(DAMASCUS, SYRIA) — Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai arrived in Syria on Sunday for a pastoral visit to participate in Maronite and Orthodox celebrations in Damascus this week.
Rai accepted the invitation of Orthodox Patriarch Youhanna X Yazigi to witness the opening of the new Orthodox Patriarchate in Syria’s capital.
Walid Ghayyad, director of Bkerke’s media office, said Rai’s visit will not include any political meetings. He said the meeting has three objectives — inaugurating the Maronite Social Center, participating in a Christian spiritual summit, and attending the inauguration of the Orthodox patriarchate.
“We came for peace and for peaceful solutions in Syria and for the endurance of Syrians in their land, both Christians and Muslims,” Rai said, following a visit to a French hospital in Damascus.
LBCI television reported that Syrian Islamic Endowments Minister Mohammed Sayyed and a delegation of Muslim clerics met with Rai at the Maronite Archbishopric on Sunday.
He later delivered a sermon at the Maronite church in the Christian Bab Touma neighborhood.
“In this Levant, we are witnessing a strategy of absurd wars aimed at chaos, destruction and killing,” he said. “We demand an end to the injustice against our people, we demand peace, we demand an end to the war and we demand political solutions.”
Rai admitted that his previous visits to Syria have “(been criticized),” even though the Maronite church has churches and offices in Syria.
LBCI reports that Rai was welcomed by Maronite Archbishop of Damascus Samir Nassar and Greek Orthodox Vicar General Bishop Ephraim Maalouli at the Syrian border area of Jdeidet Yabous when he arrived.