Damascus (Agenzia Fides) – “We are here in Damascus, on the street of Al-Marymiya, next to the Umayyad Mosque, and we tell the world that we, as Christians, come from the land of the Levant and the cedars of Lebanon… from the spaces of Homs and the authentic history of Aleppo, from the waterwheels of Hama and the roar of the springs of Idlib, from the sea of Latakia and the Euphrates of Deir ez-Zor. We are not guests in this land, and we are not children of today or yesterday. We come from Antioch of the Apostles, from this land that has marked the universe with the name of Jesus Christ,” said Yohanna X Yazigi, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, about the defining characteristics of the indigenous Christian communities of Syria. His speech delivered in Damascus after the 15 December Sunday mass, is a sort of “manifesto” of the feelings and expectations of many Syrian Christians regarding the future in post-Assad Syria.
To the “Muslim brothers”, the Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch reminds them that they share “the same destiny” in a “common history with all its ups and downs”. Yohanna X hopes that Syria will remain a united country and then describes in detail what the expectations seem to be regarding the political and institutional form of the “new” Syria.
“The Syria we want,” says the Patriarch, is, among other things, “a civil state in which everyone has the same rights and duties, including the maintenance of personal status laws”. A state based on the principle of “citizenship”, with a national fabric that rejects “the logic of majority and minority”. The Patriarch cites St. John Damascene, the Doctor of the Church, as a model who had served as an official in the Umayyad court.
“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.”
In view of the interest that the international media is showing in Christians in Syria at this stage, the Patriarch calls not to believe “the many rumors that are spread without any sense of responsibility” in the media and on social networks.
By:fides
