The Maronite Patriarch and cardinal Bechara Boutros Rai: the meeting between the Pope and Kirill was providential. And the Christians of the Middle East judge the Russian intervention in the Syrian conflict positively.
The Middle East is engulfed by the storm of war, terrorism and ethnic-religious cleansing. But the storm will pass, and Christians will not disappear from the land where Jesus was born and from where the Christian message spread. The Lebanese cardinal Bechara Boutros Rai, Maronite Patriarch of Antioch, does not use the catastrophic tones that characterize many statements by other Middle Eastern bishops and Patriarchs. He also passionately explains the Christian hope that moves him concerning the future of the Gospel in that part of the world.
Your Beatitude, representatives of other Eastern Catholic Churches have expressed reservations about the embrace between Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill, and especially about the joint statement signed by them. How did the Christians of the Middle East experience that event?
For us ecumenism is not an academic question. It is everyday life. We meet with Christians of different traditions often and we decide everything together. We perceived the meeting between the Pope and the Russian Patriarch as providential, as I also wrote to the Pope. I have been reading the Joint Declaration one piece at a time during the Christian education program that I hold every week on TV. I started with the paragraphs dedicated to Christians in the Middle East. Next week I will discuss the part concerning the family. I also have a fraternal relationship with Patriarch Kirill; we often write to each other. I also consult with him on political issues.
How do Christians in the Middle East perceive the Russian intervention in Syria, an intervention which has changed the tide of the war and is criticized by many in the West?
Russia has always taken care of Middle Eastern Christians, especially the Orthodox. In Lebanon alone, the Russians have helped to create at least eighty Orthodox schools, which represent an important contribution to the Church’s life. Concerning the war, in our eyes the intervention of the American-led coalition has done nothing but strengthen the jihadists of the Daesh, the Islamic State. And that has made us wonder. Then the Russians arrived; they are hitting Daesh and then we hear the protests of those who reproach them for wanting only to support the Syrian regime... So we do not understand anything anymore. We only know that we cannot let ourselves fall prey to terrorist organizations: Daesh, Al Qaeda, the al-Nusra Front, and the mercenaries sent here by the West... So we judge the Russian intervention positively, as a concrete fight against the Daesh. Of course, all countries have their own political interests. But at least there is a nation, Russia, which also speaks of Middle Eastern Christians.
But is there always the need for someone from the outside to defend the Christians of the Middle East? Is there not the danger of theorizing new protectorates for them, like those exercised by Western powers in the past?
There is no longer any protectorate, and perhaps there never was. Countries pursued their interests, under the blanket of the protectorate. We do not need protectors. We only need outsiders to leave us alone. There had been many problems before these external interventions, but in recent times we had been living in peace. Throughout history we have always found ways to carry on.
Yet there are so many forces and organizations, including political ones, who say they want to help Christians in the Middle East.
Yes, that’s fine, but it is important to take into account that we are not isolated individuals, or small derelict minorities. We are the Church of Christ, which happens to be located in the Middle East. There are those who treat Middle Eastern Christians like some sort of poor creatures; those who say: ’come here to us, we will welcome you; fifty here, a hundred there, five hundred in that other country...’ To these people I say that things do not work that way. We want to stay in our land, together with Muslims, where we have lived together for 1,400 years, and we want to stay here in the name of the Gospel. We have created a culture together, a civilization together. And all those who are now fighting in the Middle East, are not from the Middle East.
Must the two alternatives in the Middle East be between authoritarian regimes and jihadist fanaticism?
The last period of blood and sorrow started when the people of different nations expressed their legitimate desire for political reforms. It is a right to petition for change. But then those requests disappeared, and the terrorist organizations came out, supported by external money, weapons and logistical support. A lot of people advocate for democracy and freedom but they don’t really care about them. They have other interests.
There are also people who use the terms persecution and even genocide when referring to the condition experienced now by the Christians in the Middle East. Is the use of these expressions always appropriate?
The problem in the Middle East is not a problem of Muslim persecution against Christians. The problems are others: those between Shiites and Sunnis, between regimes and terrorist groups, and between Saudi Arabia and Iran, who are fighting a proxy war in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, and who are waging a political war in Lebanon. The Christians get caught in the middle; there have been targeted attacks, because that is what always happen when there is chaos. But we cannot speak of outright and systematic persecution, let alone genocide. There is much more persecution against Muslims than against Christians. Christians are victims like everyone else, but the twelve million Syrians who were forced to flee from their homes are not Christians. Even the Daesh atrocities are directed more against Muslims than against Christians.
But even outside the context of war, in Middle Eastern countries Christians are often subject to discrimination.
There is difficulty, ill-treatment; there are regimes that do not respect religious freedom but this is something other than persecution or genocide. And these are situations with which we have a certain historical familiarity. If we are left in peace, we can find our own solutions to carry on in the new scenarios that we find ourselves living in. The protectorates of the past which we mentioned before did more harm than good to the Christians which they claimed to defend. Countries only pursue their interests and Christians were identified as a foreign body to be expelled. While we, who have been born in our land, have been able to live under even the most dictatorial of regimes. This is why, even if only a single Christian remained in the Middle East, we will never be “minorities” in our land. Middle Eastern Christians recognize limits, they respect the laws and the constituted authorities. They know how to live in countries where Islam is the state religion and Sharia is the main source of legislation. They want reforms, of course. But they respect historical time. We cannot give credit to those who come with bombs, who make war on the pretext of wanting democracy and reforms or who even say they want to help Christians. They do not really want reforms. They are looking for something else.
What, then, is the way to help Christians who are suffering?
The one who receives the blows is not like the one who counts them. We must always empathize with those in difficulty, because we are the Church of Christ. But staying close to those who suffer does not mean inviting Christians to flee from their lands. We must help them where they are. This is what I always tell foreign politicians I meet: end the war, find political solutions to the conflicts, and leave us in peace, we ask for nothing more.
In the disaster of the Middle East, Lebanon is experiencing a devastating institutional crisis. Yet it has not been sucked into the conflicts.
Lebanon remains a necessity for the entire Middle East. There Christianity and Islam live in a state of equality.
But even there the political situation is stalled by the clash between factions aligned with Iran or Saudi Arabia.
We have been asking Iran to put pressure on the Shiite party Hezbollah so that they stop boycotting the presidential elections. We have been without a president for almost two years; they always prevent a parliamentary quorum for his election. The President must be an elected Maronite Christian. But Hezbollah has decided to boycott any candidate they do not like.
Do you really see any chance of finding a way out of the Syrian conflict?
As long as Turkey keeps its borders open to all terrorist organizations, peace remains a dream. And the conscience of the international community appears to be dead. All these humans scattered in the streets of the world mean nothing to those who hold power in the world.
Many Christian leaders repeat catastrophic statements. You, however, once said that this storm will also pass.
Christians are not an ethnic-religious group, and they are not a political party. They are the children of the Church of Christ. Their existence, even in the Middle East, does not depend only on a political balance or the vicissitudes of history. There is a storm, and so we behave like a reed which bends but remains flexible, and then the storm passes and the reed is not broken. We survived more difficult times under the Mamluks and the Abbasids. For 400 years, the Maronite Patriarchs had to live in inaccessible places, in small cells high in the mountains, sometimes in the depths of isolated valleys, to preserve and be preserved by the Catholic faith. Faith is never extinguished by tribulation, as can be clearly seen in the whole history of the Church of Rome. I feel that the Middle East needs us more than ever, it needs to hear a different voice. Different from that of war, hatred and of innocent sacrificed blood. It needs the voice of the Gospel. Today more than ever.
