I wrote a comment on my being an Antiochian priest and how that affected my viewpoint on the Syria situation. Since then, my local Metropolitan, as well as various Patriarchates and the Pope have weighed in on the situation. Since my original blog post was written, the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, who lives in Damascus, His Holiness Pope Francis I of the Roman Catholic Church, and my Antiochian head in the USA, Metropolitan Philip, have asked the USA to not intervene militarily in Syria at this time. The Syriac Orthodox Church Archbishops, the Roman Catholic Pope, and the Melkite bishops of the area have called for a day of prayer this coming Saturday, 07 September, for the situation in Syria. I think that is a good idea. We often cite God, and seldom ask him.
My Metropolitan (PHILIP) has written:
I write to you today as our president and United States Congress contemplate military action against Syria. As those of us with deep roots in that land already know, more bombs and destabilization of the country will only lead to further bloodshed and devastation. In my opinion, based on a lifetime of knowledge in that area of the world, it serves neither the interest of the United States, nor the Syrian people (or the people of the Middle East at large for that matter) to bomb and further destabilize the country. Extremists groups such as Al-Kaeda are waiting in the wings to prey on any weakness in the Syrian government and infrastructure. The results of such a bombing would be yet another step in the extermination of our Christian presence in the Middle East, a presence that dates to the dawn of Christianity. Our Church has already suffered greatly and has new martyrs waiting to be glorified –we do not need any more!
Therefore, I urge all of you during the next few days to contact your respective senators and congress people to urge them to vote NO to any unilateral military action by the United States. Time is of the essence so please distribute this email to everyone you know as quickly as possible and share this message on your Facebook and other mass media sites.
His Holiness Pope Francis I of the Roman Catholic Church has written to the leaders attending the current ongoing G20 meeting:
To the leaders present, to each and every one, I make a heartfelt appeal for them to help find ways to overcome the conflicting positions and to lay aside the futile pursuit of a military solution.
And so, eventually we must ask ourselves as Christians, at least those who are Orthodox and those who are Roman Catholic. When do we listen to our leaders? When do we say that our judgment is not the best one to consult? When do we listen to Christian leaders from the very area that we are proposing to bomb? Do we just say to them that we know best, even though we do not live there, even though we do not know the culture, even though we are not the ones who will pay the price if we make a mistake? In other words, do we consider them and their opinions as less than ours?
If we believe in Christian community, then we need to listen to all the Christian community, not just those nearby.
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