Can Syria's Christians Survive?

The Wall Street Journal ^ | 8/11/12 | Bill Spindle and Sam Dagher

[marshmallow]

In the land of St. Paul's conversion, ancient Catholic and Orthodox communities are finding themselves on the wrong side of an increasingly sectarian conflict.

Near the Syrian city of Aleppo, the Church of St. Simeon the Stylite commemorates the 5th-century ascetic who became an ancient sensation by living atop a tall pedestal for decades to demonstrate his faith. Krak des Chevaliers, an awe-inspiring castle near Homs, was a fortress for the order of the Knights Hospitaller in their quest to defend a crusader kingdom. Seydnaya, a towering monastery in a town of the same name, was probably built in the time of Justinian.

A nun there spoke about Syria's current crisis from within a candlelit alcove this week, surrounded by thousand-year-old votive icons donated by Russian Orthodox churchgoers and silver pendants in the shape of body parts that supplicants have sought to heal—feet, heads, legs, arms, even a pair of lungs and a kidney.

"It's not a small thing we are facing," she said, speaking as much about the country as her faith. "We just want the killing to stop."

Few places are as central as Syria to the long history of Christianity. Saul of Tarsus made his conversion here, reputedly on the Street Called Straight, which still exists in Damascus. It was in these lands that he conducted his first missions to attract non-Jews to the nascent faith.

A century ago, the Levant supported a population that was perhaps 20% Christian. Now it is closer to 5%. Syria today hosts vibrant, if dwindling, communities of various ancient sects: Syrian Orthodox, Syrian Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholics and Armenian Orthodox.

But Syria's Christian communities are being severely tested by the uprising that has racked the country for more than a year. They think back to 636, when the Christian Byzantine emperor.....

[ZULU]

Its a lost cause.

I want them HERE - ALL of them.

THEY understand the menace of Islam and will be a bulwark against those maniacs in America.

[chopperman]

It would be good to get all Christians and real human beings out the region before it turns to glass.

[Little Ray]

Not if the “rebels” (Moslem Botherhood) win.
Go Assad! Kill ‘em all, and don’t bother sorting them out...

[OldNavyVet]

Religious wars carry a heavy messsage ... God against God doesn’t make sense.

[ricmc2175]

This is a diatribe written by an ignoramus. There are no references to the massacres perpetrated by the Islamists who then blamed Assad. After it was established the victims were Christians and Alawites, the media ignored the news. Interviews with Christians on site are repressed. additionally, the massacres of Christians in Sudan and Egypt and Iraq and Afghanistan are ignored.