Every Syrian has crisis in his own house

By Vestnik KAvkaza

Muslims of Syria celebrated the sacrificial feast Eid al-Adha, like all Muslims in the world. The Syrians say that today there are few people in the country, who can afford to sacrifice a sheep, but those who can give meat to neighbors because “every house is in need these days.” Syrians wish each other all the best and hopes for an end of the war and reconstruction of their life.

Syrian Christians dream about the same things. Archbishop Mor Silvanos Petrus Issa Al Nemeh who visited Moscow says that the country is experiencing great difficulties with the delivery of this aid:“In Lebanon, for example, it is easier to deliver it than in Syria. Now we really need a lot of food and medicines. There are various international organizations that collect aid for us, but it is quite hard to deliver it to those who need it. Many churches, schools, hospitals are destroyed, and every Syrian citizen has experienced these difficulties, and every Syrian has crisis in his own house. Almost every family has a grief – someone is kidnapped, or their home is destroyed, or the family suffered as a whole. It has affected not only Christians but also a variety of representatives of the Syrian population, representatives of different churches, different communities, they are forced to leave their homes.”

“For hundreds of years we have lived in peace, and we never knew such problems as those that we see today, we lived in peace and love, and we were completely free. The Muslims built mosques, the Christians built their churches, and no one thought about such problems, the problems of relations between different faiths. Now there is even a new language with new words. This is confrontation, conflict, crises between churches and mosques. There are representatives of some countries and organizations which may have certain interests and plans, and they deliberately sow discord, they sow destruction and war in our country on the basis of their interests. As a result of this activity, they are trying in every way to use our people to achieve their interests. But as a result of this activity many people are dying, as you know, the figures have just been announced. And all of this brings sorrow to all of us. Every man knows that his neighbors and his friends suffer, and it becomes his grief.

The Bible teaches us to be brothers to each other and not to discriminate according to which church we belong to. We would like friendly countries which bear goodwill to help us establish a dialogue and resist the evil. We believe that dialogue is the best way to achieve peace. And all the warring parties should sit at the negotiating table in order to reach an agreement on how to build a new life in our country. And we hope that the "Geneva -2" conference will contribute to the restoration of peace in Syria. We invite various organizations in Russia and civil society organizations to support the idea of convening this conference.”

According to Archbishop, “many people have left the confines of Syria, forced to leave the country. I hope they will go back to Syria. I love Syria, and these people also love Syria. They bear our ancient culture, and we must preserve it. They are the flesh and blood of Syria – all of them, regardless of their denominations. This is our common homeland. And we need it to be restored. Today we shed our blood for our country. We do not want to leave our homeland. We do not want Syria to repeat what happened in Iraq, which was left by more than 1.5 million Christians. Today, similar events are taking place in Egypt, where Christians are persecuted. We do not want this, we do not want us to have a civil war like in Lebanon for many years. We do not want Syria to become only a museum of ruins. We want it to be a live country, we want this country to regain its dignity and love.”