What a church attack means for Syria’s Christians
Who are Syria’s Christians? Who carried out the attack and why? And what’s likely to happen next?
Greek Orthodox Patriarch John X presided Tuesday at a funeral service for victims of a suicide bomb attack at a church in the Syrian capital, Damascus.
An attacker entered Mar Elias (St. Elijah) Church in the Damascus neighborhood of Dweila on Sunday, June 22, opening fire on the estimated 350 worshipers inside. The assailant then detonated an explosive vest, killing in total at least 25 people and injuring more than 60.
In a condolence telegram sent June 24, Pope Leo XIV said he was “deeply saddened to learn of the loss of life and destruction caused by the attack” on the Greek Orthodox church.
The victims are being recognized as martyrs by the Patriarchate of Antioch, the autonomous Greek Orthodox Church that covers Syria.
“These are not simply ‘dead’ or ‘victims,’ as one official called them. They are martyrs — and, I dare to say, martyrs of faith and of the homeland,” Patriarch John X said in an address before the funeral.
Who are Syria’s Christians? Who carried out the attack and why? And what’s likely to happen next?
Who are Syria’s Christians?
Given Syria’s proximity to Jerusalem, Christianity arrived there long before it reached Europe.
The Apostle Paul embraced the Christian faith after a powerful conversion experience on the road to Damascus and catalyzed the early Church’s growth in the city of Antioch, then located in Roman Syria (but now in modern-day Turkey). Syria’s Christians therefore trace their roots to apostolic times.
The Syrian Church produced such spiritual giants as St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Ephrem the Syrian, and St. John Chrysostom. Liturgical rites developed in Syria spread throughout the Middle East and even to India in the early Christian centuries.
Christianity in Syria is known today not only for its ancient roots but also for its diversity. Major Christian communities include the Greek Orthodox Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Armenian Apostolic Church, and the Melkite Greek Catholic Church (one of the 23 Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with Rome).
The precise number of Christians in Syria is unknown because of a long-standing lack of census data. Some estimates suggest there were two million before civil war broke out in 2011 and fewer than half a million today.
Who’s responsible for the attack?
The Syrian government, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, swiftly identified the Islamic State as the perpetrators of the Mar Elias Church atrocity.
The Sunni Islamist jihadist group also known as ISIS and Daesh controlled swathes of Syria from 2013 to 2019. Today, it has been reduced to an insurgent force operating in remote areas of the country.
Observers widely accepted that Islamic State was responsible for the June 22 assault partly because it has a history of attacking churches. Members of the Islamic State of Iraq killed dozens of worshipers at Our Lady of Salvation Cathedral in Baghdad in 2010. Two teens who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State murdered the 85-year-old Catholic priest Fr. Jacques Hamel at a church in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, France, in 2016.
Gerard Russell, an English writer and Middle East analyst, told The Pillar in a June 24 phone interview that attacks on worshipers were a relatively new phenomenon in the Near East.
“If you look at the history of violence in the Middle East, attacks on people in their holy places of worship used to be taboo. I’m not going to say it’s never happened, because synagogues have been attacked. But it’s not something people did until relatively recently. So it’s a very shocking thing that’s now become normalized,” he said.
“What we are looking at here are groups that have become more and more barbaric. It may seem ironic to suggest that there’s a gradation of barbarity, but they’ve adopted more and more barbaric tactics, and ISIS made a point of this.”
Russell, an Arabic speaker who worked for 14 years as a British and UN diplomat, said one motive for an Islamic State church attack in Syria might be to destabilize the government, which has struggled to assert its authority throughout the country since it came to power in December 2024 after ousting President Bashar al-Assad.
Ahmed al-Sharaa, who has served as president since January 2025, was formerly affiliated with al-Qaeda, before he broke with it. While the Islamic State and al-Qaeda are both Sunni Islamist jihadist groups, they are sworn enemies due to tactical and philosophical differences.
“The big distinction is that Ahmed al-Sharaa has decided to compromise,” said Russell, the author of “Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms,” a book focusing on the Middle East’s dwindling religious minorities, including Christians.
“Some of the people who were his former colleagues would reject that and regard him as a traitor for having compromised. He’s dealing with the West. He’s indicated that he’s not attempting to wage war on Israel. I think he really is trying to give some protection to different religious groups in Syria and not impose Sunni Islamism on everyone. And that would be enough to make him a lot of enemies.”
But while the Syrian government attributed the Mar Elias attack to Islamic State, media reported June 24 that another group had claimed responsibility. An outfit called Saraya Ansar al-Sunnah said it had launched a “martyrdom operation” in response to alleged “provocations by the Nazarenes [Christians] of Damascus.”
The organization’s claim points to the confusion on the ground in Syria, where a variety of armed groups roam the country, some linked to the government and others opposed to it. It can be hard for civilians to tell one group from another because they may not identify themselves.
Russell said that under the Assad regime, when Syria was a police state, a terrorist attack on a church in Damascus would likely have been disrupted.
“Now you have a different situation,” he noted. “Friend and foe are going to be harder to tell apart. ISIS is going to take advantage of that — and not just ISIS, people who aren’t interested in compromise and would like to remove all non-Islamist elements from Syria.”
What’s next?
Despite expressions of solidarity following the church attack from Islamic institutions such as Egypt’s Al-Azhar and Muslim-majority countries including Pakistan, Christians in Syria will likely be considering whether to leave the country.
“The great majority who can leave will leave,” predicted Russell. “Because they are relatively well educated, they will find opportunities to migrate. It isn’t just the dangers that they’re facing, though the fear will often be the last straw for people.”
“But in any case, the economy is terrible. People are suffering from poverty. Why would you stay somewhere where the prospects for your children are poor, if you could migrate to somewhere where you could have a job and your children could have a job?”
Other observers believe the attack may not mark the death knell for Christianity in Syria.
John Newton, of the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need, said the bombing was “not necessarily an indication that this is a turning point for the Christian community.”
“Compared to the ongoing persecution they faced at the hands of extremists among the rebels during the civil war, which included the atrocities at Maaloula — where extremists kidnapped nuns and went door to door and killed members of a family who refused to convert — or the mass graves of Christians in Sadad, this is (so far) just one isolated incident,” he told The Pillar in a June 24 email.
“Reports that authorities responded quickly suggest that the new regime is living up to its promises to ensure the safety of Christians.”
“However, if reports are correct that this was carried out by members of Daesh (ISIS) it could be the beginning of an upsurge of attacks by the jihadists, and the authorities will need to act quickly and decisively to try to nip this in the bud.”
In the coming days, Church leaders will likely appeal publicly to Christians to stay in Syria, to ensure the preservation of their unique and ancient communities. But privately they recognize the strong forces pushing Christians away from the Middle East and toward more stable regions of the world.
Cardinal Mario Zenari, the apostolic nuncio to Syria, acknowledged in a June 24 interview a growing desire among Syrian Christians to leave the country.
“It is clear to everyone that Christians continue to emigrate: given the events of these days, they have less and less confidence in the future of their country,” he said.
“It’s extremely sad,” Russell commented. “Syria is a very, very ancient home of Christian people, who had their own distinctive rite and language. These days they all talk Arabic. But some have Aramaic as a language that they also speak, which is the language of Christ.”
“It was a relative stronghold. One by one, all these places where Christians used to find a degree of safety have been destroyed. This is one more step in a tragic path.”
Good article, and kudos on the interview subjects, it was pretty comprehensive.
The main reason to subscribe to The Pillar is articles like this, which are ignored not just by secular main stream media but "supposed Catholic Media". No lack of coverage in Catholic Media on Carlo Acutis, high school sports, Hollywood, waterskiing Nuns, college sports, Priests who love their Mothers, more Hollywood. Despite all the Nigerian Priests serving in our Diocese no one at our Diocesan paper has ever thought to interview one as to the Martyrdoms taking place there.