Syria’s Christian population faces an 80 percent decline

Before the civilian warfare successful Syria began successful 2011, determination were astir 2.5 cardinal Christians in Syria, including astir a cardinal Greek Orthodox believers. Today, estimates of the Christian colonisation scope from 500,000 to a million, with somewhat little than fractional being Greek Orthodox Christians.

The Christians who stay successful Syria are inactive imperiled successful their past homeland. The Antiochian Patriarchate noted in September 2025 that “for days present successful Syria determination has been a systematic & unprecedented massacre of Christians, the sidesplitting of monks, the burning of monasteries, the looting and burning of full Orthodox villages, portion the authorities successful Syria are doing thing to forestall it.” The Iraqi Christian Foundation reported in March 2025 that “Syrian Christians and Alawites are being slaughtered successful Syria by soldiers of the ISIS/AlQaeda violent government. The decease toll is 1800 successful conscionable the past fewer days, with galore victims inactive missing. Entire villages are being slaughtered.”

Amid this ongoing persecution, Christians successful Syria person remained courageous. In June 2025, they took to the streets, chanting: “Christ is risen! Indeed, He is risen! Raise your crosses. We bash not fearfulness your decease threats!”

As the situation has continued, connected March 8, 2026, His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has erstwhile again contacted His Beatitude Patriarch John X of Antioch and All the East successful bid to explicit his prayerful enactment and solidarity.

His All-Holiness contacted Patriarch John by telephone and told him of his interest regarding caller developments successful the region. He conveyed his interest for the well-being of Patriarch John and for the Christian faithful successful Syria and its environs.

His All-Holiness besides conveyed to Patriarch John his lukewarm wishes and heartfelt concern, and invoked upon him and his beatified flock the unfailing extortion of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Most Holy Theotokos.

The interest of His All-Holiness was well-founded. In fact, the speech came conscionable arsenic His Beatitude Patriarch John contacted Metropolitan Elias of Tyre and Sidon to convey the enactment of the Church of Antioch for the suffering radical successful confederate Lebanon. “We basal by you and by our radical successful South Lebanon,” Patriarch John told Metropolitan Elias, “and we commune for bid and for the extremity of the war.”

As tensions person continued to emergence successful Syria, connected New Year’s Day 2026, Patriarch John emphasized that Christians were not seeking protection, but alternatively a concern with each the radical of Syria. He prayed for bid successful the region, arsenic good arsenic for Metropolitan Yohanna Ibrahim and Metropolitan Paul Yazigi, who were kidnapped successful 2013, and for the martyrs of Mar Elias Church, which ISIS terrorists targeted connected June 22, 2025, sidesplitting astatine slightest 30 radical and injuring 54 others. Despite these incidents and others similar them, His Beatitude said: “We volition not wantonness oregon surrender, adjacent if immoderate are tempted to emigrate.”

In March 2025, Patriarch John, on with Mor Ignatius Aphrem II, Syriac Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, and Supreme Head of the Universal Syriac Orthodox Church, and Youssef Absi, Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, issued a statement noting that “in caller days, #Syria has witnessed a unsafe escalation of violence, brutality, and killings, resulting successful attacks connected guiltless civilians, including women and children. Homes person been violated, their sanctity disregarded, and properties looted—scenes that starkly bespeak the immense suffering endured by the Syrian people.”

The Patriarchs added that “the Churches besides telephone for the swift instauration of conditions conducive to achieving nationalist reconciliation among the Syrian people. They impulse efforts to found an situation that facilitates the modulation to a authorities that respects each its citizens and lays the instauration for a nine based connected adjacent citizenship and genuine partnership, escaped from the logic of vengeance and exclusion.”

In January 2025, His Beatitude Patriarch John X expressed anticipation and continued to telephone for peace, emphasizing that “we are not guests successful this land, and we are not children of contiguous oregon yesterday. We travel from Antioch of the Apostles, from this onshore that has marked the beingness with the sanction of Jesus Christ.”

May our loving God assistance each of His Beatitude’s prayers for bid and information for the Christians of Syria and the surrounding areas.

Source: Orthodox Observer