By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou
As we all remember, on October 7th 2023 Hamas gunmen entered the Jewish Kibbutz and the cities of southern Israel and spread death, abuse and rape at a Festival where young people danced for peace! That day 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 were kidnapped.
From that day, a horrible war began in the Middle East between Israelis, Hamas and Hezbollah of Lebanon; other countries, such as Iran and Yemen, also got involved in it. In a central newspaper article on October 7, 2024, one year after the start of the war, the results of this horrible war were written.
"Since this day last year (October 7, 2023) 1.9 million Palestinians, 1 million Lebanese and 60 thousand Israelis have been displaced. Hamas has launched 12,000 rockets at Israel and Hezbollah 8,000. Iran 500 missiles and drones. Israel has already spent 67 billion dollars on the conflict and the economy of Gaza has shrunk by 86%" (TA NEA, p. 2, Monday 10/7/2024).
One is dizzy when reading this data of the tragedy of the war in the Middle East, and this does not take into account the material damage to the building complexes, the buildings, the destruction of cities, such as part of Beirut, which used to be the "Paris of the Middle East".
In the period 1988-1990 I went to Lebanon to teach at the Balamand Orthodox Theological School and the situation was tragic; it was towards the end of the civil war that had started in 1975, it stopped in 1979 and continued until 1990, that is, it lasted fifteen years.
The war at that time was a civil war between the Maronites (Christian Monothelites), who were under the authority of the Pope, and the Mohammedans. Southern Lebanon had been occupied by Israel, Northern Lebanon was under Syrian rule and the cities, especially Beirut, and Tripoli of Northern Lebanon were deeply wounded. We moved around with difficulty and in an adventurous manner.
I saw the agony of the people who wondered if they will sleep at night or if they will wake up in the morning, if they will return to their home. The economy was destroyed and the State dissolved. And in this whole adventure of the war between Maronites and Muslims, the Orthodox, who were Arabic-speaking Romans, suffered a lot.
Because I lived in these places and loved the people, because many Arabic-speaking Roman Orthodox live there, my heart is on fire from what I am informed about daily. It is like being interested in hearing news from relatives. However, no one talks about the Christians, and especially the Orthodox Romans, who suffer from the conflicts between Jews and Muslims.
We must pray for an end to the war in the Middle East, as well as pray for the Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch which is shrinking and suffering the consequences of the new war, which is being led in an unknown direction, without hope!
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.