free world were to express their horror at the persecution of a religious minority in this way."
Bishop Ellison said that the attacks on the Iranian bishop, his clergy and congregation :woe:wed to be a "calculated seric‘, of incidents" which included the murder of the Anglican vicar of Shiraz, and the
expropriation of the two Christian
hospitals and a blind school. According to Bishop Tehquani-Tafti, these persecutions were the work of Moslem fanatics and did not have the support of the central authorities, nor of the country's constitution.
Speaking at the General Synod on Tuesday Dr Donald Coggan the Archbishop of Canterbury said that the whole Anglican communion would have watched the recent attacks on the church in Iran "with sorrow and sympathy."
"We unite in the hope that the Iranian Government will do all in their power to protect minorities and to prevent the recurrence of the kind of incidents which have recently occured there." Dr Coggan said.