Patriarch John of Antioch served on the first day of the New Year 2023 in the Mariamite Cathedral in Damascus, in the presence of a large number of clergy and people. His Beatitude then delivered his New Year message in which he called for unity in Syria and solidarity in Lebanon.
However, the patriarch also failed to mention Ukraine, which is currently suffering the most and actively, since for ten months now Russia has been continuously, around the clock, shelling the Ukrainian people and killing, raping, dismembering, messing with Ukrainians, destroying their homes, their churches and so on.
More specifically, His Beatitude said: “On the eve of the New Year, we pray for Syria, which has tasted the bitterness of war, of the sinful economic exclusion that is aimed at its people in all walks of life.
We pray for Syria and for unity in its land. The time has come for the world to find the road to Damascus and sympathize with this people who paid and continue to pay with the blood of their children the tax of the interests of the “big”.
Every Syrian is always ready to live with dignity. Today we pray and work for the citizens of this land to remain in their birthplace.
Nobody likes immigration here. However, the suffocating siege imposed on this people leads to alienation.
Let us live in the land we love. We are tired of the language of false sympathies and the language of loud slogans that are used only to achieve interests”.
His Beatitude also referred to the crisis that Lebanon is experiencing:
“On the eve of the New Year, our prayers are also for Lebanon, a country that is suffering from a series of crises, such as economic difficulties, the explosion at the port of Beirut, the vacancy in the presidential office. What is happening in Lebanon affects the Orthodox Church of Antioch.
We pray today and call on everyone in Lebanon to embrace the logic of solidarity and stop blaming each other.
I urge the officials to pay attention first to the Lebanese people who are suffering from the high cost of medicine and living. We specifically call on the parliamentarians to start the process of electing a president of Lebanon, as a step towards the restoration of Lebanon that we hope for”.
