Christians endure in Damascus

One small community has weathered Syria’s war, writes Paul Keenan

Among the many hundreds of thousands who have died in the brutal struggle for control of Syria, the loss of Maronite Deacon Benjamin Camille, killed in 2013 as he worked in a Damascus suburb, is no less tragic and, at first glance, no more notable than the legions who fell before and since.

The Irish Catholic reported briefly on Deacon Camille’s death, noting that he “had reportedly just finished distributing food to the needy on March 26 when he was caught” by shrapnel from an exploding shell. The report continued: “His death was lamented by Maronite Archbishop Samir Nassar of Damascus who described Camille as ‘a martyr’ and said, ‘the tragic death of Benjamin Camille shows that nobody is safe anymore, whether fighter or peaceful civilian [and] puts a question mark over the ability of our faithful to move freely’.”

Press coverage duly moved on, compelled by the wider rise of anti-Christian suffering and relentless fighting, until the 2014 emergence of the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) took matters to an entirely new and dreadful level for minority communities across both Iraq and Syria.

Plight

Last week it was hoped that the relentless plight of the Syrian people might be put on hold, even for a short time, by moves among the ‘great powers’ gathered in Munich in Germany to agree a ceasefire on February 12, allowing for humanitarian aid to reach those most in need and for reasoned voices to be heard over the din of war in proposing a way out of this Middle Eastern quagmire.

Alas, it was not to be and, driven by their respective agendas in proxy wars-within-wars, the respective actors fell back to fighting.

Amid the renewed clamour, it was easy to miss the sudden re-emergence of Deacon Camille’s story. Only through those media channels focused specifically on the struggling Christian communities still ‘on the ground’ did his name appear as part of a Lenten letter issued by the same Archbishop Nassar of Damascus, and for a moment, the bleak assessments for Syria’s future were challenged.

In his letter, issued on February 14, Archbishop Nasser first takes up the story of the days immediately after the death of Deacon Camille.

In an unreported approach to his brother religious of Damascus, the archbishop assessed the deteriorating situation for the Maronite community, caught between the then desperately struggling army of President Bashar al Assad and the advance of countless jihadist groupings, none particular disposed to respecting the long tradition of the Maronites in Syria (a community which first emerged in Lebanon in the 4th and 5th Centuries to spread eastwards into Syria).

“Following [Camille’s] death parents of the priests were eager for me to leave, to leave Damascus,” Archbishop Nassar writes. “They were afraid for the safety of their children. I proposed that the priests leave if they wanted to. The diocese does not have the right to keep them here under these conditions. They have all answered: ‘You remain, we remain’.”

Defiant, certainly. Courageous, undoubtedly. But so too, the collective stance of the Damascus Maronites seemed at the time to be suicidal. Historians may wrangle over the morality or otherwise of Russia’s ultimate intervention in Syria in September last year, but up until that point, any choice to remain in Syria was one of lingering on the sinking ship as the waves of militant Islam swept forward, with the ISIS-formed but al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al Nusra in the vanguard.

With no defence for themselves other than a determination to endure based on the example of Deacon Camille in his service to his community, the Maronite community of Damascus appears to have achieved the impossible, as reported by their prelate.

Detailing a hard 2015 of fierce fighting around Damascus and a steady flow of civilians driven to the city by jihadist gains, Archbishop Nassar writes: “Providence has since protected us. Our deacon martyr had the role of distributing bread to the poor. The priests took over and each of them has become a social worker, good Samaritans who watch over the charitable activities in their parish.”

All of this as incoming fire laid waste to church properties and severely damaged the community’s main cathedral. But then comes the most heartening element to this small dispatch from amid so much Christian suffering.

“In a gesture of rebellion against death and destruction,” the archbishop announces, “these courageous priests launched the construction of three chapels in the modest suburban districts, mobilising the faithful around these three projects which are a sign of hope and faith in the future of the Church in Syria. This vitality highlights their pastoral proximity during this year of mercy and great suffering.

The first chapel, dedicated to the Martyrs of Damascus (1860), was inaugurated on January 8, 2016. Two other chapels will follow. This first one is a step on the path of reconstruction.”

When did one last read such words as “hope” or indeed “reconstruction” when examining the Syrian conflict?

The battle is by no means won, and the Maronite community of Syria – just over 50,000-strong and spread between Damascus, Aleppo and the Diocese of Latakia – has as far to travel as all others caught in the ongoing conflict.

Barbaric tactics

This is especially true right now of the population of Aleppo, where the warring sides are seemingly willing to adopt whatever barbaric tactics they deem necessary to counter the other. So as hospitals and health facilities are systematically bombed by one side from the air, the jihadists have chosen to ignore the risk to civilians in bombarding neighbourhoods where the Assad-Russian forces are advancing. (Bishop Georges Abou Khazen, Apostolic Vicar for Aleppo’s Latin-rite Catholics “continuous bombardment of civilians”.

Where the Syrian conflict is heading as of now is a complete guessing game on the part of anyone seeking to engage with the multiple actors currently involved there. Between the writing of this piece and the reading, Turkey may have upped the ante all the more, Saudi Arabia’s threatened intervention with jets might have come, or, dare we hope, renewed diplomacy between the US and Russia might have brought a dividend for peace.

Whatever may come, the Maronite Christians of Damascus will face with an enduring spirit that is nothing short of inspiring.