Syria: Christmas in war-torn Aleppo
In August 1904, four Marist Brothers arrived in Aleppo to run the school for Armenian Catholics. Nowadays a community of three Brothers and numerous laymen continues, in spite of the war, to devote itself to the needs of the residents remaining in the occupied city. They send out news regularly. Here are a few excerpts of the latest Letter from Aleppo sent December 9, 2015, by Brother Georges Sabé:
“In this time of Advent, for us, everything recalls the wait over 2000 years ago: a wait filled with questioning, a tomorrow that does not come,” writes the brother of the Blue Marists of Aleppo. “Our young people live in agony. They long to leave, to fly from this hell without an escape route. Their parents come to ask advice. What can we say? What answer is there when the situation becomes ever more threatening and agonizing? (…) Our country has become the backdrop of battle waged on land, in the sky.” Many families have left or are seeking no one knows what safe country. “To the young man who asked me one day, ‘Brother, are we living in the end times?’ I answered that I hoped we are now living in the end times of hatred.”
“For us Blue Marists,” he continues, “living in Aleppo means accepting the risk associated with waiting… waiting for peace, waiting for a return to life, waiting for the birth of the civilization of love. We have chosen to remain with the suffering Syrian people, to serve them, to bear witness to the love of God, to bear witness to light in a time of darkness, peace in a time of unheard-of violence. Our activities continue, in accordance with the Marist motto: Spread hope. Each month we distribute food baskets and clothes and scarves for Christmas. The “Drop of Milk” project provides children under 10 with powdered milk or formula milk, the program of sanitary aid offers assistance to the sick, the “Civilians Wounded in War” initiative provides help to people wounded by the daily shelling of Aleppo neighbourhoods.”
Archbshop Jean-Clement Jeanbart of Aleppo addressed Christmas greetings to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) and to his benefactors on December 2nd: “This is the fifth year we will have celebrated the feast of the Nativity under the bombs. I do not know if many among you have had this depressing and most sad experience? But I can assure you that it is painful to be obliged to spend these beautiful feasts that we look forward to each year short of food, without security, without water or electricity, and above all cut off from the rest of the world by a thorough and unrelenting boycott. (…) In spite of everything, we continue still in this increasingly difficult situation to weather the storm that is upon our unfortunate faithful, reduced to poverty, I would even say destitution. (…) We launched an initiative this year to provide water in homes and for a good number of families in difficulties we have been able to install 300 tanks of 500-litre capacity (…) and a team of young people has been assigned to bring drinking water to the homes of the elderly. (…) We have recently opened a centre offering training in construction and begun restoration work on numerous homes affected by the bombings. A thousand families have taken advantage of the assistance we offered to buy fuel for heating this year. (…) On these blessed days, we will not fail to think of you and of the goodness you continually show towards us in this time of great trial. With all our hearts we wish you a merry Christmas and a very happy New Year filled with peace, health and joy!”
(Sources: Oeuvre d’Orient – Presence mariste – Aid to the Church in Need – DICI no. 327, dated December 18, 2015)
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