Inside a centuries-old monastery atop a mountain in western Syria, a priest swung an incense holder on a sequence, led his flock in melodic chants and delivered a timeless sermon on the significance of loving one’s neighbor.
However when the congregation gathered for espresso after the service, their present worries surfaced, about how peaceable Syria’s future can be.
Would the Islamist rebels who ousted the strongman Bashar al-Assad in December ban pork and alcohol, impose modest gown on ladies or restrict Christian worship? Would the brand new safety forces shield Christians from assaults by Muslim extremists?
“Nothing has occurred that makes you are feeling that issues are higher,” mentioned Mirna Haddad, one of many churchgoers.
Elsewhere within the historic city of Maaloula, its Muslim minority had totally different issues. Like their Christian neighbors, they’d fled their properties right here early in Syria’s 13-year civil warfare. However in contrast to the Christians, they’d been barred from returning by the Assad regime and a Christian militia it supported.
“The issue is almost all,” which means the city’s Christians, mentioned Omar Ibrahim Omar, the chief of a brand new native safety committee. He had come residence to Maaloula solely after Mr. al-Assad’s fall, after being stored out for greater than a decade.
“We received’t let that occur once more,” he mentioned.
Maaloula, nestled between rugged outcroppings 35 miles northeast of the capital, Damascus, has lengthy embodied Christianity’s historic roots in Syria and has served as an necessary piece of the nation’s spiritual mosaic. It’s a uncommon group the place locals nonetheless communicate Aramaic, the language of Jesus, and it boasts a historical past of coexistence between the two-thirds of its inhabitants who’re Christians and the opposite third, who’re Sunni Muslims.
However the warfare that started in 2011 set the 2 communities on totally different paths, tearing at Maaloula’s social cloth. Lots of the Muslims backed the rebels who fought to topple the regime, whereas the Christians largely stood by Mr. al-Assad, whom they thought-about the protector of Syria’s minorities in a Sunni-majority nation.
Now, Mr. al-Assad is gone, the city is broken and its persons are struggling to determine how they may reside collectively as soon as once more.
“I wish to reside with you as brothers,” the priest, the Rev. Fadi Barkil, mentioned in an interview as if chatting with his Muslim neighbors. “If we preserve going again to the previous, it’ll by no means finish.”
Christians have been dwelling in Syria since earlier than the Apostle Paul’s conversion on the highway to Damascus. Earlier than the civil warfare, they made up sizable minorities in Damascus, Aleppo and different locations, however their numbers have plummeted since. Christians have emigrated to Lebanon and the West to flee the violence and financial hardship which have devastated their communities.
In Maaloula, Father Barkil oversees its Greek Catholic Church and the Monastery of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, whose fourth-century sanctuary is partially hewed from a peak overlooking the city. Subsequent to it are the stays of the Safir Resort. As soon as the city’s most interesting vacation spot for pilgrims and vacationers, it was destroyed through the warfare and is now abandoned.
Its terrace overlooks the city, with the domes and crosses of Maaloula’s many church buildings and the minaret of a mosque rising from amid its easy properties.
The civil warfare first got here to Maaloula when a suicide bomber blew up the primary military checkpoint defending the city in September 2013. Practically all of its few thousand residents — each Christians and Muslims — fled as combating erupted, and rebels led by the Nusra Entrance, an affiliate of Al Qaeda, took management.
The rebels arrange bases within the resort and monastery, which allowed them to fireplace on authorities forces under. They kidnapped 13 nuns and three assistants from a Greek Orthodox convent.
Its Christians returned to seek out their holy websites broken.
“When the monks got here again after the warfare, every little thing was destroyed within the monastery,” Father Barkil mentioned.
The highest of its altar had been damaged, and shelling had punched holes in its stone partitions and within the blue dome over the sanctuary, scattering particles throughout the wood pews. A lot of its icons had been lacking, and those who remained had been defaced.
And in what Father Fadi described as a deeply symbolic blow, two big bells had been stolen from his and one other sanctuary, eradicating their rings from Maaloula’s soundscape.
All through the warfare, the Syrian military held the city together with a Christian militia that it armed. The Christian websites had been restored, though few of the vacationers who had as soon as sustained the economic system returned.
When the rebels toppled Mr. al-Assad in December, there was little rejoicing amongst Maaloula’s Christians. The military ran off, leaving the city unprotected, and residents feared that the nation’s new Islamist rulers would prohibit their spiritual freedoms.
“What do we wish in Maaloula?” Father Barkil requested. “To have a state and safety, however we received’t settle for for the Muslims to rule us by pressure.”
Exacerbating their issues is the truth that the founding father of the Nusra Entrance, the jihadist group that attacked Maaloula in 2013, is now Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Shara.
Father Barkil acknowledged that Mr. al-Shara has mentioned that he minimize ties with Al Qaeda and has vowed to serve all of Syria’s folks. However the priest known as on the brand new president to strengthen this inclusive message with a go to to Maaloula.
“He can come and say in Maaloula that the Christians are necessary and that nobody can hurt them,” Father Barkil mentioned. “But when he by no means says this, what’s going to occur to us?”
After Mr. al-Assad’s fall, the brand new authorities despatched cops to safe the city. On the native police station, a number of of those new officers — former rebels, all of them Muslims and none of them from Maaloula — had been quick asleep in the course of the day.
Elsewhere, a bunch of males from a newly fashioned safety committee had been crowded round a wood-burning range, making an attempt to maintain heat. They had been all Maaloula Muslims, who mentioned that they’d fled the combating in 2013 however that the regime had barred them from coming residence as a result of it suspected them of backing the rebels.
Akram Qutayman, 58 and a member of the committee, mentioned that residents of various faiths had lived collectively peacefully earlier than the warfare.
“The place I reside, I used to be surrounded by Christians,” he mentioned. “They might have fun Ramadan with us, as if we had been one hand.”
However he accused the native Christian militia of burning the Muslims’ properties whereas they had been away to attempt to preserve them from returning.
“We don’t have homes,” mentioned Mr. Omar, the committee’s head, additionally noting that the primary mosque was nonetheless broken. However he remained hopeful that the tensions would go and the city would rebuild.
“I anticipate that there will probably be reconciliation, and we’ll reside collectively once more,” he mentioned. “We are going to let the previous go.”
Some constructive indicators have emerged in current weeks.
The 2 bells stolen from the church buildings had been returned. They had been cleaned, polished and rehung of their belfries throughout a ceremony final month, their sounds resonating over Maaloula for the primary time in 13 years.
“Hanging these bells supplied aid to folks,” Father Barkil mentioned. “In the long run, they’re the voice of God.”
Muhammad Haj Kadour contributed reporting.
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