Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
Over the past few decades, hundreds of thousands Christians Due to wars and insurgencies, parts of the Middle East have been abandoned forever. Muslim Extremist.
In Lebanon, it has been different. Despite the many crises that have plagued the small nation, Christians continue to enjoy religious freedom and significant political influence.
Pope Leo XIV’s visit to Lebanon over the weekend is a recognition of the importance of Lebanon’s religious pluralism and a message to Christians not to abandon the region.
In Iraq, large numbers of Christians fled following the US-led invasion in 2003 and the rise of Islamic State The group that followed. A decade later, in 2014, IS declared a caliphate over large parts of Iraq. Syria Due to which there was migration of Christians as well as followers of other religions.
IS blew up churches and confiscated the property of many Christians in areas under its control in Syria and Iraq.
The recent bombing of a church in Damascus this year has forced some Christians remaining in Syria to consider leaving. Many Christians in Syria are concerned about the direction of the country’s new government under interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former leader of the Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
In Lebanon, despite the emigration of other peoples, there remain many Christians who remain attached to their ancestral homeland and refuse to leave.
The country’s communal power-sharing system is prone to deadlock and has been criticized by reformists seeking a secular state, but it has also ensured that minorities are not marginalised.
“When it comes to Christians, more than half of the gains come from Lebanon’s political system,” said Catholic priest Monsignor Abdo Abu Kassam, director of the Catholic Center for Information.
“There is a democratic system where people can freely express their opinions without being killed, harassed or deported,” Abu Kassam said. “You can live freely with dignity in Lebanon.”
Cynthia Khouri, a 25-year-old business graduate from Syria who was part of a delegation traveling to Lebanon to meet the pope, said that after the Islamist-led government seized power in her country last year, Christians in the war-torn country were worried they would not be able to practice their religious practices freely, even though that has not been the case so far.
“We know that the situation of Christians in Lebanon is somewhat better than ours, but we also know that they have gone through many wars,” Khouri said. He said that Lebanese Christians, despite facing difficulties, “did not leave and stayed in their country and preserved their customs and traditions, and that is beautiful.”
a long history
With deep roots in the faith dating back to its earliest days, present-day Lebanese Christians have survived wars and genocide over the past two millennia. For many years, Christian monastic communities lived in caves in the rugged mountains to defend their faith and escape persecution. Since the establishment of the State of Greater Lebanon in 1920 after World War I, Christians have played an important role in shaping the country’s politics and economy.
Today, about a third of Lebanon’s 5 million people are Christian, giving the small country on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea the largest percentage of Christians in the Middle East.
Lebanon is home to 18 different religious denominations, more than half of which are Christian. Maronite Catholics are the largest Christian group, followed by Greek Orthodox.
Christians have a presence throughout much of Lebanon, from villages bordering Israel in the south to areas along the Syrian border in the north and east, as well as the coast. Mount Lebanon, which remains the Christian heartland, is mentioned repeatedly in the Bible.
A power-sharing agreement has been in place since Lebanon gained independence from France in 1943, in which the president is a Maronite, the speaker of parliament is a Shia Muslim and the prime minister is a Sunni Muslim.
This makes Lebanon the only Arab country with a Christian head of state.
“People can practice religion wherever they are, but Lebanese identity is sacred to us as well,” says Camille Dory Chamoun, a prominent Christian lawmaker from the National Liberal Party. His late grandfather, Camille Chamoun, was president of Lebanon in the 1950s.
He has formed a coalition with the Christian Lebanese Forces party, which has 19 seats in the 128-member legislature.
“Our Lebanese identity is as important as our Christian identity,” Chamoun said.
Other senior positions held by Maronites are the army command as well as the head of the central bank. Deputy Parliament Speaker and Deputy Prime Minister are positions allocated to the Greek Orthodox.
Two of the country’s four security agencies are also headed by Christians, with a Maronite general heading army intelligence while a Greek Orthodox head of state security.
At the end of the 1975–90 civil war in Lebanon, which pitted largely Christians against Muslims, an agreement was reached in the Saudi city of Taif to end the war. Since then, seats in Parliament and the Cabinet have been divided equally between Christians and Muslims.
Lebanon’s relationship with the Papacy
Charles Hayek, a historian and researcher, says that relations between Lebanon and the Vatican are old and deep, noting that there is a tradition that states that St. Peter, the first Pope, founded churches beirutByblos, Batroun and Tripoli along the Lebanese coast.
Hayek said two men of Phoenician origin from the port city of Tire in what is now southern Lebanon were elected pope in Rome in the 8th century.
Hayek said, “In particular you have the unbroken correspondence since 1215 between the Maronite Church, the local Catholic Church and the Pope.”
Despite civil war and sectarian conflict in Lebanon, Muslims and Christians co-exist peacefully today and followers of both religions accept each other as partners.
“Christians in Lebanon and the East are a core part of the region,” says Khaldoun Ourimet, a Sunni Muslim cleric who heads the Islamic Center for Studies and Information.
“Christians are not (only) a community but an integral part of this land,” Orimet said.
The Pope’s visit to Lebanon comes a year after a US-brokered ceasefire ended the Israel-Hezbollah war, which has killed nearly 4,000 people and caused billions of dollars in destruction. Despite the ceasefire, the country still faces almost daily Israeli airstrikes, including an attack in Beirut on November 23 that killed five members of the militant Hezbollah group and wounded 28 others.
Many Christian politicians criticized Hezbollah for starting the war on October 7, 2023, a day after a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel. The Iran-backed group had said for years that its weapons were only for the defense of Lebanon.
Many Lebanese Christians, including Cardinal Bechara Rai, head of the Maronite Church, have called for Lebanon to be a neutral state, not a region where regional and world powers settle their scores.
“God willing, Lebanon will feel more secure in the coming days,” Chamoun said. “The most important thing is to stop these conflicts which are extremely harmful.”
“We have seen their consequences, and we have seen that we are paying a very high price for other people’s wars on our own soil,” he said.
,
Associated Press writers Karim Chehayeb in Beirut and Abdulrahman Shaheen in Damascus, Syria contributed to this report.