Sarah Latifa had feared that her Christian group in Syria might wrestle to rejoice its first Christmas since Islamist-led rebels toppled longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad earlier this month.
However at a church in Damascus’s historic centre, surrounded by some 500 devoted who have been singing psalms on Christmas Eve on Tuesday, she might breathe a sigh of aid.
“It wasn’t straightforward to return collectively within the present circumstances and to joyfully pray, however thank God, we did it,” Latifa informed AFP at mass on the capital’s Syriac Orthodox cathedral of Saint George.
Syria’s rulers who toppled Assad’s authorities on December 8 have since sought to guarantee non secular and ethnic minorities that their rights could be upheld.
However for some within the Christian group of a number of hundred 1000’s, the guarantees made by the brand new Islamist management have performed little to assuage their fears in a rustic scarred by years of civil struggle.
A whole bunch took to the streets of Damascus on Tuesday to demand their rights be revered, after a Christmas tree was set ablaze in a city in central Syria.
A video on social media confirmed hooded fighters setting hearth to the tree within the Christian-majority city of Suqaylabiyah, close to Hama.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights struggle monitor mentioned they have been international jihadists. A neighborhood non secular chief from Syria’s victorious Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) condemned the torching.
On the Saint George Cathedral, Latifa mentioned that despite the fact that the street in the direction of a brand new Syria could appear “tumultuous or unsure”, the long run may be higher “if we stroll hand in hand”.
– ‘We do not belong’ –
Earlier than the struggle started in 2011, Syria was dwelling to about a million Christians, or about 5 % of the inhabitants, in keeping with analyst Fabrice Balanche.
Now, he informed AFP, solely as much as 300,000 of them are nonetheless within the nation.
Assad, who hails from the Alawite minority and dominated with an iron fist, had lengthy offered himself as a protector of minority teams in Syria, whose inhabitants is majority Sunni Muslim.
The brand new administration appointed by HTS — a gaggle which is rooted in Syria’s department of Al-Qaeda — has adopted an inclusive discourse, looking for to reassure teams within the multi-confessional and multi-ethnic nation.
On this reworked political panorama, Syrian Christians are decided to make their voices heard.
In an in a single day protest over the Christmas tree burning, Georges, who solely gave his first title, condemned “sectarianism” and “injustice towards Christians”.
“If we’re not allowed to reside our Christian religion in our nation, as we used to, then we do not belong right here anymore,” he mentioned.
In his first sermon in Damascus since Assad’s fall, John X, the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Antioch, expressed his hope {that a} new structure could be drawn up with the participation of “all components of the Syrian mosaic”.
– ‘Afraid of the unknown’ –
In Bab Touma, a Christian-majority neighbourhood of Damascus, carols rang out from a restaurant which was festively adorned and lit, and fitted with a Christmas tree.
Proprietor Yamen Basmar, 45, mentioned that some folks “are afraid” of the brand new scenario.
“Many come to ask me whether or not I nonetheless promote alcohol, or if we nonetheless organise occasions,” he mentioned.
“In actuality, nothing has modified,” Basmar confused, despite the fact that he mentioned gross sales have gone down by 50 % as a result of “individuals are afraid anyway”.
Final Christmas, “we closed at 3:00 am. Now we shut at 11:00 pm,” Basmar mentioned.
One Damascus restaurant held a Christmas social gathering, attended by dozens of individuals, Christians and Muslims alike.
“The social gathering was very nice, not what we had imagined,” mentioned 42-year-old Emma Siufji.
“As Christians this yr, we’re afraid of the unknown.”
Her solely want this vacation season, Siufji informed AFP, was that no Syrian must go away the nation, as occurred to hundreds of thousands in the course of the struggle.
“Nobody would wish to be pressured to go away.”
