The Antiochian Archdiocese sent some American clergy to get their impressions on the Syria situation. From people who emailed in to me a few of the clergy were given almost no advanced notice of this trip, with at least one priest canceling services at the last minute before catching a flight to the Middle East.
After reading the below and the linked letter from Fr. Patrick Reardon it is up to you to determine if the Syrian government is a cruel, totalitarian autocracy or if Syria is a stable nation ruled by composed, kind-hearted president and this whole thing is an exploitative attempt by the West to destabilize a friend to Syrian Christians.
(antiochian.org) - His Eminence Metropolitan Philip writes:
Brother Hierarchs, Beloved Clergy, Esteemed Members of the Archdiocese Board of Trustees and Faithful Laity of our God-Protected Archdiocese:
Greetings to you and your families in the name of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ!
As you are all aware, there has been a lot of turmoil throughout many of the countries of the Middle East since the beginning of the year. Many of these uprisings coined “the Arab-spring” have resulted in changes of governments in places like Egypt, Tunisia and Libya and unrest in other Gulf and North African nations. Since the spring, this phenomenon has supposedly spread to Syria, the country of the seat of our Patriarch of Antioch and all the East. The reports we receive on an almost daily basis from our Patriarch and various Metropolitans of the See of Antioch, together with our many contacts in Syria do not agree with the reports we see and hear in Western media such as CNN, Fox News, and others. Likewise, many of the gulf sponsored Arabic news channels like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya seem to portray a dire situation in Syria when the reality based on our many contacts there appears to be something quite the contrary.
Because of this contradiction, and because our office has been inundated with letters, emails and phone calls about the situation in Syria, we felt it necessary to send a delegation made up of a group of some of our convert priests, other religious leaders from non-Orthodox communities, and an international lawyer to see first-hand the situation and report back to me and to all of you, the faithful of our God-protected Archdiocese. This is important because of our deep connection and roots as Antiochian Orthodox Christians (either by ancestral roots or by religious roots or both) to the land of Syria. The consequences of the uprisings in Syria for the Christian community, and all minority communities in Syria, are likely to be drastic should the government collapse as the country will slip into chaos and sectarianism. Syria, despite the need for some reforms, has been, and should remain a secular state in which all people can practice their religion freely and openly.
The group spent three days in mid-September making official visits including a 90 minute meeting with President Assad, another meeting and dinner with the Grand Mufti of the Syrian Republic, a third meeting with opposition leaders and finally a meeting with representatives from our Patriarchate. You will see for yourselves in the following article what their impressions were, what they witnessed, and how they found the state of the country.
Praying for the peace from above that only God can bring, I remain,
Your Father in Christ,
+Metropolitan PHILIP
Archbishop of New York and Metropolitan of all North America
Click here to read Fr. Patrick Reardon's Delegation to Syria
Posts
Syria has become a "bloodbath" under President Assad, who has been responsible for killing more than 2900 Syrians, who protested his autocratic rule, during the past six months. This figure was not made up -- it's a factual statistic of the number of Syrians killed.
ReplyDeleteAssad will do anything he has to do -- including killing many innocent people -- to retain his dictatorial position. The United States and the United Nations have called for him to resign. Even Turkey -- Syria's fellow neighbor -- has called for Assad to leave his position.
I would not recommend that any American -- clergyman or layman -- visit Syria as long as Assad remains in control of that country. Indeed, for Americans to visit Syria at this time would be foolish, because the chances of being killed there are very real.
My Orthodox priest, an American convert from the South, did go as part of this delegation. While CNN reported great strife in Demascus, outside their hotel all was quiet and the unarmed police (compared to ours) were directing traffic. The biggest threat to his health and well being was all the food set out before the delegation.
ReplyDeleteGeorge, based on the reports we get from our media sources, your concerns are warranted. But did you read this account from Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon? His testimony is limited, for sure, but surely the entire region they visited could not have masked the truth of the "bloodbath" circumstances just for the arrival of a menial group of Orthodox priests and Protestant pastors. Based on the several encounters his delegation had with various Syrian parties, both establishment and opposition related, his report seems vastly different from what has been reported by our media. Have you read his words? What do you make of his account?
ReplyDeleteGeorge,
ReplyDeleteThe 2900 number is basically a very plausible guesstimate, and it is important to remember that probably about a third of what is included in the total are Syrians killed by the rebels there.
The Syrian government has basically written off doing any PR in the west, which is unfortunate. The rank-and-file of the protesters, and certainly the armed element among them, are the sort of people that the US government also regularly tries to kill or detain in Gitmo. Syria is only falling under criticism here because it's not a US ally and because it's an enemy of Israel.
It's also important to remember that because journalists are not being allowed into Syria, almost all reports from there are coming through the rebels' spokespeople. A lot of the more outrageous reports that originated with them and were published in the mainstream media proved to be little more than fanciful propaganda--- the alleged shelling of Lattakia from the sea, stories of Iranian soldiers on the ground in Hama, etc.
CNN, Fox news and all the rest seem to believe that the typical protester in the street is always a freedom-loving enlightened democratic progressive... what we are seeing in Syria is actually an uprising of the Sunni heartland led by the Muslim Brotherhood of Syria. While the Assad regime is no doubt a corrupt and thuggish regime, it is at least a secular regime that looks out for minority rights (i.e.-the Christians!). We Americans tend to be so ignorant (especially our media!) of the realities of the Middle East that it is laughable. How many over at CNN have ever read a serious academic book on the recent history of Egypt, Syria, or Libya, yet our media constantly beats the war-drums of revolution... not caring that the Christians will be the first to be butchered by whatever new government takes power. People moan and groan over the moral outrages committed by Assad Sr. at Hama in 1982 -yes the outrages are real, but what would a govt. run by the Muslim Brotherhood look like today had Assad Sr. never taken such over-the-top actions!!? My Syrian Christian wife did not have to live under the 'alternative' (thank God!) -an alternative which we in the West now champion! (oh and yes, in the early 1980's the CIA attempted to support the Muslim Brotherhood of Syria, just as the CIA no doubt is attempting to do now.) May the CIA and her jihadi partners of revolution in the modern Middle East never succeed. I am a former active duty Marine and am proud to say this.
ReplyDelete