“When you are bound to your God, He binds you to your brother”

A press conference for His Beatitude Patriarch John X in the Church of the Holy Cross - Damascus

In the first meeting, it would be appropriate, my beloved, to remind you with few words about some points that need be clarified from the very beginning of my ministry  as a new Patriarch on the apostolic  see of saints Peter and Paul, the holy Orthodox see of Antioch.

While talking about the Church of Antioch, we talk about an authentic Eastern Church; it is rather the Church of the East, which is rooted in Her land, especially in Syria and Lebanon. It belongs to everyone, giving every individual and the whole population of the area from the glow of its heat and heritage, looking forward to keep this glow in the deep in the people’s conscience, holding it up to its modern time, and to the contemporary development of society.

The Church of Antioch, the Bride of Christ, remained and will remain in a complete cooperation with all people who live in this area, and we all know and realize that believers, as we read in the Acts, have been called Christians first in Antioch. Believers have acquired the name of “Christians” in Antioch, and from this country this name spread all around the Christian world.

We, Christians, exist and will remain in this country. We believe that the face of Christ will never be missed from this area, and we all know what Christians offered this country: martyrs, civilization, culture, heritage and originality. We have always been recognizing with our country-mates the meaning of citizenship and homeland facing those who come from outside, even though they were Christians sometimes.

When we talk about faith and religion, we need a long time… What is religion? It binds you to your God. But what I would like to say today is: do not ever forget that when you are bound to your God, He binds you to your brother. God, as we read in the Holy Gospel, is love. In particular, Saint John the Apostle says in accurate words: “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother is a liar”. So, faith is to believe in God, and to be opened toward the other honestly with a sincere love.

On the other hand, Church’s activity is multi-lateral: spiritual, administrative, pastoral, institutional and so on and so forth. When our Lord asked Peter: “Do you love me?” He repeated the question three times. While Peter answering positively at each time, He commented: “Feed My lambs!” This taught us that Love forms the heart of our teaching and pastoral activity. And that is how we understand all the other activities: administrative, philanthropic, pastoral... etc.

Administrative, pastoral and organizational acts will make a part of the Patriarch’s interests in the Church, but at the end, he is a father, the father of his family, his Christian family and his bigger family in the country and the whole area.

Internally, the Church, undoubtedly needs to establish a new path that raises and renews too many things in our ecclesiastical life, a spiritual renaissance, which could mean renewing the mind and the heart of the individual at first, an administrative renewal up to date, an informative renewal, and all things that need to be worked on in our schools, in the University of Balamand and in all our institutions.

I allow myself in this meeting, and from this holy place in the Church of the Holy Cross in Damascus, to send my blessings and greetings to our children in the diaspora, in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine and all the East, the immigrants in North and South America, Australia, Europe and every part of the world.

We greet them and grant them our apostolic blessing from this holy place in Damascus. We, of course, are peace callers, love callers, joy callers, especially that we approach Christmas. That is why we remember the divine words: “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people”. We live according to this hope. No matter how hard the circumstances and difficulties are, we will keep this hope. It is our belief for our beloved country, Syria, that this dark cloud and this difficult period is going to pass away with God’s will, gaining back the stability and security which we used to have.

Dialogue is an essential thing in our life, as we talk about love, joy and peace. We express all these things using a mutual dialogue and accepting one another, and being open minded, not through violence our any other way. The Holy Cross, our symbol as Christians, has two woods, two dimensions, vertical and horizontal. The vertical one reminds us that Man is tied to the heaven, to his God. While the horizontal one reminds us that he is tied to his brother, spreading his hands to him. The Cross is composed of these two woods, only one of them does not make a Cross.

Finally, I lift up my prayers so that God may protect our country and our region, especially Syria and Lebanon. And here, it would be useful to mention a story about one of our Holy Fathers, who is called Macarios.

He says that he saw in a vision people in hell, and he asked them about the situation there. The answer was that there is too much suffering. He asked: Why? The answer was: because everyone is tied to the other back to back, which means that Man in hell does not see the other’s face… That is hell.

That is why we should reject violence with all its forms, and sit around the table of love and dialogue, for us, for our country and our people, for our peace and the peace of the whole region.

Thanks