Hassaké: Syrian Christians and Christmas in the shadow of a Turkish threat
The Syrian Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan made a pastoral visit to north-east Syria in recent days. A reality of "sadness, anguish, but also of challenges and hope". War, economic crisis and fears of a Turkish attack have emptied the region. From 100,000 the faithful now number 20,000, with an average income of 30 euros per month. Sanctions and international neglect.
Hassaké (AsiaNews) - The Christians of north-east Syria are caught in a "very painful" situation in which there is a chronic "lack of water and electricity" that adds to the "devaluation of the national currency" creating "truly unbearable" living conditions. Moreover, they are faced with the threat of a Turkish ground offensive, which could be triggered at any moment.
This is the situation on the ground for the community as it approaches Christmas, one that will be of concern and extremely difficult conditions, as described by the Syrian Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan who recently paid a pastoral visit to the archdiocese of Hassaké-Nisibi.
On his return from six days spent with the local community, the primate told the National Catholic Register of a "visit full of sadness and anguish, but also of challenges and hope" in a reality that has been experiencing a continuous "via Crucis" for 12 years.
Devaluation, economic crisis, unemployment, war and the Turkish threat have disrupted the life of a once thriving community. Today, an average family barely has 30 euro a month, explains the patriarch, “but the most painful finding was the absence of young people in parishes and pastoral centers, which were the places most frequented by young people."
“The horrors of war and lack of work have created a horrific vacuum of young people. For our already very small Christian communities, this poses a most dangerous challenge for our survival in the native land for millennia,” he said.
Ignace Joseph III Younan's own parents were originally from Hassaké, from which they fled in 1918 during the terrible genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Empire. And the Turkish threat is relevant again today, with the 'Sword and Claw' operation launched by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which is expected to include a ground offensive and inevitable new bloodshed.
Yesterday, the Turkish president relaunched the proposal for talks and the normalisation of relations with Damascus, but the Kurds in north-eastern Syria are still the primary target to hit, ending up also affecting long-suffering Christians. And on the run.
The Patriarch himself, during the visit, witnessed the dramatic decline of the Christian presence in the region. “When I was a young priest in the 1970s, the Christian community in northeastern Syria — all refugees from the Ottoman Empire — represented more than a third of the population, numbering some 100,000 people. At present, there are less than 20,000, as most of them were forced by IS [or ISIS] terrorist gangs and the flowing chaos to flee, either inside Syria or across the border,” Patriarch Younan said.
During the pastoral visit, the primate celebrated the enthronement and installation of the new Syrian Catholic Archbishop Jacob Joseph Shimei at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption in Hassake.
In his homily, Patriarch Younan recalled, relaunching Pope Francis' numerous appeals for "tormented" Syria, that the country "is suffering more than any other" and that "12 years of torment are enough". He did not spare criticism of those in the West who continue with the policy of 'unjust' sanctions that is grinding down a people at the end of its tether: 'They hit,' he said, 'first of all innocent people, who want to live with dignity and with a sincere patriotic spirit'.
Denouncing the neglect of the international community and Western governments, the Patriarch recalled how "our people, while being grateful for what the Church has done and is doing to alleviate the suffering of the people, are aware that the ecclesiastical institutions are not able to give the right answers to an extremely complicated situation at a national, regional and global level". "We Christians in the Middle East," he added, "feel not only abandoned, but also betrayed" and "our very survival" is at stake.
(Images of the Syrian Catholic Patriarchate)
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30/11/2022 14:42
