One came from desolate Syria and the other had arrived fromthe jungles of Africa. Both traveled from places on the planet where Christianpopulations are being severely tested. From the podium of theInterparliamentary Assembly of Orthodoxy in Chania, the Metropolitan of Arcadia of the Patriarchate of Antioch, Vassilios, conveyed the anguish of the forgotten (?) Christians of Syria, who, despite silencing their weapons, are now fighting for survival against the enemy. the Islamic State, but poverty andhunger. And the Orthodox Christian MP in Uganda, Theodore Sekikumbo, captured the image of the spread of Islamic extremism in the Black Continent and the threat posed by his criminal christianity news daily.
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With the silence of the cannons in Syria and Iraq and thedefeat of ISIS on the field, the spotlight of the global interest in the fateof the Christian element in the famous Levante (Syria, Iraq, Lebanon) suddenlywent out, as if they were not expelled. thousands of them were killed. So, Iasked the Syrian-born, with Greek and Lebanese citizenship, hierarch to describe to me the situation, after the war, of the Christians in theareas of the Bible.
"The issue is not what the situation of Christians isin Syria and Iraq, but what the situation is in Syria and Iraq, because we arecitizens of these countries, just like our Muslim brothers. Yes, there is amajority of Muslims and we are a minority, but we are all citizens of the samecountry, we have the same religious rights, we open churches, monasteries, we teach our religion, we become officials, members of parliament, ministers in them. After the war came poverty and hunger because with the embargo of the West there is no economy. There is hunger, the economy in Syria is anemic. And those who have money do not find products to buy. Westerners and Arabs do not allow the import of products. Another big problem is that many Christians transferred their money to banks in Lebanon during the war. But now these banks have almost faltered and lost their savings. "People are hungry."
The Metropolitan of Arcadia emphasizes on this the help thatthe Church provides to the tested Christians: "The Church has played andcontinues to play an important role, it helps a lot throughout the territory ofSyria. We distribute food in the houses, we help in the care, in the repairs ofthe houses, we buy books and material for the students christian news headlines.Then, some who have gone abroad and return, give money to their relatives andthose who need it most. We help each other to survive. "Our brothers in the West do not seem to be fully aware of our situation."
Mr. Vassilios talks about the fate of the churches andmonasteries that were destroyed in the war, but also about the Christians wholeft Syria. "A monastery of Agia Thekla in Maaloula was destroyed for usOrthodox. The nuns returned, with the help of Greece and Russia, the monasterywas repaired, and I think some churches on the outskirts of Damascus have already been repaired. Some, however, while they were not harmed, no longer have believers, because they left for areas that had not been occupied by terrorists, such as Tartus, Laodicea, etc., or abroad. Slowly, those who suffered damage are repaired. At the same time, we are building other churches… ".
"Do you have any idea how many Christians may have leftSyria?" I asked him. "At least 400,000 out of 1,700,000 Orthodox andCatholics. Many fought to save their homes, their families, their sanctuaries.At least 120 Witnesses testified in the Valley of the Christians. "Atfirst there were fierce battles there, but they could not understand it because they did not have access to the inside of the valley." As for the image from Iraq, which belongs to the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Antioch, he says: "First of all, there are no Orthodox in Iraq, the question is whether more than a hundred families are counted. But the Jacobites, the Syrians, and the rest of the Syrochaldeans, and the old Assyrians, were left with at least 250,000 of the two or three million that was. "They had big losses."
