On what ought to have been a peaceable Sunday morning of worship, 25 Syrian Christians have been slaughtered for his or her religion.
Because the trustworthy gathered for Divine Liturgy at Mar Elias Greek Orthodox Church in Dweila, outdoors Damascus, on June 22, 2025, not less than three terrorists shattered the sanctity of the service with bullets and explosives.
The principle attacker entered the packed church, opened hearth on the 350 worshippers, and detonated his explosive vest on the entrance as they tried to drive him out.
On June 22, 2025. A suicide bomber affiliated with ISIS carried out an assault on the Mar Elias (Saint Elias) Greek Orthodox Church within the Dweil’a suburb of Damascus. In response to experiences, the attacker entered throughout night prayers, opened hearth, after which detonated his… pic.twitter.com/qD2LFdv4Oz
— Rawan Osman روان عثمان (@RawaneOsmane) June 22, 2025
In the meantime, not less than one terrorist remained outdoors, firing at worshippers and into the stained-glass home windows, whereas the opposite tried to enter and detonate a grenade.
Two parishioners intervened and managed to wrest the gadget away earlier than it exploded. Nonetheless, the blast tore by means of the church, destroying pews, shattering glass, and leaving blood-stained icons and scattered our bodies in what ought to have been a sanctuary.
“Individuals have been praying safely below the eyes of God,” mentioned Father Fadi Ghattas, who witnessed the carnage that left 25 useless and not less than 63 wounded. Among the many victims have been kids, harmless lives taken in a spot meant to supply peace and safety.
This assault is the most recent in a collection of assaults on Christians, however it’s the first identified to be launched from inside a church because the Syrian battle started in 201, marking a disturbing escalation in violence and a grave violation of holy areas.
However the historic significance was much more damning.
In a devastating public assertion directed at President al-Sharaa, Patriarch John X Yazigi, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All of the East, delivered maybe probably the most scathing indictment attainable from a spiritual chief: “There was no assault on a church since 1860 besides throughout your reign.”
Many Christians on the bottom in Syria, talking anonymously, mentioned they believed the federal government was concerned within the assault. Shortly afterward, the regime claimed that “safety forces raided hideouts utilized by Islamic State, killing two of its members, together with one who facilitated the suicide bomber’s entry into Mar Elias Church.”
However given the allegations of presidency involvement, this assertion is extensively seen as a attainable cover-up. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that one injured attacker was taken to al-Mujtahid Hospital, the place it was found he was affiliated with the Syrian Ministry of Protection and initially from Deir ez-Zor Governorate.
The assault on Mar Elias Church can’t be separated from the broader context of who now guidelines Syria.
The nation’s de facto governing energy, following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad, is Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a faction that traces its origins on to al-Qaeda.
Based in 2011 as Jabhat al-Nusra—al-Qaeda’s official Syrian affiliate, the group later rebranded as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham in 2016, after which as HTS in 2017 after merging with different Islamist factions.
Regardless of claims of breaking ties with al-Qaeda, the break up is extensively seen as strategic slightly than ideological.
HTS’s chief and present Syrian strongman, Ahmed al-Sharaa (previously often called Abu Mohammed al-Jolani), was initially despatched to Syria by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to ascertain the al-Qaeda department.
Al-Sharaa had beforehand fought below the notorious Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and spent 5 years in an Iraqi jail for terrorist actions.
The U.S. State Division continues to supply a $10 million reward for data resulting in his seize, and consultants reject his claims that HTS now not adheres to Salafi-jihadist ideology.
Underneath HTS management, spiritual minorities have suffered in depth repression.
In Idlib, the place HTS has dominated for over a decade, Christian communities have all however disappeared. Experiences point out that solely two aged Christians stay.
Clergy are banned from sporting seen spiritual clothes in public, and crosses have been stripped from church buildings.
Human rights organizations have documented widespread abuses, together with the seizure of property belonging to displaced Christians and Druze, in addition to pressured conversions.
The 2023 U.S. Fee on Worldwide Spiritual Freedom report discovered that HTS continues to implement a hardline Salafi interpretation of Islamic regulation, disenfranchising Christians, Druze, and different non-Sunni teams.
Druze residents have been pressured to transform to Sunni Islam, but even after doing so, 20 have been massacred by HTS fighters in June 2015.
The group additionally expropriated Christian and Druze properties and tried to erase their spiritual identities.
These actions mirror not solely an assault on Syria’s spiritual range however a persistent, ideologically pushed marketing campaign of sectarian domination.
The Syrian authorities’s response has solely deepened Christian outrage. Throughout the nation, believers expressed anger that President al-Sharaa did not correctly honor the useless.
Even in his message of condolence, he didn’t ask for mercy on the victims and, most tellingly, referred to them as “killed” slightly than “martyred.” This was no accident.
Dying for one’s religion whereas in prayer is martyrdom, a sacred loss of life that signifies sainthood and supreme witness to Christ. By intentionally avoiding the phrase “martyr,” the federal government not solely diminished the religious significance of their deaths however signaled a deeper disregard for spiritual identification and freedom.
Essentially the most damning critique got here from Patriarch John X Yazigi, religious chief of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All of the East.
Talking on the funeral, he revealed that nobody from the federal government visited the location of the bombing besides the Christian minister, probably Hind Kabawat, the only real Christian within the new administration. For a lot of, this token presence symbolized the regime’s neglect of Syria’s Christian group.
In maybe his strongest assertion, the Patriarch addressed President al-Sharaa straight: “You give delivery to 10 to twenty kids; we give delivery to 1 or two. And a few of these kids have been martyred yesterday within the bombing. What can I say to their households now?”
His phrases captured not solely the grief of the second, however the demographic disaster dealing with Syria’s historical Christian inhabitants. Every life misplaced isn’t just a private tragedy, it’s the erosion of a dwindling group, the place each loss of life carries immeasurable weight.
They need to have been martyrs, and now there are rising fears they received’t be the final.
