Christianity in Syria

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Divine service in Aleppo ( Armenian - Evangelical Martyr Church , December 26, 2017)
Christmas December 2018 in Damascus , next to Christian also Muslim passers-by
Divine service in St. Ephraem the Syrian Cathedral , Aleppo 2006. Inscriptions in Syriac
The mother tongue of the majority of Christians today is Arabic , which is usually also the language of worship

The Christianity in Syria has a very long tradition and has been since the time of origin of Christianity in Near Eastern country presence. While more than a quarter of the people in today's Syria were Christians around 1900, the proportion in 2010 was around 1.8 million, only around a tenth. Around a quarter of all Syrians have left the country because of the civil war in Syria , but according to estimates by the Syrian churches around half of the Christians or even more have fled the country. This means that the proportion of Christians in Syria compared to Muslims has become even smaller.

Until the Islamization of the country in the 7th century, Syria was predominantly Christian. Today it is a predominantly Sunni- Muslim country according to religion and culture , but is ruled by the Alawite minority. The great majority of Christians in Syria speak Arabic as their mother tongue and see themselves as Arab Christians , which is particularly true of the “ Antiochene Greeks ”, i.e. the Greek Orthodox and Melkite Catholics . The Syrian Christians , depending on the ethnic group Arameans , Assyrians and Chaldean Christians together, and Syriacs are called and traditional Syriac Aramaic speaking, belong to a number of different churches. Another group of Christians are the Armenians in Syria , the majority of whom belong to the Armenian Apostolic Church , but smaller parts are Catholic or Protestant .

history

The destroyed Christian quarter of Damascus in the civil war in the Lebanon Mountains .

The Christian community in what is now Syria is one of the oldest Christian communities in the world.

There are no statistics on the number of Syrian Christians who fell victim to the Arab conquest. Chālid ibn al-Walīd was a leader who led the armies of the Arab Muslims in Iraq and Syria. It is also notorious for cruelty and brutality in Islamic books. It was under his command that the blood flow massacre occurred during the Battle of Ullais . During the late Ottoman rule, most of the Syrian Christians had to emigrate, mostly between the years 1840 and 1845 before the civil war in the Lebanon Mountains and from 1914 before the genocide of the Assyrians by the Ottoman Empire. According to the historian Philip Hitti , about 900,000 Syrians arrived in the United States between 1899 and 1919 alone (more than 90% of them were Christians).

The large number of Christian denominations existing side by side is confusing for Western Europeans and the consequence of intra-Christian power struggles from the 4th century to modern times. Only a few splits were ethnic; the majority resulted from complex theological differences. Syrian Christians belong to all four denominational families of Christianity, with the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch forming the largest church in Syria:

"Mainstream" or imperial church Spin-off
Eastern Christianity (Byzantine) Orthodox Churches ("Greeks"), center: Constantinople Ancient oriental churches (" Miaphysites ") Churches of the Eastern Christian tradition in the areas of the earlier Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire or the Christianized countries of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the Middle East, North and East Africa, in the early church pentarchy the areas of the four Eastern Patriarchates Constantinople , Alexandria , Antioch and Jerusalem .
Western Christianity Latin Church (Roman Catholic), center: Rome Protestant churches (Evangelicals, Lutherans, Reformed, Anglicans, etc.) Churches of Western European tradition that arose in the Latin or Germanic-speaking area of ​​the former Western Roman Empire and the Patriarch ("Pope") of Rome ( Patriarchate of the West ), that is, above all the Roman Catholic Church and the evangelical / Protestant Church that emerged from it Churches of the European Reformation .
The “official” church since Roman times remained united until 1054 despite the violent power struggles between the Patriarchs of Rome and Constantinople for the spiritual supremacy of Christianity. The heterodox churches of Syria were partially persecuted during the Byzantine rule and only put on an equal footing with the other Christian communities after the Arab-Islamic conquest.

In addition, there are mainly the Assyrian ("Nestorian") churches in Syria that do not belong to any denominational family but are culturally related to the ancient oriental churches.

The denominational families emerged through splits from, exclusion from and division of the "official" Catholic-Orthodox imperial church:

  • As early as 431 , the “ Nestorians ” were excommunicated by the imperial church at the Council of Ephesus . They took the view that the divine and human nature of Christ represent two largely separate entities and that Mary should therefore not be regarded as the Mother of God , but only as the mother of the human Jesus. The Nestorians remained largely alone in Christianity with this view - to this day - and were then bloody persecuted by the state authorities, but they were able to establish themselves outside the imperial borders in Persia and Central Asia as the Assyrian Church of the East . Its current area of ​​distribution is Iraq , southeastern Turkey , parts of Iran and Syria.
  • At the Council of Chalcedon in 451 the Miaphysites , who were particularly strong in the patriarchates of Alexandria (Egypt) and Antioch (Syria), were expelled from the imperial church, roughly because of the exact opposite of what the Nestorians had been punished for 20 years earlier: they saw the divine and the human Christ as an inseparable unity, with human nature taking a back seat to divine. Against the resistance of the local congregations, the imperial church installed bishops and patriarchs loyal to the Council, which resulted in rival claims to the patriarchal thrones of Antioch and Alexandria for the first time, since the inferior Miaphysite ("ancient oriental") currents persisted. To this day, u. a. the Coptic (Egyptian), Ethiopian, Eritrean, Syrian, Indian and Armenian churches to this denominational family.
  • In 1054, when the imperial church broke up into a Latin-Roman and a Greco-Byzantine dominated half, the (viewed from Rome) "Oriental" schism , it was less about theological differences and more about the claim to lead the universal church . Rome took this as an opportunity to occupy the four eastern patriarchal thrones with its own "Latin" patriarchs who recognized Rome as overlord . Since Rome had no political power in most of these areas, these officials could rarely leave Rome and resided there as largely unemployed titular bishops . During the crusades, however, there were temporarily extensive conquests of Orthodox territory and the actual takeover of power by the Latin patriarchs, which ended with the fall of the crusader states.
  • Extensive theological and political criticism of the Roman Church resulted in the 15th and 16th centuries. Century in Central and Northern Europe for the division of Western Christianity through the Reformation , from which numerous mostly decentralized Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican and other churches emerged.

From the early modern era, the policy of the Roman Catholic Church, parallel to the local churches (and their own, mostly unsuccessful, Western Christian-Latin dioceses on site) "Catholic" led to further fragmentation in the area of ​​the Byzantine Orthodox and the ancient Near Eastern churches. To set up churches, the so-called Rome-uniate churches today . These differ from their independent original churches of the same name only in the fact that they recognize the Bishop of Rome as the head of all of Christianity.

This policy of division was carried out in the entire Eastern Christian area and also in the area of ​​the churches represented in Syria today.

Relationship to the government and persecution by Islamists

Michel Aflaq , co-founder of the Ba'ath Party in Syria , from a Greek Orthodox family, for a secular state. Photo taken after 1974
Gregorius Yohanna Ibrahim , the Syrian Orthodox Archbishop of Aleppo (left), with the Austrian State Secretary Reinhold Lopatka in November 2012. Less than six months later, he was kidnapped together with Bulos Jasidschi , the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Aleppo. Both have since been missing and are believed to have been murdered.

The Syrian constitution nominally guarantees religious freedom , but the office of president is reserved exclusively for Muslims. Nevertheless, the Marxist-influenced Syrian government under the Ba'ath Party , which rules an officially socialist-People's Republican system, is extremely tolerant of religious minorities, including Christians and Jews . Christian churches are recognized and hardly exposed to such social pressure as before. A founding member of the Ba'ath Party, Michel Aflaq , was also a Christian. Despite the withholding of the presidential post, the constitutional referendum in Syria in 2012 guarantees freedom of belief. This is how Christians practice their faith openly under Ba'ath rule. In addition, their Christian holidays were recognized as a symbol of religious tolerance. The construction of places of worship was also supported, whereby all churches - as well as the mosques - were exempt from the tax for their internal church purchases. Since the Christians suffered neither state nor social discrimination under the Ba'ath Party , Syria not only had a great attraction for them until before the civil war in Syria since 2011 , but also had a long reputation for being the safest country for Christians in the Middle East to be.

Since the late 1960s, the conservative and stricter Islam has been gaining more and more influence among the population. a. by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood . Later, Salafist and Wahhabi tendencies gained ground, also with the help of missionaries from Saudi Arabia , who want to spread "true Islam" worldwide. This was a reason for many Christians to emigrate. Numerous Christians left the country, especially for the American double continent. Many Syrian Christians emigrated to Lebanon , Sweden and the USA . In the first half of the 20th century, Christians made up almost 30% of the population. Their share has shrunk since then, but current information is not available. As they are the only non-Muslim religious community, their situation is particularly precarious. The government is nevertheless trying to keep religious fundamentalism down - sometimes with drastic methods, such as in Hama in 1982 , where an uprising of the Muslim Brotherhood was suppressed using the air force . The unlawful invasion of Iraq by the USA and its allies in 2003, and the subsequent massacres, heightened concern among Syrian Christians about Western interference in Syria to the detriment of Christians. For example, Father Mitri Haji Athanasio told Die Zeit in February 2007 that “the Americans also want to destabilize Syria ethnically and religiously” and added the request: “Laissez-nous tranquilles!” (“Leave us alone!”)

Due to the civil war in Syria since 2011 , more than 500,000 Christians had to leave Syria by the end of 2019. According to the UNHCR , a total of around 5.6 million people have left Syria and six million are internally displaced, including many Christians. Those who stay are exposed to terror and murder. While the Christian communities in Damascus , Latakia and Wadi an-Nasara , which have also taken in numerous internally displaced persons , are still assessed as largely stable, the number of Christians in Aleppo , Homs and Hama, for example , has fallen sharply as a result of fleeing, and by the Islamists In destroyed places like ar-Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor there are no more Christians. As a minority, the Christians of Syria have got caught between the fronts of the conflicting parties in the civil war. Since the beginning of the conflict, the Syrian government of the Ba'ath Party has tried to win them over to their position, which was the fate of the Christians in their relationship with the opposition. Although many Christians in Syria welcomed the desire for political participation at the beginning of the war, there was strong reluctance to actively support the 2011 protest movement. The persecution of Christians by Islamist opposition groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood , the al-Nusra Front and the Daesh (IS) strengthened its support for the Syrian government of the Ba'ath Party of Bashar al-Assad , under which Christians are neither religiously persecuted nor socially discriminated. For this reason, many Syrian Christians see the Assad government as a bulwark against radical Islamist currents. At the beginning of the conflict there was also an advocacy of a dialogue between Christian and Islamic religious leaders from Christian communities, combined with an actively represented position of neutrality. Harutyun Selimian , President of the Armenian Evangelical Community in Syria, made this statement on October 12, 2012 . Syrian Christians also took part in the initial protests for a democratic Syria in 2011 and 2012. Former Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said that these activists feared Assad's allies more than the rebels, because Christians had a reputation for having good relations with the West. Bitter experiences soon changed these attitudes. When taking cities like Homs with its Christian quarters al-Hamidiya and Bustan al-Diwan or al-Qusair , however, the Islamist conquerors made no distinction and drove all Christians from their homes. The Jesuit priest Frans van der Lugt , who criticized both sides, including the Syrian government, for their attacks on the rebel stronghold of Homs, was shot in the head on April 7, 2014.

Many young Christians, especially in places with a predominantly Christian population such as Saidnaya , Sadad , Maalula , Suqailabiyya and Mhardeh or the places of Wadi an-Nasara , volunteer for the Christian militias as part of the National Defense Forces (قوات الدفاع الوطني, DMG Quwwāt ad-Difāʿ al-Waṭanī ), where they can do their military service. According to the sociologist Georges Fahmi, this is an opportunity for Christians to avoid military service in the Syrian Arab Army in the main combat zones and instead to do the service close to their own family on site - living at home - and directly to their own homeland to protect their enemies. Many Christians also believe that the government and the army are doing too little to protect Syria's Christians.

The Greek Orthodox Patriarch John X , brother of Bulos Jasidschi , kidnapped in 2013 and missing since then , with Assad and Putin in the Mariamite Cathedral of Damascus on January 7, 2020
First Christmas in Aleppo since the beginning of the civil war, December 2016, shortly after the Islamist rebels were driven out. In the background portraits of Putin and Assad as well as of the Secretary General of Hezbollah , Hassan Nasrallah

Church representatives emphasize again and again that a large number of the rebels are not Muslim neighbors of the Christians in Syria, but Islamist extremists from abroad such as Saudi Arabia and Libya , who have never learned to tolerate people of other faiths in their lives. The support of Western countries for the armed opposition and also direct intervention by the West are vehemently rejected by a large number of Syrian Christians. The Melkite priest Taufik oath made in view of the devastation of the majority Christian village Maalula 2013/2014 and the killing of several of its inhabitants by opposition forces of the al-Nusra Front out that Maalula once reflected the coexistence of religions and military-strategic had no meaning. Rather, the Islamist rebels are concerned with targeting and destroying symbolic places of Christianity in Syria and spreading fear and terror among Christians. The outrage among Syrian church representatives about the reactions of the West with the threat of further sanctions to the offensive of the Syrian army in March 2018 against the Islamists in eastern Ghouta near Damascus, from where the old town of Damascus was shelled in January and February 2018, was correspondingly great which resulted in several deaths and damage to buildings, including churches in the city. According to the words of the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius Ephrem II Karim , who calls for a strong Syrian government and an end to foreign interference, the Christians in Damascus only get better with the expulsion of the Islamists from Ghouta in April 2018.

The low level of interest shown by most of the media and the public in the West, especially in Germany, meets with bitterness among Syrian Christians. In 2018, for example, Joseph I (Yousef Absi), Patriarch of Antioch and the whole of the Orient and head of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church united with Rome, expressed his anger towards Matthias Matussek at the persecution of Christians in Maalula and other parts of Syria by the rebels about the “Christians in the unsuspecting West” who “were lied to about the conditions here”. In December 2019, Absi sharply criticized the refusal of Western countries such as Germany to let the Syrian refugees behind to Syria while Assad was in power, as this would stand in the way of the reconstruction of Syria. The Christians of Syria are also not prepared to allow themselves to be treated as a minority in their country, as is done not only by Muslims but also by representatives of Western countries. The interference from abroad must end. Instead of mutual offsetting, there must be an honest will in Syria to live together and equal rights and duties for all citizens. Many Christians in Syria have a much more positive attitude towards Russia than towards Germany, which is luring important people away from the country with its policy of welcoming and bleeding the communities to death , with its air strikes against the Islamist extremists as well as with its help in the reconstruction as a Christian ally and which, according to statements by church representatives in Syria, together with the Islamic Republic of Iran, prevented the establishment of a caliphate in Syria. Not the religion of the Muslim neighbors, but the interference of the West and its Arab allies, such as the EU's economic sanctions against Syria, are seen as a problem.

In an interview with the Italian La Stampa (2016), Bechara Boutros Rai , Maronite Patriarch of Antioch and the whole of the Orient and thus also of the Maronites in Syria based in Bkerke in Lebanon , also emphasizes the negative role of the West, which through its interference the Successes of the Islamists - partly also through direct support - made possible, and praises Russia, which is fighting Daesh and other Islamist terror groups effectively through its air strikes . Russia is the only major foreign power to bring up the situation of Eastern Christians. He emphasizes, however, that the Christians of the Orient do not need generous helpers from abroad, but want to continue to live in the Middle East as part of the body of Christ , as children of God , and play an important role in this region, which urgently needs the word of God. For centuries, the church lived in good neighbors with the Muslims, but also suffered severe persecution - for example among the Mamluks and the Abbasids - and yet did it like a “pipe in the wind” ( Mt 11.7  EU and Mt 12.20  EU ) survived. The persecution for Christ's sake is not a genocide equate. The main conflict in this region is between Sunnis and Shiites or between Saudi Arabia and Iran , who are waging a proxy war or a political war in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon, into which Christians are drawn and through Hezbollah also in Lebanon political solutions would be blocked. However, this main conflict also led to the fact that overall, but even on the part of the Islamist Daesh, more Muslims than Christians fell victim to Islamist terror.

The conflict in Syria, characterized by Bechara Boutros Rai as "Sunni-Shiite", has led to the Lebanese, radical Shiite Hezbollah appearing as an ally of Christian militias and the Syrian army, for example in the liberation of Kessab in the far northwest or Maalula in Qalamun -Mountain from the reign of terror as Sunni understanding Islamist opposition forces (in Islamic texts, for example by Hezbollah or the Iranian government, called Takfīr ī ). When Maalula was captured on April 14, 2014, three Hezbollah reporters died. The well-known Melkite priest and choirmaster Elias Zahlawi from Damascus gave the central organ of Hezbollah an interview in March 2020 in which he thanked the organization for the help in the fight, in which Hezbollah fighters were particularly brave and at the same time respectful to the Christian as well as the Muslim residents, their property and their holy places, so also in the (mostly Sunni-Muslim, to a lesser extent Christian) localities al-Qusayr and Yabrud . Yabrud was described in the Telegraph in 2013 as a model place for Muslims and Christians to live together. The Free Syrian Army was still welcomed in this place, and coexistence continued to function well in the place controlled by the opposition. However, against the will of local Muslims, men from the al-Qaeda- affiliated al-Nusra Front tried to take control of the mosques. In October 2013, al-Nusra, who now ruled the place, blew up the cross from the Frauenkirche in Yabrud . On March 16, 2014, government forces took Yabrud with the support of Hezbollah. Despite war and violence, the good and sometimes friendly neighborhood between Sunni Muslims and Melkite Christians survived the protests, the reign of terror from al-Nusra and the reconquest of the place by the army, and a large part of Yabrud's Christians also returned after the fighting . On the other hand, it is reported about al-Quseir that the Islamist forces succeeded in sowing enmity between Sunnis and Melkite Christians. During the rebel occupation, all Christians - including the few who had taken part in the protests against Assad - were driven out and the Elias Church in al-Quseir became the rebel headquarters. When it was captured by the government army and Hezbollah, on the other hand, almost all Sunnis fled, so that of the 40,000 once only 500 people lived in the city. The Spectator described the fight to al-Qusair in this context as "Syria War Minatur".

In the words of the Lebanese evangelical pastor Najla Kassab of the National Evangelical Church in Syria and Lebanon and President of the World Community of Reformed Churches , the Syrian war is by no means a war between Muslims and Christians, but - now - a war against radical Islamists. Muslims are no less affected by the devastation than Christians, but the presence of Christianity as a result of flight and emigration is acutely endangered by the war in Syria and other countries in the region. It is a task of the Christian churches of the world to finally stand up resolutely for the Christian presence in Syria and in the Middle East as a whole.

The Syrian government under Bashar al-Assad values ​​the presence of Christians in Syria, many of whom left the country during the war. Among other things, the government made a contribution to the reconstruction of the Forty Martyrs Cathedral in Aleppo . On the occasion of a visit by the Armenian Catholicos of Cilicia , Aram I , in May 2019, Assad called on the Syrian Armenians who had left the country - around 22,000 of them for Armenia - to return and help rebuild the country. He emphasized the "patriotic spirit" of the Armenian Christians of Syria, whom he described as "exemplary citizens".

Areas under Islamist control

Christians are a major target of destruction by Islamist groups. Here the Evangelical Church of al-Judaide ( Aleppo ) which was destroyed by an underground bomb , 2013
Syrian Orthodox Church of St. Mary in Deir ez-Zor , November 2018 (2012-2017 partly in IS hands)

The situation of Christians in areas that are under the control of the Islamist opposition or that have been under the control of the Islamist opposition for a long time is described as particularly bleak. The Ghouta region near Damascus was used by many of the capital's middle class for their own homes. There were two churches in the local town of Harasta , both of which were destroyed by the rebels. The 2500 Christian residents fled after the town's secret service building was blown up in 2012, leaving many dead. After the recapture in April 2018, many refugees visited their hometown, but found houses and churches completely destroyed. According to the priest of St. Elias Church there, Gabriel Kahila, most of them want to leave Syria and no one wants to return to Harasta.

In Idlib, in the northwest of the country, there were around 60 Christian families before the war. In March 2015, Idlib was first targeted by armed groups. On March 27, 2015, troops from the Islamist al-Nusra Front marched in and executed a number of Christians. Two days later, all Christians were told to leave the city over loudspeakers with death threats. This request was generally obeyed and valuables were taken from the displaced at checkpoints. The refugees found shelter in various places, including many in the "Valley of the Christians" ( Wadi an-Nasara ) near Homs.

The former Christian villages of al-Qunaya (Knayeh), al-Yaʿqūbiyya (Yacoubieh) and al- Judaida (Gidaideh), where the Haiʾat Tahrir militia are located near the border with Turkey on the Nahr al-Asi , are also under Islamist control to the present day Ash-shame ruled. Most of the churches here have been destroyed and most of the residents have fled, but a few hundred Christians are believed to still live here. The Franciscans (OFM) , who had a monastery in all three places, are still present here today. Public Christian life is not tolerated by the Islamist militia, which is why Christian celebrations and services can only take place behind closed doors. From the Catholic Church in Knayeh, where the two Franciscan Fathers Hanna Jallouf and Fr. Louai Bsharat refuse to leave, all crosses have been removed and the bells have fallen silent since the insurgents marched in, as did the other remaining churches. The modest services are celebrated together by the few remaining Catholics, Orthodox and Armenian Apostolics. Any externally visible jewelry at festivals is expressly forbidden, and jizya will be collected. The Islamist militiamen, who have not received any pay for months, plunder the crops and the houses of the remaining Christian residents.

In north-eastern Syria, the so-called Islamic State (Daesh) succeeded in forcing almost all residents to flee to other regions or abroad by destroying all the Assyrian villages on the Chabur with their churches and houses, which were one of the last linguistic islands of the East American language and hardly anyone has returned to the ruins of their home villages after the Islamists were driven out by the Syrian Democratic Forces . Daesh extorted high ransom money for hundreds of kidnapped Christians, while more kidnapped people were murdered and women were enslaved. The destruction and trauma of people have left huge holes in the fabric of society and likely permanently destroyed communities. Tell Tamer , the only Assyrian village on the Chabur, where over a tenth of the originally resident Christians still lived in 2019, is the base of a Christian women's unit of the Syrian Military Council , which was formed to protect against Islamist forces and their Turkish allies.

In various areas, after the expulsion of the Christians, Islamist forces made a main church in the city their headquarters, which then came under fire from government troops during the fighting. This was the case with the Melkite Cathedral of Mary Queen of Peace in Homs and the Melkite Church of Elias in al-Qusair , both of which were badly devastated. The National Evangelical Church of Homs served the Islamist rebels as a defense registration office . In ar-Raqqa , the Armenian Catholic Martyrs Church was used by the Daesh as the seat of a Sharia court and the Hisbah moral police before he blew it up while retreating.

A life in peace is hardly possible for Christians in the immediate vicinity of areas under Islamist control. Thus, as in lying near the rebel territory of Idlib Al-Suqaylabiyah (formerly Seleucopolis) on 12 May 2019 from Islamist militia Hayat Tahrir al-Sham , the local Orthodox Greek- fired Peter and Paul Church targeted with grenades, which five children and a teacher died. However, it is also the predominantly Christian Suqailabiyya where on March 16, 2013 Christian residents set up the Quwat al-Ghadab ("Forces of Anger") militia to defend the city against Islamist forces , who stood alongside the Republican Guard against the rebels Use has come.

Culture

Syrian Christians in a church in Damascus 2017

The Syrian Christian communities are considered conservative, so, as with Muslims and Jews, sexual relationships outside of marriage are unacceptable for most Christians in Syria and Syrian society in general. In addition, marrying a non-Christian person (especially a Muslim) is considered a major sin within the Syrian Christian community. The Syrian Christian families often end their relationships with their daughter or son if he or she marries a Muslim, although marriage to an atheist of Christian descent is not a problem for most Syrian Christians.

Demographics

Overview of the Christian denominational families

About 10% of Syrians are Christians. They live in the Damascus, Homs, Aleppo area and traditionally in their villages. The Syrian Orthodox Church (Jacobites) forms the majority of Christians living in Syria with 60%, followed by the Greek Orthodox Church and the Melkite Catholic Church . The rest is divided between the Assyrian Church of the East ( Nestorians ), the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Syrian Catholic Church united with Rome . There are also very small, different Chaldean, Catholic and Protestant minority communities.

The Christians in the different regions of Syria

Aleppo

Al-Judaide ( Aleppo ) in 2010 (in the middle the two Armenian cathedrals: 40 martyrs on the left , Our Mother of Redemption on the right )
The Syrian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Ephraem the Syrians , Sulaimaniyah (Aleppo), 2011

In Aleppo , Christians live mainly in the Christian quarter of Judaide (Jdeydeh). There are three large main churches next to each other: the Greek Orthodox Church of the Dormition of Our Lady , the Syrian Catholic Church of Saint Assia the Wise and the Armenian Apostolic Forty Martyrs Cathedral with the Zarehian Treasury in the building of the former Armenian Holy Mother -God Church. Another important church in the neighborhood is the Saint Elias Cathedral of the Syrian-Maronite Church of Antioch . The Judaide district with its churches was badly devastated in the civil war by fighting between Islamists and government troops.

The Old Syrian Quarter (حي السريان القديم) and the New Syrian Quarter (حي السريان الجديد) north of the city center, both of which are almost entirely Christian, originated from refugee movements of Christians from what is now Turkey, in particular from the Diyarbakır massacre in 1895 and later from the genocide of the Syrian Christians (Sayfo). The Old Syrian Quarter is home to the Syrian Orthodox Church of St. George and the Armenian Apostolic Church of St. James .

By the time the civil war broke out, Aleppo was likely to have had the largest absolute number of Christians in Syria, between 150,000 and 250,000, depending on the estimate, of whom only 100,000 were still living there at the end of 2016. Shortly before Christmas 2016, the Islamists were driven out of Aleppo, so that the first Christmas in five years was possible and the birth of Christ was celebrated in the ruins of the Saint Elias Cathedral. The heavily destroyed Armenian Forty Martyrs Cathedral was quickly rebuilt and reopened on March 30, 2019. The Orthodox Church of the Dormition of the Blessed Mother was demined by the Russian military in 2017 before reconstruction work began. St. Elias Cathedral was still a building site in March 2020; its destroyed roof was not restored until the end of 2019. The church of Mar Assia, on the other hand, was still walled up in 2020 because there was no money for the reconstruction. However, in April 2019, the Catholic Home of Mary Cathedral of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church was reopened. The Armenian Evangelical Church has three churches in Aleppo alone, the Bethel Church , the Immanuel Church and the Martyrs Church . The Immanuel Church was badly damaged by these on January 17, 2016 and only reopened on December 2, 2018 after being rebuilt.

The Syrian Orthodox Assyrians have only been present in Aleppo since they fled from what is now Turkish areas before the genocide of the Syrian Christians and live largely in the Sulaymaniyah district, where there are also Armenians and other Christians. This is where the Syrian Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Ephraem the Syrians is located . The Greek and Syrian Orthodox Churches also suffered a serious loss of personnel in the civil war when their Archbishops Gregorius Yohanna Ibrahim and Paul Yazigi were abducted at gunpoint in April 2013. Since then there has been no sign of life from the two clergymen. Most of the Chaldeans Aleppo also live in Sulaymaniyah, where the Chaldean Saint Joseph Cathedral from 1957 is located. The district's Armenians have had the Church of Our Lady since 1982 . Before the civil war in 2009, Aleppo was described as the city of Syria with the greatest religious diversity and the most diverse churches. In the district of al-Midan, in addition to the Armenian Catholic Trinity Church , the Jesuit monastery Deir Wartan is of importance, which took care of Iraqi refugees for several years after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 , and later also took care of Syrian internally displaced persons and was destroyed in September 2012. One of the largest churches in Aleppo is the Melkite Greek Catholic Church of St. George in the Sulaymaniya district.

Damascus

Bab Sharqi (East Gate of Damascus ) with the Armenian Saint Sarkis Cathedral , 2013
Greek Orthodox Mariamite Cathedral of Damascus , 2010

The Christians of Damascus live within the old town in particular in the Christian quarter to the northeast with the quarters at Bāb Tūmā (Thomastor) in the northeast with the St. George's Cathedral of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and the St. Anthony's Cathedral (Mar Antonios) of the Syrian Maronites as well at Bab Sharqi (east gate) with the neighboring Armenian Apostolic Saint Sarkis Cathedral and the Syrian Catholic Paulus Cathedral . Here on Straight Street at the east gate of Damascus, the Melkite Greek Catholic Church has its seat in the Melkite Patriarchate of Antioch with the Cathedral of the Dormition of Our Lady, also known as Al-Zeitoun Church . One of the oldest churches in the world is the Mariamite Cathedral of Damascus, built by the Greek Orthodox Church on Straight Street around the year 200, near the Roman triumphal arch in the middle of the old town.

Damascus plays a special role as a biblical place for Christianity in Syria. About the experiences of Paul of Tarsus in this city is reported in the 9th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles of Luke . Several places in Damascus are therefore today pilgrimage sites, churches or chapels. The Roman Catholic Church of Conversion Paul was consecrated in 1971 at the assumed place of Paul's Damascus experience ( Acts 9.3–9  EU ) in Tabbaleh , once at the gates of the city, but today a predominantly Christian district of Damascus . As a saint is important but Ananias of Damascus , who from God was commissioned and followed, Saul (Paul) in the house of Judas on Straight Street to visit ( Acts 9,11  EU ). The house of Ananias in the old town near the Bāb Tūmā is also a Roman Catholic church and pilgrimage site today. In addition, the southeastern city gate Bab Kisan , where Paul is said to have been lowered in a basket to flee Damascus ( Acts 9.25  EU ), has been the Paulus chapel of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church since 1939 . Another saint of great importance in Damascus is John the Baptist , whose head is said to be buried at the site of today's Umayyad Mosque . That is why the Christian basilica of St. John the Baptist stood here from the end of the 4th century until shortly after 700. Seventy years after the Islamic conquest of Damascus in 636, it finally became today's mosque. The Umayyad mosque also claims to keep John's head in its Johannes shrine, which, according to Muslim opinion, was only found during the construction work on the mosque around the year 706. In 2001 Pope John Paul II visited the mosque with the relic and thus became the first Pope to visit a mosque. For the Greek Orthodox Church , John of Damascus, who was born in Damascus under the caliph Muʿāwiya I , is an important saint, whose texts in Greek and Aramaic (Syriac) are still read today. A church near the Mariamite Cathedral is dedicated to him, the Church of St. John of Damascus .

The largest church of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, which is strongly represented in Damascus, is the Church of Our Lady of Damascus in the northeastern district of al-Qusur , which was completed in 1975 .

During the civil war in Syria , the quarters of the old town of Damascus were exposed to shelling by Islamist rebels, especially in 2013 and 2014, but also in early 2018, until the armed opposition lost its stronghold in eastern Ghouta near Damascus in April 2018 .

Homs

Homs also has a strong Christian population , but many Christians here too had to flee because of the civil war. There are four cathedral churches: The Greek Orthodox Church has the Forty Martyrs Cathedral as the bishopric of Homs , which suffered severe damage in the civil war and is still being rebuilt. Much older is the also Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Elian , built in the 5th century near the city gate to Palmyra, which survived the war without being destroyed. The historic St. Mary's Church of the Holy Belt , cathedral of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch , possibly dating back to the first century , was badly damaged in 2012, but reopened in 2014 after repair work. The bishopric of the Syrian Catholic Church is in the Holy Spirit Cathedral (Homs) , which was also badly damaged in the war and has been restored since 2015. The Cathedral of Mary Queen of Peace of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church served as the rebel headquarters from 2011 to 2014 and was badly damaged but restored in 2016 to 2019.

Latakia

The port city of Latakia, with its approximately 10% Christians of the Syrian Orthodox , Syrian Catholic and Greek Orthodox Churches, was largely spared from acts of war during the civil war and took in many Christian refugees from northwest Syria such as Aleppo or the Armenian -influenced Kessab during the civil war . There are three cathedral churches here: the Greek Orthodox St. George's Cathedral , the Melkite Cathedral of the Annunciation and the Maronite Church of Our Lady . The Armenian Church of the Holy Mother of God is much older, but two Greek Orthodox churches are even more: the Nikolauskirche from the 6th century and the Church of the Holy Virgin , built before the 8th century . With the Sacred Heart Church , the Latin Church is also present, as is the Presbyterian Church of Latakia of the National Evangelical Synod .

A part of the Christians of Latakia concentrate on the residential area around the unofficially also called "Amerikastraße" (شارع الأميركان) well-known Mutanabbi Street (شارع المتنبي), where they form the majority. This area - roughly the western half of the urban area of ​​Latakia within the city limits of 1936 - is also known as the "America Quarter" after a Protestant school founded by missionaries from the USA. This naming should not hide the fact that the large majority of the Christian churches and Christians in Syria reject the US policy towards Syria and the Middle East.

"Valley of the Christians" (Wadi an-Nasara)

A center of Christianity in Syria, especially for the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch , is Wadi an-Nasara , German "Valley of the Christians", in western Syria near the northern border of Lebanon , where there are around 150,000 Syrian Christians in 27 almost entirely Christian villages Life. Numerous Christian refugees from Homs, Aleppo and other regions found refuge here during the civil war, so that the population temporarily rose to 400,000 people. In Humaira near Marmarita there is the Greek Orthodox Saint George Monastery ( Deir Mar Georges ).

Region of Palmyra

The city of al-Qaryatain, southwest of the city of Tadmur with the ruins of Palmyra, is mostly inhabited by Sunni Muslims , but also by many Christians. Close to al-Qaryatain was the 5th century Syrian Catholic monastery of Mar Elian , which had been abandoned for a long time and was revived in 2007 by monks from the Dair Mar Musa al-Habaschi monastery in anti-Lebanon . Under Prior Jacques Mourad , the monastery also served as a place of dialogue between Muslims and Christians. During the civil war, only a heap of rubble remained of the monastery, which had taken in a number of refugees - mostly Muslims - since 2011, after it was occupied and willfully destroyed by the Daesch (IS) terrorist militia from August 2015 to April 2016.

Qalamun Mountains

Christ statue above the village of Maalula in the Qalamun Mountains
Entrance to the Melkite Monastery of Saints Sergius and Bacchus

The 90% Syrian Orthodox Sadad on the northern edge of the Qalamun Mountains, where hundreds of Christian militiamen from all over Syria led by Sadad Mayor Suleiman Khalil without the support of the Syrian or of the Russian army repulsed attackers from the Islamist terrorist organization Daesch (IS).

Further south in the Qalamun Mountains, 27 km north of Damascus , lies the likewise predominantly Christian, predominantly Greek Orthodox city ​​of Saidnaya . A 12.3 m high, 32 m high statue of Jesus with a base was erected here on October 14, 2013, which is considered to be the tallest such statue in the Middle East. Saidnaya is home to one of the oldest monasteries in the world, the Greek Orthodox Monastery of Our Lady of Saidnaya .

Apart from the predominantly after the genocide of the Armenians arrived in the early 20th century to Syria Armenians in Syria , under which often Western Armenian is used, the Christians speak in the listed here so far places as their native language and vernacular consistently Arabic , although not understand all as Arabs , but also as Arameans , Assyrians or Maronites , depending on their church and origin . Until 2011, Aramaic languages ​​were only held in individual villages in the southwest and northeast of Syria.

In Qalamun Mountains, which the Anti-Lebanon heard was still in last three villages to the Civil War Western Aramaic spoken. Of these three places, however, only Maalula is predominantly Christian, in roughly equal parts Melkite Greek Catholic and Greek Orthodox . The Melkite monastery of Saints Sergius and Bacchus above Maalula was built in the 4th century and is therefore one of the oldest monasteries in the world, while the Greek Orthodox monastery of Saint Thekla in Maalula was completed in 1935. Maalula was under the control of Islamist rebels from the Al-Nusra Front from December 2013 to April 2014 and was largely destroyed. Almost all of the Christian population fled, and by May 2019 only about a third had returned. In the meantime, Aramaic is said to be spoken actively by only about a fifth of the Maalula population. The predominantly Sunni - Muslim and only to a small extent still Christian, Greek Orthodox Aramaic village of Bacha'a (Arabic as-Sarcha ) was completely destroyed in the war, and no one has returned so far.

The northeast

View of al-Malikiyah , in the middle the unfinished Syrian Orthodox Church, 2008
Chaldean Church of al-Malikiya, 2008

The al-Hasakah governorate in northeast Syria was the province with the highest proportion of Christians, who made up around 20 to 30% of the population here around 2010. Of the around 100,000 to 120,000 Christians living here, around 10% were Armenians , mostly with Western Armenian as their mother tongue, while the rest, as Arameans and Assyrians, belonged to the various Syrian churches, who usually still speak one of the Eastern Rama dialects and Eastern Rama as the written and liturgical language Use Syrian . The majority of these Christians - Armenians as well as Arameans and Assyrians - come from refugees who came here after the First World War to flee from the genocide of the Syrian Christians and the Armenians from regions that now belong to Turkey . The settlement of the refugees also led to the establishment of new dioceses with their cathedrals: in al-Qamishli the Armenian Catholic Cathedral of St. Joseph and in al-Hasakah the Syrian Orthodox St. George's Cathedral and the Syrian Catholic Cathedral of the Assumption . The largest groups were made up of refugees from the province of Hâkkari and from Tur Abdin , who brought with them the East-American Turoyo . Many Christians fled Iraq from 1933 to 1936 after the Semile massacre and were settled by the French with the support of the League of Nations in Tell Tamer on the Chabur northwest of al-Hasakah. This is where the 35 villages of the Chabur Assyrians emerged . Before the refugees arrived, the region was sparsely populated, mostly by Muslim-Arab Bedouins . With the settlement of Christians, places like al-Hasakah, al-Qamishli and al-Malikiyah became cities in which Christians formed the majority in the mid-20th century. This changed in the 1960s when the large landowners were expropriated and the lands were distributed to mostly Muslim, often Kurdish, small farmers. Most of the Christians left the villages and settled in the cities. The Muslim population grew faster here too, so that by the year 2000 it formed the majority in the cities as well.

In the civil war , the terror organization was in 2013 Daesch (IS) in the region increasingly successful and captured in mid-2013 ar-Raqqa , the capital of neighboring provinces . Despite fierce resistance from the Assyrian and Kurdish militias, the well-financed and heavily armed Daesh fighters took all the Christian Assyrian villages on the Chabur at the end of February 2015. A large part of the population was able to flee, but several hundred Christians were directly exposed as hostages to the terror of Daesh. In the villages, some of which were only in the hands of the terrorist organization for a few weeks, all churches were blown up and all houses destroyed. On February 27, 2015, there were no Christian residents in any of the 35 Assyrian villages on the Chabur. A significant proportion of the refugees went abroad, and even after the expulsion of the Islamists - in fighting on the Chabur from May to August 2015 - very few returned. In most places the Christian population has declined by more than half, and the villages on the Chabur are largely deserted. In 2019, Tell Tamer is the only village with around 400 of the former 3,000 Christian residents in which more than 100 Christians still live. According to a report from the end of 2019, only Assyrian Christians have returned to this place, which is also the base of a Christian women's unit of the Syrian Military Council , but none of the other residents - Kurdish and Arab Muslims - have returned. In 2018, a total of around 900 lived in the villages on the Chabur of former 10,000 Assyrian Christians, and there were only regular services in one church.

Since 2014, parts of the area have been under the control of the Kurdish People's Defense Units (YPG), which are part of the Syrian Democratic Forces , and part of the Kurdish region of Rojava , which is politically supported by the Democratic Union Party (PYD) (part of the National Coordinating Committee for Democratic Change ) to be led. Unlike in the areas ruled by Islamist rebels, the Syrian Christians were able to come to terms with the secular forces and also enter into alliances. With the support of the YPG, the Christian Aramaic-Assyrian militia Sutoro was set up and used in the fight against the Islamists from mid-2013 . From January 2014 the Assyrian Military Council (MFS) also took part in the YPG's fighting against the Islamists. The Sutoro militia should be distinguished from the Christian militia Sootoro , which is also located in northeast Syria and fights alongside the government army. As a result of the Turkish military offensive in northern Syria in 2019 , the Christians in northeast Syria are now exposed to persecution by the Turkish army and their Islamist allies and are expressing the fear that there will soon be no more Christians living in the region.

However, there are also conflicts within the Democratic Forces of Syria, with education being one of the main issues. While no minority languages ​​were provided for in state schools in the Syrian Arab Republic as part of Arab nationalism , not only Kurdish is used in Rojava, but also Aramaic Syriac (Syriac) as a subject and language of instruction for Assyrians . Under the Ba'ath Party, Syriac was (and is) taught only in church schools, and only as a subject, in particular as the historical and liturgical language, because Arabic is prescribed by the state as the general language of instruction (in the other subjects). Syriac language is enjoying increasing popularity among Christians in al-Qamishli and al-Hasakah. However, there is a dispute over the curricula in Rojava, for which a program is planned that is strongly oriented towards Kurdish history and culture, and which Assyrian representatives also accuse of falsifying history . Assyrian schools were also disadvantaged in terms of funding in Rojava. In 2018 church schools that wanted to operate according to their own curriculum were closed. The Christians of the region are also resisting the pushing back of the Arabic language and isolation from the rest of the country. The Education Council representative pointed out that Rojava private schools are allowed to use their own curricula, but none of the Ba'ath Party government, and the closed Christian schools used curricula from Damascus and did not even have Syriac (Assyrian) in their program. All three languages ​​(Kurdish, Arabic, Assyrian) are permitted as the language of instruction in Rojava. Against the background of these tensions, the Syrian Arab army was celebrated by the city's Christians when it marched into al-Qamishli in October 2019, at the same time as the risk of a Turkish occupation of al-Qamishli has decreased.

Valley of the Nahr al-Asi

At Nahr al-Asi , where the overall Muslim population is predominant, there are two larger towns near Hama with a predominantly Greek Orthodox population: Suqailabiyya has around 18,000, Mhardeh around 22,000 inhabitants. Both places are close to the front line to the Islamist-dominated area in the Idlib governorate and have been repeatedly exposed to fire with numerous deaths, including many children. In both places there are militias that are fighting against the Islamists. The three Christian villages of Knayeh , Yacoubieh and Gidaideh, which were Christian until the civil war in Syria, are located near the border with Turkey, also on the Nahr al-Asi . While Yacoubieh was predominantly Armenian ( apostolic ) with a minority of Catholics, there were more Catholics in the other two locations. Since 2015, the places have been under the control of Islamists who do not tolerate public Christian life. The Franciscans (OFM) had a monastery in every place and are still present here today.

Denominations

In Syria, the various churches claiming the ancient patriarchate of Antioch or their splits are represented. Due to the influence of Rome, practically all churches are divided into an independent and a Rome-unified branch.

Denominational / traditional family Independent branch
seat
chief
Rome-uniate branch
seat
chief
rite Liturgical language annotation
Byzantine Orthodox Tradition Greek Orthodox Church
St. Mary's
Cathedral , Damascus Patriarch Youhanna X. (since 2012)
Melkite Greek Catholic Church ( Melkites , 1724)
Cathedral of the Assumption , Damascus
Patriarch Gregory III. Laham (since 2000)
Byzantine rite Arabic After the Council of Chalcedon, “Melkiten” (“loyal to the king”) was the name given to the representatives of the council decision, ie the party of the imperial church. After a pro-Roman branch split off, only these “Greek-Catholic” Christians are called “Melkites” today. The orthodox part belongs to the world community of orthodoxy. Both churches claim to be legitimate holders of the patriarchal title of Antioch . The Catholic Branch also claims this for the Patriarchal Thrones of Alexandria and Jerusalem.
Ancient oriental tradition (Western Syrians) Syrian Orthodox Church ("Jacobites")
Ephraim Monastery, Saidnaya
Patriarch Ignatius Ephräm II. Karim (since 2014)
Syrian Catholic Church (1662/1782)
Cathedral of the Annunciation, Beirut
Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III. Younan (since 2009)
West Syrian Rite Syrian The Syrian Orthodox Church includes four archdioceses in Syria and others in Iraq, Turkey ( Tur Abdin ), Lebanon, Jerusalem, Europe, North America and Australia, as well as the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church in South India. Both churches claim to be legitimate holders of the patriarchal title of Antioch.
Ancient oriental tradition (Western Syrians) no Maronite Church ( Syrian Maronites ) Bkerke
Monastery , Jounieh , Lebanon Patriarch Béchara Pierre Raï (since 2011)
West Syrian Rite Syriac, Arabic The Maronites, split off from the Syrian Orthodox Church in the 7th century, submitted to the sovereignty of Rome in 1182, there is no branch not loyal to Rome. This community also lays claim to the title of patriarch of Antioch. The Maronites are the largest Christian community in Lebanon.
Ancient oriental tradition (Armenians) Armenian Apostolic Church , Catholic of Cilicia,
Gregory Cathedral , Antelias , Lebanon
Aram I (since 1995)
Armenian Catholic Church (1740), Patriarchate of Cilicia, Bzommar
Monastery, Lebanon Grégoire Bedros XX. Ghabroyan (since 2015)
Armenian rite Classic Armenian Armenian Christianity, which is mainly supported by the Armenian Diaspora , has even had a Protestant branch since 1846, the Armenian Evangelical Church with its headquarters in Yerevan and Beirut.
Latin (Roman) tradition Latin Church , Apostolic Vicariate Aleppo
Francis of Assisi Cathedral , Aleppo
Giuseppe Nazzaro (since 2002)
Latin rite Arabic Catholic Christianity is represented in Syria not only by the various Eastern Roman churches, but also by the “western” Roman church itself. The Latin Patriarchate of Antioch was abolished in 1964 and the Roman claim to this patriarchal title was withdrawn. However, three Rome-United churches continue to see themselves as legitimate representatives of the Church of Antioch.
Assyrian Church (Eastern Syrians) Assyrian Church of the East , Diocese of Syria
Bishop Aprem Natniel
Chaldean Catholic Church , Diocese of Aleppo
Bishop Antoine Audo
East Syrian rite Syriac, Arabic The Eastern Syrian "Nestorian" Christianity, which goes back to the early Christian Catholic of Seleukia-Ctesiphon in what was then Persia (now Iraq), is, despite theological differences, together with the Syriac Orthodox speakers of the Aramaic languages .

Syrian churches

The Assyrian Church of the East is practically only present in Northeast Syria. Here the Cathedral of Our Lady in al-Hasakah

The Arameans (also called Assyrians) represent a special group . They suffered severe massacres by the Ottoman Turks in 1915 . The Aramaic language , the language of Jesus and at the same time the church language of the Syrian Orthodox , Syrian Catholic , Chaldean Catholic, Maronite and Assyrian Churches of the East and widely spread throughout the Middle East until the seventh century, still has around 18,000 speakers in Syria today; others live in Iraq and in the diaspora. Large Syrian Orthodox communities can be found in Northeast Syria. In Maalula , on a mountain slope of the Anti-Lebanon , is Western Aramaic spoken as a mother tongue; In this predominantly Christian place there is a monastery which supposedly dates from early Christian times. The believers of the Assyrian Church of the East, also known as the Apostolic Church of the East, number around 30,000 and live mainly along the Chabur in the northeast. They mostly speak the East Aamaic Turoyo .

The Chaldean Catholic Church also exists along the Chabur in the northeast . The head of the Chaldean Catholics is Antoine Audo , Bishop of Aleppo in northern Syria. Around 14,000 believers in Syria profess this denomination.

Melkite Greek Catholic Church

The Melkite Catholic Church is one of the largest Christian communities that live mainly inland. The Melkite Patriarch of Antioch , Gregory III. Laham , has his bishopric in Damascus . Belonging to the Patriarch are the Archparches Latakia , Aleppo , Bosra and Hauran and Homs .

Armenian Church

The most important religious denomination within the Christians are the Armenian Apostolic Christians , who are mainly ethnic Armenians and who also immigrated to Syria after the massacres of the Ottomans in 1915 . At that time Syria was still part of the Ottoman Empire .

The Armenian Apostolic Christians now make up 4% of the population. The liturgical and church language is Armenian .

Monasteries, castles and churches

In the far north-west of Syria, ruins of around 700 early Byzantine settlements with large churches and monasteries from the 4th to the 7th centuries point to a once flourishing cultural landscape and a center of learning. This limestone mountain country, now karstified, is called the land of the dead cities and is considered a cradle of Christianity.

From 395 the country belonged to the Eastern Roman Empire. The Byzantine basilica of the Simeon Monastery , in Arabic Kalat Siman, built between 476 and 490, is one of the best-preserved buildings of early Christian art. Here the pillar saint Symeon Stylites the Elder is remembered, who belonged to the Christian ascetics and lived praying, fasting and preaching on a pillar from 422 until his death in 459.

The Arabs , who had defeated the Byzantine Empire on Jarmuk in 636 , conquered the country. The country was gradually Arabized and Islamized.

From 1098 to 1268 the western part of Syria belonged to the Christian crusader - Principality of Antioch . The Islamic ruler Saladin and his successors maintained partly peaceful and partly warlike relations with the Christian Franks . The Mamelukes finally conquered the last Frankish possessions in Palestine and Syria in 1291 . More than a dozen castles and palaces, some of which are well preserved, remind of the time of the Crusades . The mighty Crac des Chevaliers fortification is best preserved . It is considered the archetype of the knight's castle, located on a mountain, visible from afar, with defiant walls, high defensive towers at every corner, an almost impassable moat, large pillar halls inside the complex, with knight halls, underground vaults and secret passages, with deep wells and dreary dungeons . Even Saladin's cunning wasn't enough to capture the Crac. This in no way diminished the fame as a "noble knight".

Personalities

Old Christian quarter al-Judaide in Aleppo

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

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  4. Adolf von Harnack : The mission and expansion of Christianity in the first three centuries . 4th, improved and increased edition, Hinrichs, Leipzig 1924, pp. 660-676.
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  8. Christoph Leonhardt: The Greek and the Syriac-Orthodox Patriarchates of Antioch in the context of the Syrian Conflict. Chronos 33 (2016), pp. 193–242.
  9. Christoph Leonhardt: The Greek and the Syriac-Orthodox Patriarchates of Antioch in the context of the Syrian Conflict. Chronos 33 (2016), pp. 193–242.
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