| Syria: Melkite Patriarch appeals for end to terror |
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Posted: Thursday, May 10, 2012 11:54 pm
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Mgr Gregorios III
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On a day which saw two violent bombings in Damascus, the head of the Melkite Church in Syria has appealed for a end to the violence and urged the world to do more to intervene in the Middle East. Mgr Gregorios III Laham, Patriarch of the Melkite Greeks of Antioch and All the East said: “We were praying in the chapel of the cathedral when a strong explosion shattered all the windows. The walls of the hall were shaken as if by a sudden gust of wind; we thought it was an earthquake."
The cathedral of Bab Sharqi, at the end of the ‘Via Recta,’ which leads to the Chapel of Ananias (the Christian martyr who restored St Paul’s sight) is two or three kilometres from the explosion that, so far and according to preliminary figures, has killed at least 55 people and wounded 300.
“On television there were images of a huge crater, destroyed cars and buildings, blood everywhere. A school bus full of children drove by that road just 10 minutes earlier. It’s a miracle that it was not affected”, says the cleric, president of the Catholic hierarchy in Syria, condemning “an act of unprecedented barbarity in Syria, which has shown the true face of the forces that surge behind this absurd propaganda war “.
The voice of the Patriarch, shaken by the emotion of the day in what is the worst attack in the recent history of the country, also raised his voice against a world that “is not listening to the cries of anguish of the Syrian people.”
Like nearby Palestine, he said: “even in this corner, so far untouched in the Holy Land, now runs the blood of innocent people. The Holy Land has been waiting for peace for 63 years, but so far there is only silence, indifference and empty words from the world”.
The time has come “to end the parodies of a double-faced policy, in which unkept promises, and whose interests are unmentionable burn like salt on the open wounds of an entire region of the world”,Archbishop Laham said. He concluded: “what would happen if instead of Damascus, in Syria, an attack like this had occurred in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem? ”
“The world can not allow hatred and war to swallow the Middle East into a bottomless abyss. It’s time to say enough”.
Source: MISNA |
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