Jad Ganem: The Feast of Martyrdom

 

Arabic original here.

 

 

The Feast of Martyrdom

 

The Feast of Saint Joseph of Damascus and his companions comes this year at a moment fraught with pain and hope, as the memory of martyrdom and confession of the faith is renewed in the heart of Damascus, a city that still breathes faith despite its wounds. On June 22, 2025, while the faithful were celebrating the Divine Liturgy in the Church of Mar Elias in Dweilaa, the souls of a number of them were taken up to the face of the Father, their faith crowned with the martyrdom of blood, once more announcing that the Church of Antioch has continued to bear the cross of martyrdom on her shoulders for two thousand year.

In this context, the Feast of Saint Joseph of Damascus, who was martyred in the massacres of 1860, takes on renewed significance. The Church of Antioch, throughout the Middle East, has always been a church of martyrs and confessors. Her soil has been watered with the blood of saints and with the tears and agonies of confessors. Her martyrdoms are not a distant memory, but rather a reality that is repeated, giving life to the Church’s body in every generation. The Orthodox faith came to us in Antioch not through conferences, publications, or lectures, but thanks to thousands of martyrs and confessors who lived out the Gospel to the end.

Today, as Antiochians celebrate Saint Joseph of Damascus and his companions— the location of whose relics the Church does not know, and whose name is still not borne by any church or temple in the diocese of Damascus, despite new churches having been built after the declaration of their sainthood— an urgent appeal is made to the Holy Synod of Antioch not to repeat what has happened with those saints. The martyrs of the Church of Mar Elias in Dweilaa deserve to be inscribed in the Antiochian Synaxarion and to have an annual feast designated for them, on which the Church can start to commemorate their names and seek their intercession. They did not seek martyrdom, but it came to them while they were praying. They became a living offering on the Lord’s altar and they deserve to be honored not only with tears, but also with praise and hope. Moreover, the church in which they were martyred has been sanctified by their blood and it deserves to be consecrated to them and to bear their name as well.

Amidst the grief and the psychological pressure following this heinous crime, it may have escaped the attention of church officials that it is important to designate a common burial site for the martyrs, which will become a site for people to pray and seek blessings, a sign that the Church does not forget her martyrs, but honors their relics just as she honors their souls. Martyrs are not buried like other people who have died and everything that their blood has touched on the territory of the church now deserves to be honored as saints’ relics.

At the current moment, with all its pain and hardship, it is imperative that we do not limit ourselves to the political dimensions of what occurred. Rather, it places before us theological, pastoral and historical responsibilities that the Antiochian Church cannot postpone or ignore. The blood of the martyrs is not only the seed of faith. It is also a call to vigilance, veneration and reorientation by declaring the sainthood of the martyrs of the faith who died throughout the See of Antioch in recent years, whether in the city of Antioch, Mount Lebanon, or Damascus, in order to proclaim that Antioch does not forget her martyrs and she seeks their intercession.

Will the commemoration of June 22, 2025 mark a new page in the Church’s veneration of martyrdom in Antioch? Will the Holy Synod take the initiative to declare a common feast for them? Will the diocese of Damascus take the initiative to consecrate the church in which they were martyred in their name? Perhaps the time has come to recall that martyrdom and apostolicity are two important aspects of holiness in Antioch, no less important than asceticism and monasticism. Just as holiness has flourished in sketes and monasteries, it also continues to flourish in the faces of those who offer their life as an offering of love to Christ and in the martyrdom of those who proclaim the Gospel and bear witness to it with patience and hope amidst suffering and death.

 

 

Met Silouan (Muci)'s Condolance Letter to Patriarch John X

 Arabic original here.

 

Brumana, June 23, 2025

His Beatitude the Honorable Patriarch John X,

Their Eminences the Honorable Metropolitans and Bishops in our Antiochian Church,

Christ is risen! Indeed He is risen!

On behalf of myself, of my predecessor His Eminence Metropolitan Georges (Khodr), and of the clergy and members of the archdiocese, I offer condolences to our father and Patriarch John X for the martyrs of the Church of Saint Elias, Dweilaa (Damascus), who offered themselves as a sacrifice with the bloodless sacrifice in which they came to partake. The One who offers it joined with them, unbeknownst to those who intended to harm, terrorize and intimidate.

In this way, the Conqueror of death shared with us His victory over every form of death that surrounds us, which seeks to catch us in its clutches to kill within us all our faith in Him before rending our bodies on altars other than the one He chose for our sanctification.

The affliction is painful, no doubt. But the consolation of the Holy Lamb is even greater because He was pleased to bear us in it and endure it, as at the time of His salvific Passion, to repel its deadly poison from us and to give us life by His grace, which can raise us up in this affliction as ones faithful to Him in bearing it and remaining steadfast in it. Our souls are consoled by the faith of our steadfast families, their zealous children and their dedicated pastors. They are the crown of our Church placed upon her wounds on accoutn of her faith in Christ.

As I greet your fatherhood and brotherhood in Christ, and am consoled by your patience, I join my prayer to your prayer so that the crown of glory may be added to the martyrs of our Church, that the hearts of their families may be comforted, and that those afflicted may find wellness and healing, recalling the words of the Good Shepherd, who redeems our sins and transgressions by His precious blood, “Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.”

May the Lord shower upon all His grace, by which He honored the saints of our Antiochian Church who welcomed their brothers yesterday in the heavenly mansions, on the day we celebrate their common feast.

Asking for your prayers,

+Silouan

Metropolitan of Jbeil, Batroun and their Dependencies (Mount Lebanon)

 

Jad Ganem: Two New Saints

 Arabic original here.

Two New Saints

During the divine liturgy that he celebrated for the Feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God at the Monastery of Saydnaya, His Beatitude Patriarch John X announced that the Holy Synod of Antioch will discuss at its next regular session declaring the sainthood of the hieromartyr Fr Nicholas Khashsha and his son, the hieromartyr Habib Khashsha, two Damascene priests who were martyred for the faith in the last century.

As a layman, Fr Nicholas was an activist for returning the Patriarchate of Antioch, which had been under Greek domination since the Melkite Catholic schism, to Arab control and was active in establishing and developing schools for the community. He was then ordained to the priesthood, where he served the Archdiocese of Damascus. Patriarch Meletios (al-Doumani) then delegated him as his vicar for the Diocese of Mersin, whose bishop, Alexander (Tahhan) had abandoned it because of its poverty and the disturbances it was experiencing. In Mersin, Fr Nicholas succeeded in reuniting its dispersed flock and caring for and strengthening the faithful, who were subjected to various forms of persecution and ethnic cleansing. The Turkish authorities grew frustrated with Fr Nicholas and arrested him on the basis of slander against him, then tortured him until he was martyred.

Habib, the eldest son of Fr Nicholas, followed in his father's footsteps. Despite his success in business, he decided to be ordained to the priesthood and served as a priest in Damascus and Cairo. His service was distinguished by a life of prayer, devotion to shepherding the faithful with love and self-sacrifice, and his closeness to the poor, who he cared for like he cared for his own family, feeding them with their food and the money that his brothers sent to help them because of his poverty. His life was crowned with a martyric death on Mount Hermon, where smugglers beat him to death because he was a Christian priest, fulfilling his desire to imitate his father.

The faithful have passed down the stories of these two priests and they remain alive in the memory of Antioch because "their blood has attested that the Holy Spirit is in them and because though love they have transcended the barrier of the earthly body and become figures of light." Today, if the Holy Synod decides to declare their sainthood, it is "in obedience to the One of whom they have become worthy."

By declaring their sainthood, the Holy Synod places before the flock and the faithful, at this difficult time, the image of a married priest to whom the Church entrusted the task of shepherding a diocese whose bishop had refused to shepherd it and fled it when its resources became scarce and it started to face difficulties. He shepherded it as though it were his little family. He and his sons lived in it and among its people and he died for it. The Holy Synod also puts forward the image of the son who abandoned worldly success in order to imitate his father and become a shepherd of souls, serving the poor as though they were a little family and dividing his sustenance and that of his family with them. He served them as though they were his masters, not caring about money or worrying about the future, but relying on the mercy and generosity of God, who crowned his life with the crown of martyrdom.

Perhaps, by its effort to declare the sainthood of the hieromartyrs Fathers Nicholas and Habib, following the declaration of the sainthood of the hieromartyr Joseph of Damascus, the Holy Synod desires to emphasize that sanctity is not limited to monks, but rather also exists outside of monasteries, and that the family which is sincerely committed to Christ is also just as much a locus of sancity as anywhere else.

Fr Touma (Bitar): Holiness and Sainthood: Fr Elias Morcos

 Arabic original here.

Holiness and Sainthood: Fr Elias Morcos

A saint isn't someone without sin. So he is not a "good person". The Teacher already affirmed that no one is good except for God! A saint is a repentant sinner. In repentance, there are two fundamental things:

A repentant person is someone who is aware of and knows his sin, not only those that he previously committed, but also those that he is committing now. This means that sin is not limited to a certain act, a certain idea, or even disobedience to a certain commandment. Sin is a continuous existential state. Man lives in sin so long as he does not live in love! Of course, sins can appear in deviant behavior, a stray thought, a distorted sense or things like this.

But what does it mean for sin to be a continuous existential state? The inner being is the heart. It is man's central point. It is what makes a person himself. It is you. It is yourself. Your identity is present in it. It is your spirit. It is the deepest thing in you, out of which your intention and all your purposes come, what defines your goals, to which everything returns, as though it squeezes out the sap of everything that comes to you, with or without your awareness. Thus the focus of the light within you is the existential state that you are in.

Sin, as a constant existential state, exposes that God's love is not within you. Perhaps it does not expose you in front of people, but it exposes you in front of your Lord, first and last. Despite this, if I ask, existentially, "What is my sin?," you have the only true answer: there is no love in me! I do not mean by this that I do not love, but that God's love "is not in me" so that I may love with God's love. And if I do not love with God's love, then my love-- if I claim it-- is for myself and from myself and thus is a shortcoming.

But how can I discern whether my love is from God or from myself?

So long as my love is from myself, I feel as though I have achieved my goal and come to be without sin. But if my love is from God, I experience in the deepest and most painful way what sin is. Sin appears to me as harm to the beloved! My sin, whether yesterday or now, is set up before me, at every time and in every situation. Or, in the words of the Prophet David, "My sin is always before me." It is only within this framework that the reality of the Chosen Apostle Paul's words may be understood: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first" (1 Timothy 1:15).

It is worth pointing out that the recollection of sin does not stop with forgiveness, but becomes more painful the more one grows in the love of God. Nothing is more painful than to wound the beloved! This, by your Lord's dispensation, is so that one will not forget his sin, so he will not return to it. God forgives, of course, but He does not forget and He does not want us to forget... for our own good!

The second fundamental thing with regard repentance is that repentance is more than return from sin, whatever that sin may be. Repentance is a constant path in which one seeks God's love in obedience. One does not seek only to repent, but all the more so, one seeks to be repentant. If one sins, one returns from his sin. But if one is repentant, then he constantly seeks love as his own breath.

How can obedience in the relationship with God make love grow? Obedience is the path of effacement for the sake of the beloved, so that he may appear within us. Not my will, but thy will! This is the mystery of perfect existence in perfect self-concealment. Your face, O Lord, I seek! My existence comes to be in you, not in myself. You become the object of my desire. It is you that I seek. This is the mystery of God! The mystery of love! The mystery of His being love! The mystery of the Holy Trinity! Man was created to be an icon of this mystery. Therefore, obedience is greater, in a certain sense, than love. Not love as existence that creates, but love as an unseen existence, completely hidden, in which you seek not yourself, but Him, your Lord. If this were not the case, then "Life for me is Christ" would not mean that obedience is the desire for unity in the Spirit. Not for Christ or in Christ, but Christ Himself! "I in them and You in Me... just as You, O Father, are in Me and I in You."

Obedience in sin is subservience, estrangement, dominance, oppression, something repulsive! While obedience in love is something else entirely: trust, certainty, surrender, and then peace, joy, the realization of existence and eternal life.

So a saint is a model of repentance!

Is Fr Elias (Morcos) a saint in this sense?

Canonically, this is in principle declared by the Holy Synod of Antioch. And this is the tradition as it has come down to us.

Nevertheless, in the deep sense of holiness, without the slightest doubt Fr Elias is a saint.

Four things bear witness to his repentance: his tears, his prayer, his poverty and his love. Assuredly, his tears permeated everything. He acquired them through struggle and toil, through putting his sin and shortcoming before himself at all times, through putting himself below others, forcefully, and then, through his persistence! It does not escape me that he acquired him first of all by God's grace. It is no exaggeration to say that no one crosses the threshold of the kingdom without tears. These are not the tears of emotions or what belongs to the soul and body. These are existential tears. The deep inner heart is in pain: for oneself, for others, for God Himself because we do not love Him enough! For His love, for His kindness, for His gentleness. One who does not cry for God does not know Him!

Among the sayings of St Isaac the Syrian: "He who is able to weep for himself for an hour is greater than one who teaches the entire universe. And he who discerns the depth of his infirmities is greater than one who beholds the angels."

Fr Elias wept as he breathed. He stood at prayer and tears welled up. They flowed quietly. He heard of someone's pain and wept. Like this, automatically. Spontaneously. Without effort. With ease, his heart ached.

He would laugh, joke, chat and play like children then, after a few moments, if he stood to pray or if someone asked him to pray for them, he would find himself in a different existential state and would weep. Strange! His tears were always present. Like something normal in his daily habits. He would appear like everyone and at the same time it was as though, in his being, he was easily moved on another level, steadily, like someone who had no connection to what was around him.

And what should I say about his prayer? His tears revealed the identity of his prayer. He prayed like someone going out from the world into the world. Prayer was always his desired dwelling-place. He was aware that a son of Adam is called to become an instrument of prayer. His concern was not with the form of the prayer, but with standing, in the heart, before the Most High. For him, being a monk is for praying. Prayer was the groundwater of all reading, writing, working, thinking, sowing, building and relationship that he undertook. He wept to pray and prayed to weep. The value of everything that came or was brought to him was for it to be a source of prayer and a scope for prayer. Therefore, his eye was not on anything but to abide in God's eye.

If I had to talk about his poverty, I would say one thing about it: According to him, wherever there was a trace of a possession, there was no place for a monk or for God in his heart. His ragged sock stayed ragged for years. As for the broken chair and the shaky table, he did not think to repair them and was not even feel that there was anything strange about them being in the condition they were in. Nothing here was what he was seeking. "Your face, O Lord, I seek." He accepted everything with its faults and didn't pay attention. According to the image of his Teacher, he wanted to be: "You are of this world but I am not of this world." He accepted. He didn't seek anything. He was content with everything. When he was given, he took. If he was not given, he did not seek. He gave. Things were asked of him or were not asked of him. A little or a lot had the same value for him. Poverty, with him, is concealed by silence. It is not an object of study, but an ordinary part of life with God.

And his love? His heart broke over people's pain, suffering and hardship. In contrast to the monastic way of life, he sought to visit and console people. He would go from house to house. Friendship for him was a holy obligation. He did not avoid what other people considered to be an annoyance. His prayer motivated him to be with people, not to avoid people. The time, for him, was a time of suffering and people need consolation.

Fr Elias was a monk, but not necessarily like other monks in his style. He combined strictness in how he treated himself with compassion for people and animals. He was free in his conscience, easy in his affections. He was not harsh with anyone. He was very merciful. He did not burden anyone by causing him to feel sin. His purpose was to lighten people's loads.

Most of what Fr Elias taught me is that the Lord is near and that it is always possible for you to start anew. But let know one injure the beloved! The pain of sin is in its seed. Your Lord weeps for you! The important thing, O servant, is not to hurt yourself.

Fr Elias was an outstanding teacher, a school of the heart. Therefore, he appeared in my eyes as the image of Antioch, formed by the convolutions of these lands.

Do not forget us, Abouna Elias, even if we have forgotten you! Your prayer is our provision.

Archimandrite Touma (Bitar)

Abbot of the Monastery of St Silouan the Athonite-- Douma, Lebanon

Sunday, July 30, 2023

Met Ephrem (Kyriakos): The Saints and Holiness

 Arabic original here.

The Saints and Holiness

The Saint is an Example and an Intercessor for Us

The true, uncreated holiness in which man participates is a bush that burns but is unconsumed, a divine, uncreated fire. "I came to send fire on the world, and how I wish it were already kindled!" This is God's love, which sometimes leads to bearing witness or to martyrdom, and which is usually accompanied by humility.

 

The question, in the end, is of participating in God's life and in His uncreated grace.

 

Indeed, the saints reflect the divine life, the presence of a power that is not of this world.

 

What do you think is the fate of a person who is deprived the intercession of the saints?

 

There is a great consolation that the believer acquires in his prayer to the saints and in requesting their help, as well as when he venerates their relics.

 

Do we read the stories of their lives?

 

Do we imitate their virtues?

Love, humility, devotion and sacrifice... for the sake of God and for the sake of others?!

Saint John Climacus says on the topic of holiness:

"Holiness does not belong to specific people, but to all people." There is no favoritism with God (cf. Romans 2:11).

Climacus adds:

"One who abandons wealth for God's sake is great, but one who abandons his own will is holy. The first receives his wealth back one hundredfold, while the latter shall receive eternal life" (Chapter 17:9 of the Ladder). 

The saints are the people of God. "Be holy, just as I am holy."

Holiness gives a foretaste of the kingdom.

+Ephrem

Metropolitan of Tripoli, al-Koura and their Dependencies

Joshua Mugler: The Life of Christopher

 Joshua Mugler, "The Life of Christopher," Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 29 (2021), 112-180.

 Abstract:

Christopher, a native of Baghdad who became patriarch of Antioch in about 349/960, was assassinated by Muslim rebels in 356/967 because of his loyalty to their Muslim ruler. When the Byzantines conquered Antioch two years later, his story was told in a variety of ways by those with different and competing interests. Christopher was mentioned in Byzantine histories and in Antiochian liturgies. However, by far the most extensive and detailed version of the story comes to us in the Life of Christopher, written by Ibrāhīm b. Yūḥannā, a Byzantine bureaucrat and translator who grew up in Antioch and knew Christopher when he, Ibrāhīm, was a young boy. The hagiography was originally composed in Greek and translated by its author into Arabic, but only the Arabic survives. Here I provide, for the first time, both a critical edition of the two known Arabic manuscripts and a full English translation. This text is a valuable testimony to Christian life in Antioch under both the Ḥamdānids and the Byzantines, and to the difficulties of life along the constantly shifting frontier of medieval northern Syria.

This is one of the most important texts for our knowledge of the city and Patriarchate of Antioch immediately before and after the Byzantine reconquest of the city in 969. Download the entire article here.

Martin Lüstraeten: Arabic Typicon Translations and Byzantinization

 Martin Lüstraeten

The Source Value of Arabic Typikon‑Manuscripts as Testimonials for the Byzantinization of the Melkites

Abstract

With the expansion of Islam, the patriarchates of Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria were divided from the Byzantine Empire. The Orthodox Christians there still defined themselves as Byzantine Orthodox and began to adapt their liturgical customs by adopting Byzantine liturgical books. When Greek was not understood any longer, they began to translate and copy their liturgical books, thereby creating their own branch of tradition, which is marked by multilingualism, reception of their own Bible tradition as well as the exclusion of “neo‑martyrs” from their calendar of saints.

Read the entire article, open-access here.

I think that the evidence Lüstraeten presents, and even his own analysis of it, points to a shift to a stronger identification of the Melkites with Byzantium in the Mamluk period (during which Melkite ecclesiastical institutions suffered a near-fatal decline) than had existed previously, certainly than had existed prior to the Crusades. Likewise, he mentions but does not explore in detail the fact that these Typica may well have been translated from earlier Syriac translations, something that also complicates any account of  Byzantinization as simply a matter of performing a Byzantine cultural identity. A detail in support of this might be the fact that during Byzantine rule in 11th century Antioch, Nikon of the Black Mountain  promoted the Palestinian Sabaite Typikon in Antiochian monasteries rather than the more properly 'Byzantine' Studite one. So the choice of the Typikon that was translated likely was motivated both by the prestige of its association with the most important Palestinian Orthodox institution (especially among the Sinaite monks who promoted the translated Typicon) in addition to any desire to move towards more mainstream Byzantine practice, something that took over entirely with Meletius Karma and the introduction of printing.