Joaquim Magalhães de Castro
In the long sermon delivered on 1 January during the celebration of the New Year Mass in the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Damascus, Yohanna X, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, stressed the expressed desire of Syrian Christians to commit themselves to the peaceful construction of “a new Syria”, hoping that the new administration will have the same desire.
According to information released by the new ‘Syrian General Command’, leader Ahmed al-Sharaa met with representatives of the Christian communities in Syria on the first day of the year, with several photos of the event circulating on social media. Through this speech, the Patriarch intended to send an explicit message of “willingness to cooperate” with Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist organization that led the offensive that culminated in the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Despite his terrorist past, Ahmed al-Sharaa is now credited, by political circles and the international media, as the strongman of the so-called “New Syria”.
In his sermon, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch used striking images and phrases to recall the indigenous nature of the Christian communities in Syria: “Ages and ages have followed one another. Kingdoms and empires have risen and fallen. Yet the essence of our enduring presence in these lands lies in the Faith that the apostles transmitted”, he said.
Yohanna X took the opportunity to highlight the involvement of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch in all the historical attempts of a nationalist nature that, after the end of the Ottoman Empire, aimed to establish in Syria an Arab political sovereignty based on fraternal cooperation between Christians and Muslims, free from any neocolonial interference exercised by external potentates. The Patriarch recalled that, among other things, “we belong to the same Church as Patriarch Elias IV Mouawad, ‘Patriarch of the Arabs’, who half a century ago (more precisely in February 1974) spoke on behalf of all Arabs in the main mosque of Lahore, Pakistan.
In this new phase that Syria is going through, the drafting of a modern constitution is a fundamental step, and this task requires the participation of all in order to overcome once and for all “the logic of the dialectic between minorities and the majority on a sectarian basis”. The Cross must embrace the Crescent, thus demonstrating the spirit of tolerance. “The Cross will embrace every soul of good will who seeks the joy of the Almighty Lord in this blessed land, where His right hand has planted us to live together,” the Patriarch summed up. He also recalled the current suffering of ‘crucified Palestine’ and the tribulations of Lebanon, asking the politicians of the ‘Land of Cedars’ to demand the election of a President of the Republic as soon as possible. The Patriarch’s final prayer would be dedicated to the two Metropolitans of Aleppo: the Syrian Orthodox Mar Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim and the Greek Orthodox Boulos Yazigi (brother of Patriarch Yohanna X himself), who were kidnapped in 2013 and whose whereabouts have never been known since.
Earlier, in mid-2024, Patriarch Yohanna X had already recalled the legitimacy of Christians in that geographical area so martyred over time, highlighting the defining characteristics of the indigenous Christian communities of Syria. “We are here in Damascus”, he said, “on Al-Marymiya Street, next to the Umayyad Mosque, and we say loudly to the world that all of us Christians came from the land of the Levant and the cedars of Lebanon; from the outskirts of Homs and the authentic city of Aleppo; from the water wheels of Hama and the roaring springs of Idlib; from the sea of Latakia and the Euphrates in Deir ez-Zor. We are not guests in this land, and we are not children of today or yesterday. We came from the Antioch of the Apostles, from that land that coined the universe with the name of Jesus Christ.”
This speech, delivered in Damascus after Sunday Mass on December 15, was a kind of a ‘manifesto’ of the feelings and expectations of many Syrian Christians regarding the future in post-Assad Syria.
In his speech, there was also space for a message addressed to his “Muslim brothers”, reminding them of the common destiny and history, “with its ups and downs”, that they share with Christians. Yohanna X hopes that Syria will remain a united country and describes in detail his expectations regarding the political and institutional structure of the ‘new’ Syria.
“The Syria we want”, says the Patriarch, “must be, among other things, a secular state in which everyone has the same rights and duties. A state based on the principle of ‘citizenship’, with a national fabric that rejects “the logic of the majority and the minority”.
In this regard, the Patriarch points to Saint John of Damascus, the Doctor of the Church who served as an official in the Umayyad court, as a model to follow.
“The first and last factor that guarantees the achievement of all these objectives” – said Yohanna X – “is the Constitution and therefore the process of drafting the Constitution must be a comprehensive and exhaustive national process”.
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