Mourners carry crosses and chant slogans during the funeral procession for victims of Sunday’s suicide bombing at Mar Elias Greek Orthodox Church, outside al-Saleeb Church in the al-Qasaa neighborhood of Damascus, Syria, Tuesday, June 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)
Ishtartv.com - thehill.com
by Richard Ghazal, 07/07/25
On June 22, 2025, a suicide bomber entered Saint Elias Greek
Orthodox Church in Damascus during a packed evening worship service and unleashed
unimaginable carnage. After opening fire on the congregation, the attacker
detonated an explosive vest, killing nearly 30 people and injuring more than
60. It was the deadliest attack on Syria’s Christian community since the 1860
Damascus Massacre, and a stark reminder of Christianity’s increasingly perilous
existence in its ancient homeland.
The Jihadist group Saraya Ansar al-Sunnah, a splinter of Hayat Tahrir
al-Sham (HTS), has claimed responsibility. The attack illustrates a
sobering reality: Syrian Christians, who have endured centuries of political
repression and sectarian violence, now face an existential crisis. With
every suicide bombing, every desecrated church, every community exodus, Syria
edges closer to losing a two-millennia-old spiritual and cultural pillar.
Syria is home to the world’s oldest existing Christian communities,
which trace their lineage back to Apostolic times. According to Syriac
Christian tradition, the Syriac Kingdom of Osroene (in modern northern Syria)
was the world’s first political entity to declare Christianity as its state
religion. King Abgar V — known as Abgar the Black — adopted the Christian
faith after being healed from a devastating illness by the disciple Thaddeus in
33 AD. On the road to Damascus, the former persecutor of Christians, Saul
of Tarsus, was transformed into the Apostle Paul, further rooting Christianity
in Syrian soil.
Syria has played a vital role as a wellspring of Christian thought,
culture and civilization. Saint Ephrem the Syriac is renowned as one
of the most prolific and consequential poets and theologians of the universal
Church. Cities like Maaloula and Qamishli still
preserve the Aramaic language of Jesus. Ancient churches and monasteries dot
the landscape, bearing silent witness to Syria’s role as a cradle of Christian
civilization.
Prior to the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, Christians made up
approximately 10 percent of Syria’s population and played key roles in
academia, medicine, commerce and in public life. They coexisted with their
Muslim neighbors to preserve a fragile but buoyant multiethnic,
multiconfessional social fabric.
The civil war, however, shattered this pluralistic order. Today,
fewer than 300,000 Christians remain in Syria, down from roughly 2 million
prior to the war. What remains is a deeply vulnerable remnant community,
surrounded by instability, sectarianism and extremism. The recent bombing of
Saint Elias Church is not just another act of terror — it’s a signal of the
accelerating cultural erasure of a heritage that predates Islam by
centuries.
For centuries, Christians have served as a moderating force in Syria,
exemplifying the “love thy neighbor” ethos, offering Syrian society a model of
compassion, coexistence and moral restraint. Their elimination would cause
a narrowing of ideas, identities and beliefs, which would enable radical
ideologies to reach an otherwise moderate Muslim demographic.
Christianity’s extinction in Syria would also mark the loss of a vital
bridge between East and West. Syriac Christianity provides unique access
into the mind, culture and worldview native to Christ and the Apostles, and
thus shaped the theology of the early church and connected the Western
tradition with its Semitic roots. Its loss would sever a crucial link in
this shared civilizational heritage.
In response to the Saint Elias Church attack, the United States must
press the Syrian Transitional Government to bring the perpetrators to justice
and implement robust security measures to protect the country’s Christian
communities.
While the Syrian Transitional Government is a coalition of Islamist
factions with problematic histories, diplomatic disengagement and
isolation by the U.S. risks creating a vacuum, empowering extremists.
Diplomatic engagement, if strategically structured, would serve as a powerful
tool to establish guardrails for behavior and mechanisms for accountability.
Diplomatic engagement does not imply endorsement. It provides a framework for
leverage and influence. The U.S. must condition any formal diplomatic
recognition on the Syrian Transitional Government’s guarantee to protect
minority rights, religious freedom and enshrine constitutional safeguards.
To this end, the U.S. should:
- Establish measured diplomatic relations with
the Syrian Transitional Government and lift sanctions to promote security,
stability and human rights. Diplomatic recognition should be
leveraged to compel concrete commitments for reform and representative
governance under the law.
- Require security guarantees to ensure
that the Syrian Transitional Government establishes and enforces robust
security protocols to safeguard churches, monasteries, clergy and
Christian neighborhoods. Security protocols would include enhanced
policing and cooperation with international non-governmental
organizations.
- Require constitutional protections that
enshrine equal citizenship and religious freedom for all components of
Syrian society. Any new Syrian constitution must guarantee minority
religious components’ right to worship freely, run their own institutions
and participate fully in public life.
- Urge Syrian Transitional Government initiatives
for cultural preservation of the Syrian Christian heritage. Such
initiatives would include the restoration and preservation of historically
and religiously significant Christian sites (many of which have been
damaged or destroyed in the conflict), and the preservation of linguistic
heritage. These efforts should include Christian leaders and local
communities in both planning and implementation.
- Deliver humanitarian aid to assist in
the rebuilding of infrastructure, the establishment of stable governance
and the implementation of robust security measures. Vetted
non-governmental organizations and religious institutions representing
vulnerable communities should also receive direct aid for local
humanitarian relief and to support the safe resettlement of displaced and
devastated communities.
This approach balances moral obligation with strategic interest, and if
implemented properly, will incentivize stable post-conflict order in
Syria.
A Syria without Christians is no longer a distant hypothetical scenario.
It is a rapidly approaching reality which the world cannot afford. The
Christian presence in Syria is a thread in the broader tapestry of human
civilization. If that thread is plucked, the whole tapestry frays.
World leaders and policymakers must move beyond reactive condemnations
and adopt proactive strategies to preserve what remains of Syria’s Christian
heritage — recognizing its enduring significance to global civilization. The
consequences of indifference would not stop at Syria’s borders. The
disappearance of pluralism in the Middle East will fuel continued
destabilization in the region.
As the blood stains dry on the pews of Saint Elias Church, the U.S. and
international community must reckon with the price of indifference — and
resolve to pursue the moral obligation of civilized nations.
Richard Ghazal is the executive director of In Defense of Christians,
a Washington-based advocacy organization dedicated to the protection and
preservation of Christianity in the Middle East. He is a retired U.S. Air
Force judge advocate and intelligence officer.
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