SYRIAN CHRISTIANS OUTRAGED BY STATEMENTS OF
RUSSIAN CHURCH ABOUT "HOLY WAR"
Christians living in Syria have responded very
negatively to recent statements of an official representative of
the Russian Orthodox church, in which he called the air strikes
delivered by Russian warplanes a part of a sacred struggle. This
is being reported by BBC.
The report recalls that the head of the
synod's Department for Relations of Church and Society of the
Moscow patriarchate, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, stated: "The
struggle with terrorism and for a just peace and the dignity of
people who are experiencing the challenge of terror is very
moral and is, if you will, a holy struggle, and today our
country is, probably, the most active force in the world that is
opposing terror."
The priest also emphasized that Russia has
always played "a special role" in the Middle East.
In response to this statement, one of the
leaders of the Syrian Christian church, Bishop Ilias Tuma,
stated: "There cannot be any kind of holy war in Christianity!
Regardless of whether someone agrees with this or not."
Yet another Syrian priest, Ispiridon Tanus,
stated in an interview with the website Suriyat, which
sympathizes with the opposition, that Russia is playing with
fire: "Martyrs in our church will not become martyrs of war;
they are victims of war."
At the same time, an announcer of the pan-Arab
sattelite television channel Al-Jazera, Feisal al-Kasim, wrote
on his Twitter page: "When the Russian church describes the
Russian intervention in Syria as a holy war, it thereby
unwittingly calls Muslims to jihad."
Many Christian commentators on social networks
also have expressed anger over the words of the press secretary
of the RPTs. "The unchristian and unethical statements of the
Russian church do not reflect either the views of Christians of
the East or of Christianity in general. Let's recall that the
idea of 'holy war' came from the western crusaders," Nadzhib
Georg Avad wrote on Facebook.
"We Christians of the Middle East believe in holy peace and coexistance," he added. (tr. by PDS, posted 9 October 2015)
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