A major terrorist attack in Damascus, the first since the fall of the Assad regime, has not deterred Christians in the Syrian capital.
Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was overthrown last year after 13 years of civil war. In June this year, a suicide bomber attacked an Orthodox church during Sunday services, killing at least 30 people and injuring 54 others.
During a visit to Sydney, Pastor Samir Yacco, who leads Damascus Church Aid, has spoken about the attack – which happened nearby – and how Christians reacted.
“It affects us in the beginning in sort of fear… and we have to take alert, to be on alert,” he told Southern Cross. “But later we discovered, no, we are stronger actually than before and we are continuing declaring our faith.”
Pastor Yacco explains that evangelism is different in Syria than in the West.
“We can't stand at the corner and play music and preach the gospel, but at least whoever comes to the church or to my office and seeks a copy of our literature or a copy of the New Testament, we could give him freely without any restriction,” he says.
Visitors to the church, which has blossomed in numbers, also benefit from the generosity of Sydney Anglicans through the Archbishop of Sydney’s Anglican Aid.
“I really appreciate Anglican Aid,” Pastor Yacco says. “It's a relief and rescue. We have been co-operating together [for] 12 or maybe 13 years. We help people to relieve or to alleviate their hard condition by giving them food hampers, detergents and even helping them pay rent for their accommodation, if they don't have their own property.”
Recent international reports have expressed alarm at the dwindling number of Christians in what was once a cradle of Christianity. Pastor Yacco agrees.
“Yes, when France left Syria in 1946, Christians were 25 per cent, those were intelligentsia of Syria. I guarantee that in the future we will continue, though the number is dwindling down, unfortunately… I can't convince [the] younger generation not to move abroad because in their thinking that they have no future here.
“But I say that in the future Christians will be like an oasis in a place where all about you [is] marsh and quagmires. So you help them to dry up these quagmires and make them [an] oasis exactly like you.”
Pray for Syria
Ongoing poverty and aid from Sydney for earthquake relief in 2023 has been significant for Damascus Church Aid.
Pastor Yacco’s message for Sydney Anglicans is one of tremendous gratitude: “Words fail me to tell my gratitude verbally” – but he also asks for ongoing prayer.
“Everybody knows that the church is not a building, the church is a family of God – brothers and sisters living all over the world,” he says. “The feeling and their sentiment and their emotions are so sincere, and really I appreciate [it], but I ask them to always think about us in their prayer when they come to the throne of grace.”
Christian ministry in Damascus is a challenge, but Pastor Yacco shares a bright spot in his work.
“When I read Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, when Jesus said ‘I was hungry and you fed me’, that's very simple. ‘I was naked and you gave me clothes... I was in prison and you visited me’ could be harder.
“I remember a young man, ex-Muslim, he deserted from Assad's army then he was caught at a checkpoint and was put in prison. I went personally to the military police. At the gate I introduced myself and made my identification clear that I am a Christian pastor of a church. I would like to visit a Muslim detainee, and they called the general in his office from the entrance and they told him a Christian is checking on a Muslim soldier.”
At that point, he thought he would only be allowed to see the soldier briefly and offer him some words of hope during his prison sentence.
“They said to me the general will allow you to see this guy – not between curtains or the grille – he will let you see him in an office. So I saw him face to face, then a colonel was there and he said … “We will make this boy beneficiary of an amnesty just issued three days ago. We didn't tell anybody… but this guy, for your sake, he will get benefit of this amnesty and [this] afternoon he will be home’.”
It was a God moment, he agrees – something he will never forget.
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