Syrian Christians and the Assad regime: "Assad is only protecting himself"

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Syrian Christians and the Assad regime: "Assad is only protecting himself" - Qantara.de

Patriarch Gregorios III Laham of Antioch is a Syrian national and head of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, a prominent Catholic community originating in the Middle East. It was recognised more than 300 years ago by the Pope in Rome and has some 1.6 million followers. The official seat of the cleric, who is over 80 years ol´d, is Damascus.

Gregorios III Laham has publicly affirmed his loyalty to the Assad regime on many occasions, most recently in April 2014, following the recapture of the Christian town of Maalula by government forces. However, the otherwise eloquent man of the cloth remains silent on the serious human rights violations, the horrors being perpetrated in Syrian torture chambers and the many other crimes of the Assad regime.

Although the opportunism of most Church dignitaries in Syria is nothing new, there have recently been signs of disaccord – still cautious, but nevertheless increasingly perceptible. When Patriarch Gregorios III Laham visited France in mid-May 2014, Syrian Christians in exile issued a public appeal to the Church leader and other Syrian Christians to no longer make themselves accomplices of the dictatorship.

Read more at: http://en.qantara.de/content/syrian-christians-and-the-assad-regime-assad-is-only-protecting-himself?qt-nodes_popularity=1