Southfield — The Chaldean Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle will host a three-day symposium on the perilous situation facing Christians in Middle Eastern countries this summer.

The July 17-19 international symposium, titled “Christianity in the Middle East: Ancient, Yet Ever New,” is the second hosted by the Eastern-rite Catholic diocese to raise awareness of the violent persecution that has driven many Christians from their ancestral homelands in recent years.

On July 17, evening prayer will be offered at St. Rafka Maronite Church in Livonia by Chorbishop Sharbel Maroun, and a benefit dinner at the Farmington Hills Manor will raise money to help displaced Iraqi Christians through www.helpiraq.org and Noursat, a Middle Eastern Catholic satellite station.

The symposium will feature several international speakers July 18, including Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako, who will speak via Skype from Iraq. Other presenters will include Nina Shea, senior fellow and director of the Center for Religious Freedom and the Hudson Institute; Gregory Stanton, president of Genocide Watch; Basil Bacall, chairman of the Adopt-A-Refugee Family program; Robert Destro, director of the Catholic University of America’s interdisciplinary program in law and religion; and Edmund Ghareeb, professor of Mideast history at American University.

The symposium will conclude July 19 with noon Mass at Mother of God Cathedral in Southfield, celebrated by Bishop Francis Y. Kalabat.

Attendance for the symposium talks is free; tickets are $75 for the benefit dinner. The symposium is sponsored by Noursat, Christian Arab and Middle Eastern Churches Together (CAMECT) and In Defense of Christians, a Washington, D.C.,-based advocacy group. For more information or tickets, call (248) 351-0440.