Meeting Bishop George Saliba, Syriac Orthodox Archbishop, Mt. Lebanon Church, Sabtiyyeh

On Saturday October 23, our NEST class with Dean George Sabra on 'Contemporary Eastern Churches' traveled by bus to a neighborhood in Sabtiyyeh on Mount Lebanon just outside Beirut to meet with Bishop George Saliba of the Syriac Orthodox Church. This was meeting none of us will soon forget, especially the U.S. citizens among us!


Bishop Saliba arrived by car just as our bus parked outside one of the Syriac Orthodox churches on Mt. Lebanon. His warm smile, joyful spirit, wonderful sense of humor, and ever present cell phone were immediately endearing. He conducted us inside just as a Lebanese Scout unit of young teens, boys and girls, was assembling on the church grounds.


We were led into a cool room with AC surrounded by pictures of Syriac Orthodox monasteries in  Turkey, Iraq, & other Middle Eastern countries. The walls were lined with bookcases containing many volumes. A Syriac Orthodox Deacon attended the Bishop and other members of the Bishop's staff served us hot tea with sugar, pistachio cookies from Damascus, and Arabic coffee with more sugar. Each of us was given a copy of 'The Lord's Prayer in Syriac-Aramaic: The Spoken Language of Our Lord Jesus Christ,' a copy of the ancient & modern Syriac-Aramaic Alphabet, & 2 beautiful brochures on the recently constructed & sanctified 'Beth Suryoye - Mor Gabriel Church' in Kesrwan, Mount Lebanon.


The Syriac Orthodox Church was presented in my textbooks in college and seminary as 'monophysite,' i.e., the eastern Church that accepted the Nicene Creed (325 CE) & the decrees of the fourth century church councils at Constantinople & Ephesus, but that did not accept the Creed of Chalcedon of 451 CE. In early Christendom among Latin & Greek-speaking Churches, the Syriac Orthodox Church was referred to as the 'Jacobites' or 'monophysites,' those who teach that 'God became man in Christ, united in one nature' (related to the Alexandrian-inspired christology emphasizing the union of two natures in Christ). They teach that Jesus Christ is one Person of two natures (divine & human). They refer to Mary primarily as theotokos (God-bearer in Greek) but also as 'the mother of God.' 


By contrast Pope Leo and the Latin & Greek 'fathers' at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 declared Christ was one Person in two natures (divine & human), the two natures remaining distinct after the union. The Latin & Greek-speaking Church of the old Eastern Roman empire persecuted the Syriac Orthodox Christians as heretics for rejecting the Creed of Chalcedon. Differences in language, culture, & political loyalties turned these subtle metaphysical & theological distinctions into slogans that divided Christians along religious-political lines in an age where there was no separation between religion and ruling regimes. 


The persecution of the Syriac Orthodox Christians (who continued to worship in the Syriac-Aramaic language common to Mary, Jesus & the early Jewish-Christian movement of disciples that founded a center for the Church & mission in Antioch) was so severe that when the rising Islamic empire conquered the eastern region of Christianity in the seventh century, the Syriac Orthodox Christians welcomed the new regime. 


Over the centuries Syriac Orthodox Christians evangelized India where their church continues to have relatively large concentrations of members, and they were most numerous in the region of modern Turkey & Iraq. Due to persecutions of their churches by Muslims & Kurds that began in the late Ottoman empire and around WWI and in the 1930s, Syriac Orthodox churches moved to Lebanon, Syria, and outside the Middle East. 


Bishop Saliba emphasized to us that in more recent times in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, the Syriac Orthodox Church had lived in peace. He said that Saddam Hussein was like a 'father' to their Church & other Christian minorities in Iraq. That all changed with the U.S. invasion of 2003. Since the U.S. toppled the prior Iraqi government, and allowed a new regime to form dominated by Shia Muslims (along with Sunni Muslims in the government), the Syriac Orthodox Christians were brutally treated and have left Iraq by the thousands. Neither the new regime in Baghdad nor the U.S. forces have prevented the violent persecution of thousands of Syriac Orthodox Christians. The Bishop said that western powers followed a similar pattern in the 1990s in Kosovo in former Yugoslavia which was once a center for eastern Orthodox Christians, but is now dominated by Muslims and western Christians.


The Bishop also expressed his frustration with U.S. foreign policy regarding the State of Israel and the Palestinians (thousands of whom still live in 12 refugee camps scattered around Lebanon). He said bluntly that U.S. foreign policy is a "slave of Zionism" when it comes to dealing with Israeli political leaders over negotiations on a future Palestinian State. Neither in former President Bill Clinton nor in current President Barack Obama did he find the toughness necessary to bring the Israelis to a viable peace settlement with the Palestinians.


At the same time he said that the two Palestinian factions, Fatah & Hamas, need to reconcile if they are to negotiate effectively with the Israelis and the American mediators.


Although the Bishop's words were blunt & might have offended some of us who are American citizens who support a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, his personality and hospitality connected with everyone in our class. He said he was speaking about our leadership, not the American people as a people. He also had blunt words to say about western European powers & their involvement with the Ottoman empire in its closing days and in former Yugoslavia.


He also connected with our class made up of Christians from different nations due to his identification with persecuted Syriac Orthodox Christians in Turkey (along with Armenian Christians), in Iraq today, & other Christian minorities who suffer from second or third class citizenship in other contexts in this region.


One of my observations on preparation for ministry is that an individual may have an excellent education but lack the personality to connect with others effectively to communicate the Christian message. Bishop Saliba connected with us through his joyful and generous personality in such a way that we could hear his blunt words about U.S. foreign policy, about the current regime in Baghdad, and learn from his identification with suffering Christians in the Middle East.