A week later, with dictator Bashar Assad in exile, Syrian Christians are holding their breath and hoping those promises are kept by the country’s new rulers. Aleppo’s Armenian Catholic Saint Barbara Church was able to hold services a few days after the city was taken by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the al-Qaeda splinter group that came roaring out Syria’s hinterlands to conquer a string of cities and then take the capital, Damascus, in just eleven days.
“Do not fear, dear brothers. We have received assurances from all parties. Continue living normally, and everything will remain as before, even better,” Archbishop Marayati told the church community, which is much smaller than it was before the Syrian civil war began in 2011. Christians made up about ten percent of Syria’s population in 2011, but have declined to barely two percent today. (Read More)
