Syrian-born Archbishop John Darwish heads the Melkite Archdiocese of Furzol, Zahle and Bekaa in Lebanon. With a population of 200,000 Christians, Zahle is the largest Christian city in the Middle East. His jurisdiction straddles the western border of Syria and is currently home to 800 Syrian Christian refugee families–a total of more than 6,000 people–who have fled their homeland where they were caught in the fighting between the Syrian regime and rebel forces, and where Islamist rebels have been increasingly targeting the Christian community.
There are a total of some 2,000 Syrian Christian refugee families in all of Lebanon. With a small number having left for the US, Europe or Australia, the majority of uprooted Syrian Christians, the archbishop points out, are displaced within their own country, many of them in Damascus and in Syria’s “Valley of the Christians.” Winter has arrived–refugees and displaced people throughout the region are beginning to suffer terrible hardships.
Archbishop Darwish is on a tour of the United States to raise funds that help the local Church to continue to provide support and humanitarian aid for the Syrian refugees; to call attention to the plight of Christian minorities throughout the Middle East, including Lebanon; and to raise funds for his organizations and projects in the Bekaa valley.
If outright persecution does not drive Christians out of their native countries, the prelate explains, poverty, a lack of educational and economic opportunities and very limited access to social services force many into permanent exile. To help Lebanese Christians, Archbishop Darwish has launched a new charity, with headquarters in both Lebanon and the US: Stream of Hope Mission. The organization supports a local non-profit hospital (Tel Chiha Hospital), a drug rehabilitation center(Emmanuel House for Drugs Rehabilitation) and a scholarship fund (CADA). Archbishop Darwish spoke with Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need Dec. 18, 2013, during his visit to New York.
Read more from Aid to the Church in Need’s report here: