Worcester, MA, July 19, 2015
His Beatitude John X, Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, left, and His Eminence Metropolitan Joseph speak Sunday during the Patriarchal Divine Liturgy at St. George Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral.
The leader of one of Christianity's oldest churches brought a message of peace to Worcester Sunday, from a region wracked by war.
"We need peace for all our country, for all the world, for all our people," said John X, Greek Orthodox patriarch of Antioch and All the East, after presiding over the Divine Liturgy at St. George Orthodox Cathedral.
"As Christians, we must have peace (but) if you want to ask to have peace as Christians, you have to help to have peace for all countries," said the patriarch, visiting from Damascus, Syria.
Head of an Eastern church that traces its founding to Saints Paul and Peter at the dawn of Christianity, Patriarch John is in Boston this week to preside at a convention of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America.
He arrives from a Middle Eastern nation beset by a civil war that has killed more than a quarter-million people and displaced millions more. Syria's Christians have been targeted in the wave of killings, beheadings and kidnappings by Islamist extremists of ISIS.
"We have our hope, but times are very difficult, absolutely," Patriarch John said, describing the situation in Syria in remarks to the Telegram & Gazette following the Worcester service.
"Thanks be to God, we have our hope, our faith, we (Christians) will still remain there," he said.
"Our people are very good people. We love to live together, all our people, Muslims and Christians. We have had, till now, very good relationships with our Muslim brothers.
"This spirit that is happening now is strange, from outside, not from inside," he said.
Among the Christian clergy who have been kidnapped since the outset of the civil war is Patriarch John X's own brother, Metropolitan Paul of Aleppo, one of two Orthodox bishops seized two years ago, reportedly by Syria's al-Qaeda wing.
Patriarch John urged the United States and other nations of the West to "help us to find a peaceful solution."
"We hope America, Europe, the superpowers, can help stop this war, and not support ISIS by money, by selling weapons to them," he said.
"We all wish to find peace."
The Church of Antioch was one of five ancient patriarchates of the Christian Church, along with Alexandria, Constantinople, Jerusalem and Rome. Founded in what is now Turkey, it moved after the Ottoman invasion to Damascus in the 14th century. The Antiochian church today is a Greek Orthodox church within the wider Eastern Orthodox communion, and is believed to number more than one million adherents in Syria and perhaps 400,000 in Lebanon.
The Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese in North America has nine dioceses and more than 275 cathedrals, parishes and missions throughout the United States and Canada. More than 54,000 members are reported in the United States.
All 11 parishes in the Diocese of Worcester and New England were closed Sunday so the faithful could attend the liturgy at St. George Cathedral in Worcester.
Joining Patriarch John in Worcester was Metropolitan Joseph, head of the Antiochian Church in North America.
Metropolitan Joseph stressed that Christians are in Syria and the Middle East to stay.
"We are rooted there," he said. "We are the history. We are not leaving, even if they are killing us. We lose some good people, parents and cousins and friends. We lose churches. But we are still rooted there. This is our Holy Father's message."
