| Syria’s Christians Fear Iraq Scenario admin 09 March 2013 March 8, 2013 Beirut — Former President Hafez Al-Assad did not rule in the name of minorities, but in the name of the secular Ba’ath party. Contrary to popular belief, the majority of members of his security and political services were not Alawites. In fact, according to the most optimistic estimates, the Alawi sect constitutes around 20 percent of the Syrian population, whereas the majority Sunni sect constitutes 65 percent. These days, and ever since the start of the Syrian uprising two years ago, Syria’s Christians have grown increasingly concerned about their very existence. Their fears have been compounded by reports of the forcible evacuation of Christian villages, and the abduction of Christian clerics. Furthermore, the Syrian opposition’s stated stance–to treat the Syrian people as one united bloc–has failed to resonate among the Christian community. Hafez Assad never publicized his Alawi roots. On the contrary, he used to worship in Sunni mosques and his son Bashar followed in his footsteps. However, the Assad regime did seek to strengthen the role of the Alawi sect in the Syrian administration and in the Ba’ath party, in order to ensure the loyalty of the army and intelligence services, which ruled Syria with an iron fist. Hafez Assad (later followed by Bashar) realized the importance of a minority coalition in Syria. He began to consolidate his ties with the Christians (who constitute about 7.5 percent of the population), the Druze (2.75 percent), the Shi’ites (about 3 percent), and the Isma’ilis (1 percent). When the Syrian crisis erupted in 2011, the regime was determined to highlight the Islamist face of the uprising, even before the Islamists had actually infiltrated Syria. It was a deliberate attempt to intimidate the Christians, Alawites, and other minorities. The regime was assisted in this endeavor by the sectarian problems being encountered in post-revolutionary Egypt. It seems that the fears and concerns of Syria’s minorities are playing a major role in the crisis. These fears prompted Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rahi to visit Syria, having boycotted the country ever since Lebanon gained its independence. The same fears also drove the Orthodox Church to re-elect a patriarch of Syrian origin. Meanwhile, the Druze acted against the calls of Lebanese leader Walid Jumblatt and opted to fight alongside the Assad regime. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Syrian Orthodox Churches JUSTIN M. LASSER Christianity in the lands of the Tigris and Euphrates and the Syrian Orient has both a rich and diverse history. The Syrian Christians represent some of the last remnants of the Aramaean civilizations that populated the region for millennia. The glories of these civilizations and cultures are not merely preserved by modern Syrian Christians, but lived out. Though their numbers in the original homelands have been steadily decreasing over the past centuries, their vitality has not. Most Suryaye (Aramaean and Assyrian) peoples trace their origins to a region occupying the northern limits of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, now composed of southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq and Iran, Jordan, and Syria. The Aramaean language that the Suryaye preserve in their hymns and holy books is a West-Semitic language, which is related to the Aramaic language of Jesus’ world. The Suryaye also trace their Christian roots to the cultural world of Jesus and the earliest apostles. According to traditional accounts, St. Thomas “the Twin” served as the apostle to Syria and the accounts of his adventures are recounted in the Syriac Acts of the Apostle Thomas. The Osrhoene region (now southeastern Turkey) was a crucible for new ideas and cultural exchanges between the Hellenistic West and the Orient. Many literary works existed in both Syriac and Greek, which often stimulated intriguing syntheses, but also precipitated unfortunate linguistic and cultural misunderstandings (e.g., the Messalian, Nestorian, Gnostic, and Monophysite crises). From earliest times the two pearls of the Osrhoene region, the cities of Edessa and Nisibis, made great strides in translating the indigenous Syriac Christian experience and vocabulary into the Hellenistic and Byzantine West. Even the name of the Apostle to Syria, St. Thomas, illustrates this attempted cultural transmission. The name “Thomas” derives from the Aramaic word for “twin” (toma). In the gospel attributed to St. Thomas, his name is presented as “Judas, Didymus Thomas,” which uses both the Greek and Aramaic locutions for “twin.” This construction is intriguing in that it doubles “Judas’” name so that it reads, “Judas twin twin,” emphasizing that the Apostle Judas Thomas was “twice twin” and an apostle to both the Greeks and the Aramaeans. |
| In Syria, members of the Christian community have been targets of jihadi groups fighting in the more than three-year-old conflict. Last week the Catholic Church announced that a Franciscan priest and more than a dozen Christians had been kidnapped by Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate. This is not the first time priests have been kidnapped by Islamist militants. Father Francois Murad, a Catholic Syrian priest, was killed by jihadist militants in June 2013. Italian Jesuit Priest Father Paolo Dall’Oglio, who spent decades promoting religious dialogue in Syria, was kidnapped in July 2013 and is still missing. In all, Christians made up about 10% of Syria's population before the conflict began in 2011. Since then hundreds of thousands of the country’s Christians have fled persecution and violence. Wolfgang F. Danspeckgruber, founding director of the Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination at Princeton University, explained why Christians are being targeted in Syria and how the attacks impact the country as a whole. Syria Deeply: What kind of targeting of priests and Christians have we seen in the course of Syria's war? Danspeckgruber: For me, the kidnapping and targeting of Christians and priests became a real personal issue when Greek and Syriac Orthodox bishops of Aleppo, Boulos Yazigi and Yuhanna Ibrahim, WERE taken in April 2013. When we had a private meeting in November 2013 about Christians in Iraq and Syria, there was a feeling that the situation at that time in Iraq was much worse than in Syria. Since the advance of ISIS this summer, the situation in Iraq for Christians has totally degraded, with between 70,000-100,000 Christians having to flee with only the clothes on their backs, thrown out of villages where Christian communities have been living for over 2,000 years. The situation for Christians in Syria was slightly better than in Iraq until the past two months, when ISIS made an advance in Northern Syrian areas that were originally controlled by Kurds and the Syrian Opposition.Now, Christians are in danger in any area outside territory controlled by the moderate Syrian opposition or the Assad regime. Some people say that Jabhat al-Nusra has been less violent against Christians than ISIS, but it is still really bad on both sides. I think the most recent kidnappings that we are reading about took place under the ISIS regime but for many reasons. |
| I hope American Christians do not believe that this is a war of Syrian Muslims against Syrian Christians – nor even a war between native Syrians. Two-and-a-half years ago Fr. Joseph Huneycutt traveled to Syria as part of an official delegation of Christian pastors and leaders to investigate the emerging political crisis and to assess the situation of Syria’s Christians. Christian delegation to Damascus meets with President Assad of Syria in September 2011. Fr. Joseph Huneycutt stands third from Assad’s left. Photo credit: antiochian.org, The September 2011 trip was sponsored by the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America, and a report of the delegation’s findings was issued here . Now in its third year, the Syria conflict has taken countless lives and has left much of the country destroyed. Reports seem to come in weekly detailing the struggles of Syria’s ancient Christian community. Reports of kidnapping, murder, rape, torture, and destruction of churches at the hands of rebel insurgents are now a common theme of the Syria crisis. Last December, Fr. Joseph’s parish, St. Joseph Orthodox church in Houston, hosted the “Hope, Humanity, Healing” benefit concert to spread awareness of the plight of Syria’s Christians and to raise funds for the relief of all suffering innocents of the conflict. Fr. Joseph agreed to speak with Levant Report this week: Levant Report: Thank you for agreeing to talk to us about the Christian situation in Syria. Last December, your parish, St. Joseph Orthodox church, hosted a benefit concert for the Syrian humanitarian crisis. What prompted you to put together such an event and how did the community respond? Fr. Joseph: The event came together thanks to the dream of St Joseph parishioner Lama Nashawati DeVries, a classically trained professional pianist, along with her brother Deacon George (Bassam) Nashawati, a violinist for the San Antonio Symphony. They teamed up with other Houston area performers, both within and without the parish: Christine Yacoub, Len Verrett, Mariam Haddad, Osama Raad, Tracey Parker, Dr Bill Attra and the St Romanos Chorale, and pulled together a special night of entertainment: “Hope, Humanity, Healing – A Musical Offering to Syria.” It was standing room only in the parish hall; around 250 people came out to enjoy the show and support the cause. The event raised of which the Diocese of Bosra-Hauran, Jabal al-Arab, and the Golan in southern Syria, and the St Gregory Orthodox Society for the Elderly and Orphans in Damascus were the beneficiaries. Thanks God, it was a very special evening in support of our brothers and sisters in Syria. |
| Americans have understandably voiced grave concerns about allowing tens of thousands of Syrian refugees into the country, especially since the terrorists who perpetrated the mass murders in Paris claimed the Islamic religion and since ISIS says it is embedding terrorists among the refugees — and the refugees from Syria are mostly Muslims from the same area of the world as the terrorists. What is mystifying to many Americans is the clear bias that President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and most of the American Left show in favoring Syrian refugees who are Muslims over those who are Christians. “Islam is not our adversary,” Clinton declared recently. “Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.” While it is demonstrably true that only a minority of Muslims commit these terrorist acts, it is also undeniable that all the terrorists claim to be part of the religion begun by the Prophet Muhammad in Arabia in the seventh century. Not any of these terrorists are either Christians, Jews, Hindus, or Buddhists. Responding to those who have advocated for more Christian refugees, Obama was particularly indignant, calling such a suggestion “shameful,” and adding, “We don’t have religious tests to our compassion.” On the contrary, religion has long been an important criteria in determining refugee status, both by the U.S. State Department and the United Nations. A refugee is defined as “someone who has fled from his or her home country and cannot return because he or she has a well-founded fear of persecution based on religion, race, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.” Certainly the case can be made that Middle-Eastern Christians, as a group, are targeted by ISIS and other hard-core Islamic terrorists more than any other group. (It is possible that Jews could also be particular targets, had they not largely abandoned the region years ago.) In Iraq, the ethnic Chaldeans and Assyrians (two groups that should be familiar to Bible students) have long been mostly Christian. Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda of Iraq told a press conference at the 2015 Knights of Columbus Convention in Philadelphia in August of the concerns of Christians. He was joined by a Syrian archbishop, Jean-Clement Jeanbart, and they quoted federal data which indicated that since October of last year, 906 Muslim refugees from Syria were granted U.S. visas, but only 28 of Syria’s estimated 700,000 Christian refugees obtained visas . |
| Accept The site uses cookies to help show you the most up-to-date information. By continuing to use the site, you consent to the use of your Metadata and cookies. Cookie policy The second meeting of the Working Group for Coordinating Bilateral Relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church was held DECR Communication service, 02.05.2023. On April 24-27, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and His Holiness Baselios Marthoma Mathews III, Catholicos of the East & Malankara Metropolitan, the Working Group for Coordinating Bilateral Relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church held its second meeting at the Stavropegial Convent of the Protection of the Mother of God in Moscow. The Moscow Patriarchate was represented by: Metropolitan Leonid of Klin, Patriarchal Exarch of Africa, co-chairman of the Working Group; hieromonk Stefan (Igumnov), DECR secretary for inter-Christian relations, secretary of the Working Group; deacon Dimitry Serov, head of the Moscow Theological Academy Publishing House; hierodeacon Pyotr (Akhmatkhanov), staff member of the Department for External Church Relations. The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church was represented by: Metropolitan Abraham Mar Stephanos, Metropolitan of the Diocese of UK, Europe & Africa; Rev. Aswin Fernandis, Executive Director of the Department of Ecumenical Relations. The Working Group members noted the utmost importance of their meeting with His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia held in the Patriarchal Chambers of the Kremlin Faceted Palace on 25 th April 2023 . T he issues raised during that meeting provided a basis for further deliberations at the Working Group’s session concerning the development of the bilateral relations. During the meeting, the Working Group reviewed collaborative projects implemented since its previous meeting in Kottayam (February 3-7, 2020). The participants of the meeting noted the following: |
| John Anthony McGuckin Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East JOHN A. MCGUCKIN The Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East belongs to the Oriental Orthodox family of churches in the Syrian tradition. The word “Assyrian” was applied to them by the English (Anglican) missionaries of the 19th century (1885–1915) who first established a western mission among them (Coakley 1992), and wished to avoid the pejorative term “Nestorian” that had often been applied to them, so as to signal their different theological stance from both the Non-Chalcedonian Orthodox Miaphysite Churches (pejoratively called the Monophysites) and the Eastern Orthodox Chalcedonians. After this importation of the term by the Anglicans, many among them started to use the word to designate themselves, although an earlier and more common designation had been the “Church of the East.” A. H. Layard, who first excavated the archeological remains of Niniveh, was the first to suggest that the local Syrian Christians were the descendants of the ancient Assyrians, and the idea gained currency among the Anglican missionaries (Wigram 2002). Later, the title “Assyrian” was imported and used among the Syrian Orthodox diaspora, especially in America, as a way to distance themselves as Syriacspeaking Christians from the Islamic State of Syria. The church regards itself not as “Nestorian,” but Christian, while holding Mar Nestorius in honor as a continuator of the teachings of the Syrian saints Mar Theodore of Mopsuestia and Mar Diodore of Tarsus, whose theological teachings are regarded as authoritative expositions. It thus departs from the colloquium of the ecumenical councils, regarding Nicea I (325) as the only authoritative standard. The Council of Ephesus (431) was the occasion of the ancient rupture. But the Council of Chalcedon and Constantinople II deepened the fracture; the latter anathematizing Theodore and Diodore posthumously. After the great christological arguments following on the heels of the Council of Ephesus (431) it was obvious to the imperial court at Constantinople that the task of reconciling the differing approaches to the christological problem would not be as easy as simply declaring and promulgating the “Ephesine” solution. |
| Evangelicals Are Helping ‘Destroy’ the Syrian Orthodox Church, Antiochian Priest Says (Interview) Source: The Christian Post WASHINGTON — Evangelical Christians from the United States and other areas of the world are helping " destroy " the historic Antioch Church in Syria by offering poor, vulnerable orthodox Christians aid and assistance if they " convert " and start worshiping at evangelical house churches, a prominent Syrian priest asserted. Archimandrite Alexi Chehadeh, the director-general of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate af Antioch and All the East " s Department of Ecumenical Relations and Development, speaks at undisclosed location in the photo posted to Facebook on April 29, 2017. Photo: Photo: Facebook/ ) Archimandrite Alexi Chehadeh, director-general of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch’s Department of Ecumenical Relations and Development, traveled from the church’s headquarters in Damascus, Syria, to the U.S. capital last week to take part in the first-ever World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians hosted by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association at the Mayflower Hotel. Chehadeh sat down with The Christian Post to discuss the situation in Syria and the impact that Christians in the West are having when it comes to aiding the civil war-ridden country’s minority Christian population. “For us personally, I didn’t see any help from the American church directly. Perhaps, [aid went] to our brothers and sisters in the Protestant Church or Baptist Church or other church denominations we have there. But for us, we didn’t receive any help from the Church in [America],” Chehadeh explained. As many experts fear that Christianity in the region might one day become extinct, Chehadeh said that instead of helping the ancient Antioch Church and its believers continue to survive and keep their 2,000-year-old Christian traditions alive, some evangelicals from the West and wealthier areas in the Middle East are doing “the opposite” and are coming to Syria to “steal our faithful.” |
| John Anthony McGuckin Antioch, Patriarchate of JOHN A. MCGUCKIN Antioch has a glorious Christian past. It was here that one of the most vibrant Christian communities in the apostolic age sprang up, and here that the first tentative workings out of the relation between Jewish and Gentile disciples of Jesus took place. The Apostle Peter was based here as a leader of the church community before he moved towards his martyrdom at Rome, and many scholars believe that it was in this church also that the Gospel of Matthew received its final editing and arrangement in the Greek text. It was one of the main cities of the international Christian world, third-ranking city of the Roman Empire (after Rome and Alexandria), site of great achievements and momentous struggles, with several martyrdoms during the time of the Roman persecutions, that made it feature high in the calendar of the saints. But the advances of Islam from the 7th century onwards left Antioch’s Christian civilization in a state of slow suffocation. It was also vulnerable to sociopolitical changes because of the way its ecclesiastical territories (those churches that looked to Antioch for guidance and which followed its traditions) were so widely scattered and into such impassable mountain territory, which made communication so hard to sustain but so easily disrupted. Several of Antioch’s greatest theologians have left their mark on the church’s universal patristic tradition: writers such as Mar Theodore the Interpreter (of Mopsuestia), St. John Chrysostom, Mar John of Antioch, Theodoret of Cyr, and numerous ascetics and saints such as Sadhona, or Isaac of Niniveh. The cultural and theological sphere of influence exercised by the Syrian Church in its time of glory was much greater than the (very large) extent of its ancient territories. The Syrian ritual gave the substructure to the Byzantine liturgical rite, for example. It was also the Syrians who perfected the art of setting poetic synopses of Scripture to sung melodies. The church’s greatest poets such as Ephrem and Romanos the Melodist were Syrians who taught this theological style to Byzantium and prepared the way for the glories of medieval Orthodox liturgical chant. The Syrian Church, especially in its Golden |
| Center for Pediatric Prosthetics and Rehabilitation is opened at the ROC Representation in Damascus Source: DECR Photo: mospat.ru On March 6, 2022, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations (DECR), took part in the opening ceremony of the Center for Pediatric Prosthetics and Rehabilitation at the Representation of the Russian Orthodox Church in Damascus, Syria. The Centre has been created with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and with the support of His Beatitude Patriarch John X of Antioch and All the East, the Council for Cooperation with Religious Associations under the President of the Russian Federation; the Foundation for the Support of Christian Culture and Heritage; and ‘Poznanie” and Kirche in Not Charity Foundations. Attending the ceremony were Dr. Muhammad Abdul Sattar Assayed, Minister of Endowments of the Syrian Arab Republic; Mr. Hussein Makhlouf, Minister of the Local Administration and Environment; H.E. Alexander V. Yefimov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to the Syrian Arab Republic: Marie Al-Bitar, deputy of the People’s Council of the Syrian Arab Republic and head of the Parliamentary Committee for relations with the Orthodox Church; Colonel General Michel Farah, head of the medical services directorate of the Ministry of Inferior; Mr. Adel al-Olabi, Governor of Damascus; Bishop Moussa of Daraya, senior auxiliary bishop of the Patriarch of Antioch; Archpriest Nikolay Balashov, DECR vice-chairman; Hegumen Arseny (Sokolov), representative of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia to the Patriarch of Antioch; Rev. Alexander Karzan, secretary to the DECR chairman; Mr. Nikolay V. Sukhov, director of the Russian Centre for Science and Culture in Damascus; Mr. Rimal al-Saleh, head of Aluafa Charity Foundation; Dr. Jihad Muhammad Haddad, head physician of the Center for Pediatric Prosthetics and Rehabilitation at the Representation of the Russian Orthodox Church in Damascus; Mr. Hassan Raya, director of the Centre; Mr. Ivan A. Parfenov, deputy general director of “Poznanie” Charity Foundation; and Vycheslav Yu. Li, assistant to the DECR chairman. |
|
|
