The Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Ieronymos issued a statement this week over the renewed warfare in strife-plagued Syria, calling for the international community, international stakeholders and the Greek government to protect Christians in the Mideast country.
Ieronymos, the Primate of the influential Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece, expressed his deepest concerns, as he underlined, over the situation in Syria, an announcement that came after the major northern city of Aleppo fell to Turkish-backed jihadi rebels fighting against the Assad regime. On Thursday, media reports said the city of Hama, the fourth largest in Syria, was also overtaken by the Islamist rebels.
In first expressing “sincere and fraternal solidarity” with the Damascus-based Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East John X and with “the long-suffering Greek Orthodox of Syria”, as well as to the Christian brothers in the country, he stressed that:
“…The Church encourages the Greek government, and in particular, the ministry of foreign affairs to undertake diplomatic and other humanitarian initiatives towards a normalization of the situation and to ensure the presence of ethnic Greeks and Orthodox Syrians in Syria…The Church calls on international organizations and the international community to contribute in every possible way towards ending this long and destructive conflict, and towards the pacification and reconstruction of the region…”
