Recorded in May 2025, as a greeting from Father Dave to the ‘West Asian Friends Association’, founded in Greece.
This is Father Dave, and I’m still very much in the process of grieving the death of Syria – the Syria that I knew and loved, at any rate.
I’m not Syrian, but I did visit Syria nine times during the tumultuous period between 2013 and 2019, when the country was at war against a vast array of terrorist factions backed by multiple foreign powers, and I watched the Syrian people hold together under that attack, and I watched the people continue to celebrate their diversity – Christians and Muslims and Druze, and people of no religion in particular. Syria was, and had been for a long time, an extraordinary melting pot of different religions and cultures, with churches, mosques and synagogues standing side-by-side, as the Syrian people stood, side-by-side, resisting the invasion.
All that changed last December 8th when former Al Qaeda leader, Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa (now going by the more Western-friendly name of ‘Al Jolani’) took over Damascus with his terrorist army.
I’m not there to witness what is happening now, and I’m glad I’m not there as I don’t think I would last long. So many people have been killed in a process of ethnic and religious cleansing, where people considered substandard by the new regime are finding themselves turfed out of their homes, imprisoned, tortured, and even shot on the streets!
We’ve seen this pattern before – in Nazi Germany and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. We’re seeing a similar thing happening now in Gaza and broader Palestine!
God Almighty, have mercy!
It doesn’t seem long ago that I was talking to my friend, Dr Ahmed Badr Al-Din Hassoun, the former Grand Mufti of Syria, in Damascus, asking him, “How many Christians are there in Syria?” He replied, “twenty-three million”. I was a bit surprised and asked, “then how many Muslims are there?” He said, “Twenty-three million. We are all one here, and I’m the Mufti for the Sunni and the Shia and the Christians and the Jews, and the Atheists too if they’ll have me”.
Dr Hassoun is a true Syrian. He embraced diversity and respected the humanity of all people, even his enemies. Now Dr Hassoun has been imprisoned by the Jolani regime, and we fear he has been tortured. I pray every day for his release as I pray every day for all the people of Syria.
Dear God, bless and protect Dr Hassoun. Bless and protect the Alawite people of Lattakia. God, bless and protect all minority groups across Syria.
God, have mercy. God, have mercy.
This is Father Dave, and, as I say, I’m still grieving the death of the Syria that I knew and loved though, as a Christian, I also believe in the miracle of resurrection.
My hope is for a resurrected Syria, and I’m believing that God Almighty can and will intervene to reestablish Syria as a nation of diversity, acceptance, tolerance and love.
Enshallah, we won’t have to wait long.