Two-and-a-half years ago, I went to Syria for one day. I was visiting my friend Sarah in Lebanon and as a regional representative for MCC, she had meetings in Damascus. We crossed the border with a driver she frequently used and spent morning to evening in the old city of Damascus.
The old city was an Indiana Jones dream come true, walled with windy lanes, souks for shopping, beautiful courtyards hidden behind carved wooden doors. I visited the Umayyad Mosque, and note not every mosque will let you visit if you're not Muslim. It is the fourth holiest site in Islam according to Wikipedia and has a minaret called the Jesus minaret. More interestingly it was a Christian basilica that was taken by Muslims in 634, two years after the death of (the prophet) Muhammed, and supposedly houses the head of John the Baptist still. (Though I've been more than a few places in this world that supposedly house the head of JtB).
I bought a vinyl hobo purse with rhinestones, hair clips, and went to a public bath, the kind where an old lady so over the human body scrubs you down with a loofa while you lay on a marble bench, and then she throws almost-scalding water on you. I love baths like that.
And now Syria is in civil war. I didn't go to Allepo or Homs, but I imagine the same Syrians who like to eat at a restaurant with their family, or check Facebook, or shop for a bag with rhinestones are now the ones whose brothers are tortured, who've fled to Turkey or Jordan and stay in a tent.
Tom and I visited his Syrian friend in March. Peter has lived in the U.S. for twenty years, but many from his family still live in Syria. He and his family are Christians. Peter told us that his uncle kept getting himself in trouble for putting pictures of President al-Assad in his shop window.
If you follow these things, Assad's national army has killed upwards of 30,000 of his own people in the last year. But Assad has, in the past, created an environment where Christians can live alongside Muslims, so Christians support him. If he is removed from power - and how can someone who has killed 30,000 of his own people stay in power? - the lot of the Christian minority will likely change.
As with Iraq and Egypt (and presumably Libya, but I know less about it), when the abusive leader is ultimately overthrown, it leaves a void. The Arab Spring inspired a season of optimism, but seeing the Egyptian elections go to the Muslim Brotherhood this year, who wish to usher in full Islamic law, it is difficult to imagine Christian and Muslim minorities faring well. There are Christian communities that have existed in the Middle East since the first century AD. To look back at the past decade, and then forward, is to wonder how they will continue to coexist. Hundreds of thousands have left Iraq.
The other place I visited that Syrian day was the Saint Ananias chapel. We meet Ananias, a citizen of Damascus, in Acts 9 in the Bible. The Lord says to him in a vision, Go to the street called Straight and lay your hands on a blinded man named Saul. Ananias has heard of Saul and initially protests. Saul is on tour putting people of The Way to death.
In Damascus even now, there is a street called Straight. And the Ananias chapel is very old, so old it might have been a pagan Roman temple before becoming a Christian place of worship. But here, tradition holds that faithful Ananias obeyed, and baptized Saul who became Paul, the great missionary. All Christendom is grateful.
In the chapel gift shop - and I love gift shops - I found an icon. This one was dusty and high up on a shelf, $50 and mysterious, the only one of its kind. In rather sloppy Arabic, it says القديس حنانيا, Saint Hanania (similar to my name). It may say the same thing in sloppy Greek, ο άγιος Ἀνανίας. The icon was "written" in fine detail: a portrait hanging from his robe, fingers crooked in unusual blessing, some generations of gold leaf.
I wish I knew more about the icon that now sits in my room at my parents' house. I am inordinately fascinated and fond of it. As the storms rage in Syria, Ananias reminds me of 2,000 years worth of faithful followers of The Way. I remember them, and others who suffer, and pray their witness will somehow remain in the region for our lifetime.
The old city was an Indiana Jones dream come true, walled with windy lanes, souks for shopping, beautiful courtyards hidden behind carved wooden doors. I visited the Umayyad Mosque, and note not every mosque will let you visit if you're not Muslim. It is the fourth holiest site in Islam according to Wikipedia and has a minaret called the Jesus minaret. More interestingly it was a Christian basilica that was taken by Muslims in 634, two years after the death of (the prophet) Muhammed, and supposedly houses the head of John the Baptist still. (Though I've been more than a few places in this world that supposedly house the head of JtB).
I bought a vinyl hobo purse with rhinestones, hair clips, and went to a public bath, the kind where an old lady so over the human body scrubs you down with a loofa while you lay on a marble bench, and then she throws almost-scalding water on you. I love baths like that.
And now Syria is in civil war. I didn't go to Allepo or Homs, but I imagine the same Syrians who like to eat at a restaurant with their family, or check Facebook, or shop for a bag with rhinestones are now the ones whose brothers are tortured, who've fled to Turkey or Jordan and stay in a tent.
Tom and I visited his Syrian friend in March. Peter has lived in the U.S. for twenty years, but many from his family still live in Syria. He and his family are Christians. Peter told us that his uncle kept getting himself in trouble for putting pictures of President al-Assad in his shop window.
If you follow these things, Assad's national army has killed upwards of 30,000 of his own people in the last year. But Assad has, in the past, created an environment where Christians can live alongside Muslims, so Christians support him. If he is removed from power - and how can someone who has killed 30,000 of his own people stay in power? - the lot of the Christian minority will likely change.
As with Iraq and Egypt (and presumably Libya, but I know less about it), when the abusive leader is ultimately overthrown, it leaves a void. The Arab Spring inspired a season of optimism, but seeing the Egyptian elections go to the Muslim Brotherhood this year, who wish to usher in full Islamic law, it is difficult to imagine Christian and Muslim minorities faring well. There are Christian communities that have existed in the Middle East since the first century AD. To look back at the past decade, and then forward, is to wonder how they will continue to coexist. Hundreds of thousands have left Iraq.
The other place I visited that Syrian day was the Saint Ananias chapel. We meet Ananias, a citizen of Damascus, in Acts 9 in the Bible. The Lord says to him in a vision, Go to the street called Straight and lay your hands on a blinded man named Saul. Ananias has heard of Saul and initially protests. Saul is on tour putting people of The Way to death.
In Damascus even now, there is a street called Straight. And the Ananias chapel is very old, so old it might have been a pagan Roman temple before becoming a Christian place of worship. But here, tradition holds that faithful Ananias obeyed, and baptized Saul who became Paul, the great missionary. All Christendom is grateful.
In the chapel gift shop - and I love gift shops - I found an icon. This one was dusty and high up on a shelf, $50 and mysterious, the only one of its kind. In rather sloppy Arabic, it says القديس حنانيا, Saint Hanania (similar to my name). It may say the same thing in sloppy Greek, ο άγιος Ἀνανίας. The icon was "written" in fine detail: a portrait hanging from his robe, fingers crooked in unusual blessing, some generations of gold leaf.
I wish I knew more about the icon that now sits in my room at my parents' house. I am inordinately fascinated and fond of it. As the storms rage in Syria, Ananias reminds me of 2,000 years worth of faithful followers of The Way. I remember them, and others who suffer, and pray their witness will somehow remain in the region for our lifetime.
2 comments:
Superb reflection on not only your travels but the effects the current scene there has on the earliest Christian communities. Worthy of Time or Christianity Today. Philip
Thanks for these thoughts, Hannah.. What a gift you are to the world..
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