The Metropolitan of Volokolamsk, His Eminence Hilarion, this week again referred to the very difficult situation faced by Christians in war-torn Syria.
Hilarion, who is also the head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external Church relations, noted that Christians for centuries lived next to, and in harmony, with their Muslim neighbors in the ancient land of Syria, a situation that was abruptly altered with the emergence of Islamist terrorists, many of whom traveled to Syria as jihadis and mercenaries.
Hilarion reminded that these extremists occupied towns and entire cities, engaging in the cruelest persecution of Christians, as well as anyone who did not support them.
The Russian hierarch also noted that in some cases, members of the Muslim population, directly or indirectly, aided these terrorists, something that undermined the centuries of trust between neighbors and communities in some areas.