St. Francis of Assisi church in Aleppo, Syria, stands at the center of the city’s Aziziyeh neighborhood. Mass here is celebrated daily at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., with church bells ringing. During each service, about 100 believers come to receive Communion and enjoy a spiritual pause apart from the busy city.
Aleppo, separated for years between its East and West sides as Syrian government troops and opposition forces battled for control, suffered terrible damage during Syria’s civil war. Regime forces, aided by Russian air strikes, wrestled control of the city from rebel fighters in December 2016.
Razed during the war, Aleppo’s historic souk, one of the oldest in the world, had been partially rebuilt by the Bashar al-Assad regime before Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham forces stormed out of rebel-controlled Idlib province in November, driving Mr. al-Assad from power. The dome of Saint Francis Church, punctured by a rocket in 2015, has been patched, but as in the rest of the city, the scars left by the fighting are many and obvious.
Will they linger now that Aleppo has been reclaimed by H.T.S. and other rebel militias? The rapid victory of the Sunni opposition fighters over regular army units loyal to Mr. al-Assad has left many wondering how Syria’s minority faith groups—Alawites, Christians, Shiites and others—will fare as H.T.S. consolidates its control.
‘New people in power’
“We have been here for 2,000 years! Why would we leave?” asks Antoine Makdis, founder of the Warsha Production House, a media group specializing in preserving Syrian cultural heritage. Mr. Makdis, speaking to America in Aleppo on Jan. 20, had once worked for an alleged charity of the al-Assad family, the Syria Trust For Development. He was imprisoned after he fell out of favor with the trust’s founder, Asma el-Assad, wife of the ousted president. (The trust has been dissolved under Syria’s new leadership.)
After that experience, Mr. Makdis appears confident he can manage whatever challenges the future in Syria may hold. “The revolution starts now,” he said. “We must be careful with the new people in power, and we need to keep our guard up and make sure we do not lose the rights we fought for over years.”
His view is shared by most in the St. Francis community, including its pastor Bahjat Karakach, O.F.M. “Personally, I was very happy when the regime fell,” Father Karakach told America on Jan. 21.
“There was no future for Syria under the Assad regime,” he said. After H.T.S. forces reclaimed Aleppo, “I was very optimistic in the first weeks,” he said, “and now that the adrenaline has come back down. I would say I am still optimistic, but with caution.”
Father Karakach believes, guardedly, that H.T.S. leaders will keep their promise, to organize elections and eventually surrender their weapons and evolve into a normal political party, if one rooted in Sunni Islam. “We cannot say everything will be all right—we do not know [what will happen],” Father Karakach said. “We need to discuss many things, like our [religious] rights, and then, most importantly, see what is happening on the ground.”
H.T.S. leader Ahmed al-Shara—a former Al Qaeda member who once had a $10 million bounty on his head offered by the U.S. State Department—met with Christian leaders in Damascus in December, assuring them the rights of religious minorities in Syria would be preserved and that “Christians are an essential part of Syria’s identity.” (The rebel leader even retired his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, in favor of his given name.)
Christians made up 10 percent of the Syrian population before the civil war, a figure now diminished to about 2 percent, falling from 1.5 million in 2012 to about 300,000 in 2022. Most Christians left for Lebanon, Europe and North America, escaping the war and Syria’s terrible economic straits. Most Syrian Christians are Greek or Syriac Orthodox, but Syria is also home to a small number of Latin-rite Catholics.
Raised as a Muslim, Marcel, who asked that his full name not be used, converted from Islam to Catholicism six years ago. That is a criminal act in many Islamic societies though up to now a crime unenforced in Syria, according to the State Department.
“I am an inquisitive person,” he explained. “I started reading the Bible and realized that my heart was closer to the Catholic religion than to Islam. I started going to church, and then, one day, I told my mother that I did not consider myself a Muslim anymore.”
Just 18 at that time, he decided to leave his home and live with friends. “I get along well with my mother and one of my sisters, but I do not want to go back home anymore. I have gained my independence and I am happy this way.”
Marcel, who changed his name from Youssef (Joseph in Arabic), now works at the church’s community kitchen, serving Aleppo’s hungry, a job he finds deeply satisfying.
When the Assad regime fell, he was ecstatic. “My brother, who was forced into the army, was killed by his colleagues. All he did was call my sister to tell her to be particularly careful these days. The next day, his face was on the news, and he was labeled a terrorist.”
The Assad regime regularly associated any expression of opposition to its rule with acts of terrorism.
Since the fall of Mr. al-Assad, Christians in the Bab Touma district of Damascus, named for Saint Thomas the Apostle, go about their daily lives as before. H.T.S. fighters are stationed at the boundaries of the mostly Christian neighborhood to protect it, joined by volunteers from the neighborhood itself. “A few years ago, the [Assad regime] gave us weapons to secure our neighborhood, but I simply wanted to protect my house,” said one resident, Khalil al-Turk. “I did not want to walk in the street with a gun, so I gave it back.”
When H.T.S. militia members overran Syrian army forces in Aleppo, they asked that all the small arms that had been distributed by the former government be surrendered. Most community members, like Mr. al-Turk, complied. It is a decision he now regrets given the current uncertainties. The remnants of the Assad army were asked to hand in their weapons in exchange of being pardoned for their crimes committed. “Now, we have nothing to protect us, no one,” he said.
Mr. al-Turk is 72. He spent 10 years in the United States but returned to Syria just a few months before the civil war began. “I had a small shop where I used to sell jewelry, but with the war, tourists stopped coming. We went through a tough period,” he recalled.
He plans to stay in Syria but is uncertain about the future. “We will see what happens,” he sighs. He has been frightened by stories of violence and reprisals against Christians and Alwaites and other religious minority groups. “We see a lot of things on social media, but we don’t know what is true.”
The people are one?
A video published on Christmas Eve showed militants setting a Christmas tree ablaze in Suqaylabiyah, a Christian-majority town located in central Syria. Protests erupted, and the H.T.S. authorities quickly erected a new tree, reporting that the foreign fighters responsible for the arson had been detained. Since that incident, the city has not experienced any notable anti-Christian incidents.
“We are rather reassured here in Damascus,” Mr. al-Turk said, “but we need to wait and see.” He believes that a year of calm would do much to assure Christians about their status in the new Syria.
With the exception of the tree arson, Christmas in Damascus and Aleppo was celebrated normally this year. Residents said they did not perceive any pressure from the new government during the holiday to curtail public celebrations. The only notable difference was the presence of H.T.S. militia members guarding churches and the main entrances to Christian neighborhoods.
In Aleppo, Marcel recalls this past Christmas as an intense time—happily just for decorations. “Fadi, a friend and artist and I, stayed up a few nights before to make sure we finished the mural behind the Nativity scene [at St. Francis]. Because of visa issues, we cannot go to the Vatican, therefore, we brought the Vatican here!”
The mural, depicting St. Peter’s Basilica, was meant to honor the Vatican and Pope Francis. People here believe the pope has been by the side of the Christians in the Middle East throughout years of turmoil. “You know he video-called Gaza hundreds of times during the war?” Marcel noted proudly.
The Bab Touma neighborhood is known for its rich nightlife. The main street is lined with coffee shops and bars. A tiki bar attracts an older crowd. Nivine, the owner, is from Maaloula, a Christian village in southwestern Syria. She remains in Damascus but most of her family today has moved to Lebanon, unsure of what the future might hold for Christians in Syria. “I am afraid that one day we will have to wear a hijab,” she said, referring to the head covering worn in public by some Muslim women.
If that indeed becomes part of the new reality in Syria, Nivine will leave once more, she said. But for now, “everything is going well; we are not bothered by anyone,” she said.
Her employees come from different backgrounds. One of them is Alawite, the distinct Islamic sect which the Assad family belongs to. That employee wishes to leave Syria, worried that he might be attacked one day in retaliation for the crimes committed by officials of the ousted regime. The Assad government had been dominated by members of Syria’s Alawite community.
But on this night, those concerns seem far away. The neighborhood taverns are doing brisk business, and Afamia, the local beer, was roundly distributed among a group of young people relaxing in Abu Georges, a popular pub and a civic institution here.
“Before, we couldn’t even speak politics out loud, and look at us now,” marvels one young woman, who all the same, asked to remain anonymous, a small reminder of the precariousness of this Damascus political spring. Ruba, a 25-year-old Alawite living in the neighborhood, joins the conversation. “It is very interesting to be finally able to talk politics with people from different backgrounds,” she says, smiling.
The youth enjoying this new freedom at Abu Georges come from different religious backgrounds, but they all seem to feel free to comment on how H.T.S. leader Mr. al-Sharaa’s decisions will affect the future and how they will deal with the possibility that many of them may one day be in danger because of their religion or their opinions. But for now, these Christians and Alawites and others remain optimistic, knowing that the world is watching H.T.S. intently.
“We want to be all Syrians, on the same level,” said Father Karakach. “A lot of [international focus] is put on the Christian communities in Syria, but we do not want to stand out or be used by the West as a tool for its presence here or right-wing politics. That could put us in danger or create jealousy from other communities. We wish to live freely, amongst our brothers and sisters, as we are all one Syrian people.”
His words echo the chants that are often heard these days, rising spontaneously in the streets of the capital: “One, one, one, the Syrian people are one.”
