Why Syria will always be the heartland of Eastern Christianity
Earlier this year, conservative US television host Tucker Carlson raised the ire of the Israel lobby and Christian Zionists by questioning Washington’s support for an Israel that is intent on killing and persecuting Palestinian Christians.
Carlson interviewed Reverend Munther Isaac of the Evangelical Lutheran Christian Church, a pastor from Bethlehem, and chronicled a consistent lack of awareness in the US about the treatment of Christians in the Holy Land.
It was Carlson who, back in 2018 as a Fox News host, launched a debate in US mainstream media on the widespread killing of Syrian Christians, and he regularly questioned US support for groups that were targeting Christians in the Middle East.
It could be argued that the war in Syria brought to the foreground the persecution of Eastern Christianity as a whole, from North Africa to South Asia.
A recent book by Eugene Rogan, The Damascus Events: The 1860 Massacre and the Destruction of the Old Ottoman World, highlights the spiritual and geopolitical importance of the massacre of Syrian Christians in 1860, which upset the former inter-faith hierarchy of the Ottoman states.
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Just as then, Damascus has again caught the attention of Christians worldwide for its importance as the heartland of Eastern Christianity.
As in 1860, interference from outside powers - France, the UK and the US - imperilled rather than protected the centuries-long coexistence of Christians and Muslims, as did US support for militant groups in Syria as they began targeting the most prosperous Christians (ie Syrians) of the Middle East.
Foreign influence
The Damascus Events focuses on a key event, the 1860 massacre of thousands of Christians in Damascus - when a mob, fuelled by rumours that Christians were about to take revenge on the Druze, entered the city - and the outbreak of disorder across the Levant.
These events forever changed the course of the Middle East, in terms of increased western interference in Levantine affairs.
The book also looks at how the previous harmony of different faiths in the Ottoman hinterland of greater Syria could degenerate into inter-communal violence at the provocation of foreigners and rumours.
Rogan, a professor of modern Middle Eastern history at the University of Oxford, points out how increased trade in greater Syria during Ottoman times led to major European powers favouring local Christians as their commercial partners and diplomats on the ground in cities such as Aleppo, Damascus, Beirut, Tarsus, and Antakya.
European pressure on the Ottomans with regards to giving Christians equal rights, and placing Christian affairs in European hands, led to tensions in what was an otherwise peaceful coexistence.
Weak Ottoman governance - Constantinople was broke and too consumed by its European territories in the Balkans - coupled with foreign pressure, raised local tensions.
It is ironic that Rogan calls these occurrences "the Damascus events", as they followed violence between the Druze and Maronites in Mount Lebanon, far away from Damascus.
But fear, insecurity and rumours eventually led to the massacre in Damascus.
Rogan goes to some lengths to describe the written and oral history from Druze, Muslims and Christians, explaining how rumours that started in Mount Lebanon made their way to Damascus via Homs and Aleppo.
He places more blame on outside forces, whether real or perceived, for influencing or playing on the insecurities of Damascenes, leading to the attacks on prosperous Christian merchants.
Lesson in coexistence
Rogan ends on a positive note, noting that the very same Damascene Muslims hell-bent on killing innocent Christians eventually came to the rescue of the persecuted against the frenzied mob incited by outsiders.
Many of those who first attacked the ancient Christian quarter of Bab Touma were not actually from Damascus. Rather, they were Druze from Lebanon and further south, along with Bedouin Arabs and others living on the outskirts of Damascus.
The pope also spoke of complete harmony between Muslims and Christians in Syria, how it was hard to find anywhere else in the world
Yet whatever the origins of the violent events in Damascus, they hastened the influence of European capitals in Ottoman affairs and put more pressure on the declining governance of Ottoman officials in far-off provinces, from the Balkans to the Levant.
They also catapulted Damascus back into the imagination of Western Christianity as a key bastion of Eastern Christianity.
In 2001, the late Pope John Paul II made a pilgrimage to Damascus and spoke at length of the importance of Syria for all Christians, including the roots of the Vatican and the Catholic church, thanks to St Paul’s vision in the old quarter of Damascus.
The pope also spoke of complete harmony between Muslims and Christians in Syria, how it was hard to find anywhere else in the world and how this ought to be a lesson in coexistence.
Bearing the brunt
The war in Syria has had a profound impact on the lives of all Syrians. But just as in neighbouring Iraq and Lebanon, Christians in Syria have borne a heavy burden after being targeted by extremist groups simply because of their faith.
In 2016, the war in Syria elicited the first meeting in 1,000 years between the Russian Orthodox Patriarch and a pope, Francis, spurred on by the killings of Christians in Syria and the Middle East.
The Russian Orthodox Church had blessed the Russian intervention in Syria as being a Holy War, given the importance of Syria to Christians.
Similarly, multiple British Christian delegations have visited Syria and sounded the alarm over the dwindling Syrian Christian population.
Carlson has led the rallying cry among conservatives in the US by highlighting the importance of Syrian Christians.
Brad Hoff and Zachary Wingerd co-authored Syria Crucified, which chronicled the plight of Syrian Christians and the impact on Eastern Christianity, while also detailing how American Christians have started taking notice, especially of the atrocities carried out by US-supported militants.
Rogan’s book, while a reminder of dark events, is also a reminder that today, just as in the 1860s, it is not the locals driven to a killing frenzy. There is an optimism that Syrians can rebuild society, since most Syrian Muslims do not see Syrian Christians as distinct or different from themselves.
Outside interference is driving events on the ground, just as it did in the mid-19th century - and therefore there is hope that Syria shall continue to be the heartland of Eastern Christianity.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
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