“May the Lord
remember your archpriesthood in His kingdom:
Meditations on the Third Anniversary of the Abduction of the Two Syrian
Bishops”
Delivered
at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology Chapel,
Vespers
Service, April 21, 2016.
by Timothy G. Patitsas, Ph.D., Asst. Prof. of Ethics
At
around 2 p.m. on April 22nd in the Year of Our Lord 2,013 - two Christian hierarchs from the same city met
at the Bab El-Hawa border crossing on their way from Turkey into Syria.
One
was Bishop Youhanna of Aleppo, an archpastor of the Syrian Jacobite Church, an
ancient non-Chalcedonian Christian community of 5 million members
worldwide. The gray Kia Sorrento the two
bishops would travel in belonged to His Grace Bishop Youhanna; their driver was
his deacon.
The
other hierarch was the Metropolitan of Aleppo and Iskenderun, Boulos, i.e., Paulos
(I shall refer to him as Paul, to highlight his connection to St. Paul, born
not far from his hometown).
Metropolitan
Paul was the younger brother of the then newly- enthroned Greek Orthodox
Patriarch of Antioch, His Beatitude John the Tenth. Born and raised in Syria, His Eminence Paul
spoke many languages fluently. In fact,
His Eminence had graduated with Bachelor’s, Master’s, and doctoral degrees from
the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki – the same university where our own
M.Div. seniors study every summer.
During
his student years in Salonica, Metropolitan Paul often resided at various
monasteries on the Holy Mountain Athos.
Once he became a hierarch, he was active in international church work
and was a friend of, for example, our own visiting Prof. Chrysostomos
Stamoulis. On this particular occasion Metropolitan Paul was returning from
such a mission of reconciliation, and had asked his friend the Syrian bishop
Youhanna to help him return to their City of Aleppo.
Danger
was a part of the lives of these two bishops in the context of the Syrian
crisis, but as evidenced by their warm friendship with each other, they were
men who were accustomed to living with religious pluralism. Indeed, they were able to show love and
respect for all no matter what a person’s belief.
20
kilometers past the border crossing, the bishops were stopped by soldiers whose
affiliation could be described as “early Free Syrian Army,” but they were
allowed to pass without incident.
2
kilometers on, at 3:45 p.m., the Sorrento was suddenly intercepted by eight
armed bandits who were neither Syrians nor even Arabs. Most likely, they were religiously-motivated
fighters from other parts of the world determined to make some ugly mark upon
the many-sided Syrian conflict. The two
hierarchs were kidnapped, their driver brutally murdered, and a fourth
companion released.
The
many accounts as to what happened next all come down to two possibilities.
In
one version, the two holy men were martyred almost immediately, as their
captors were motivated not by the possibility of ransom, but by religious
hatred. In fact, it is alleged, the fighters of the Free Syrian Army at the
first checkpoint had sold the bishops to these fighters, had made a transaction
in which they notified the religious fanatics of the passage of Christian
bishops in return for the promise of cash.
Soon after this, however, the brigade of warriors that had abducted the
bishops was itself disbanded by order of its foreign sponsors, because its
practices were becoming too brutal. This first version of the events
surrounding their capture would explain the total silence around their fate,
the lack of demands for ransom payment, and the failure of anyone to even take
the awful credit for their possible martyrdom.
In
a second version, the bishops have since their abduction been moved frequently
and their release is still possible.
Reports and sightings are still periodically received, and they may
indeed still be alive. In an
exceptionally fluid battlespace such as the Syrian conflict now is, it is
difficult to know with any certainty which version is correct.
In
fact, one of the reasons we gather in fervent prayer and remembrance tonight –
whether we do so here at our Seminary’s Holy Cross Chapel, or in Haworth, New
Jersey at the St. Gabriel Syrian Church where His Eminence our Archbishop
Demetrios is now meeting with leaders of the Antiochian Archdiocese and the
Syrian Jacobite church, or, whether prayer is being offered in the churches of
Syria itself – one of the reasons we pray is simply that those many of us who
love and cry out for these missing hierarchs might gain some clarity. We ardently wish that these two bishops who
devoted themselves to God be released, or if this is not possible, at least
properly buried and mourned.
Certainly
there is someone who can resolve the mystery of where and how the bishops are –
although in the deadly setting of the Syrian civil war, many of the direct
eyewitnesses of these events will themselves now have passed on from this
world, and are now facing either judgment or reward from the Almighty God for
their roles in the treatment of these captive men of God.
Let
us, however, contemplate a second, deeper, mystery present in what happened
three years ago after the Bishops had passed through Bab al-Hawa – a name which
means, “the gate of the winds” - for present in these events is in fact a kind
of ultimate mystery: The suffering or
outright martyrdom of an archpriest is more than a tragedy, more than a sorrow,
an injustice, and a shocking outrage.
St.
Ignatius of Antioch himself told us that “where the bishop is, there is the
Church,” and also, “where the Bishop is, there is Christ.” And so when we see a bishop proceeding
blamelessly and voluntarily to his own crucifixion, we behold not a mystery in
the sense of a puzzle, but a mystery in the sense of a sacrament. We see not a cause of confusion, but we see
that event which alone can illumine the confusion caused by all suffering and
by death itself. “For the Light came
into the world, and the darkness could not overcome it.” (John 1:5)
The
martyrdom of an Archpriest is, after the Crucifixion of our true High Priest,
Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the most cosmic of events, it is an ultimate
event. It is a further and fresh
revelation of the primordial love that saved the world, that once created the
world, of the very same love that will at the very end of time judge all of us
who together constitute this world.
In
the martyric death of an Archpriest we see a paragonic example of a human being
willingly proceeding from the image of God placed in all of us, to the fiery
vibrant likeness of the Crucified and Resurrected Son of God. And we see the victorious self-emptying love
of God that called this world out of non-being at the beginning of time
itself.
The
sight of Archpriests being persecuted or even martyred is not to be a cause for
dismay among the faithful, but a proud boast and the renewal of that hope which
conquers sin within us.
For
now it is our reaction to the disappearance and possible martyrdom of these two
hierarchs that reveals something about each of us –the state of our salvation;
the state of our creation – whether we are real or not; and, that reveals
something of how we shall fare at the Last Judgment.
If
we are unmoved by these events, then we must ask ourselves whether we are
really alive at all – so closely is life linked to eros for the crucified and
resurrected Lord.
If
we are unwilling to offer a prayer for their consolation and release, then we
must ask whether anything remains of our earlier faith in the crucified and
resurrected Lord.
And
if we are not troubled by the uncertainty regarding their fate enough to
pressure our leaders for action, then what could possibly stir us before the
Day of the Just Judgment upon our own apathy, and our lukewarm states.
In
particular we pray that someday His Eminence Metropolitan Paul, if he is still
in the body, will not only be released in good health, but will come here to our
chapel to celebrate a Divine Liturgy, so that we might pray for him, as the
Syrian Jacobites will then pray for His Grace Bishop Youhanna at a future
liturgy,
“May
the Lord remember your archpriesthood in His kingdom.”
This
is a prayer that will surely be answered.
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