WASHINGTON — Mount St. Sepulchre is an oasis of peace, a Franciscan monastery planted in the northeast corner of Washington. The sound of barrel bombs, hell cannons and heavy machine gunfire, with the confusion of smoke and screams from the wounded and dying, do not encroach upon the serenity here.

But these terrifying sounds of war and death pierce the heart of the monastery’s guest from Syria: the Melkite archbishop of Aleppo, Jean-Clement Jeanbart, who has traveled more than 5,700 miles with Aid to the Church in Need to collect a debt the Church in the West owes the 2,000-year-old Church in Syria. Its founders embraced the preaching of St. Peter on the first Pentecost, and they gave the faith to St. Paul — and so gave the nations the Church’s greatest missionary.

In this sit-down interview with the Register, Archbishop Jeanbart asks Christians to give the Church their prayers, their solidarity in working for an end to the war and their partnership in peace with the Build to Stay project, which seeks to help Christians remain in Syria as living witnesses of the Church’s early history, witnesses of Jesus’ love to all Muslims and witnesses to peace.

 

What would you like Christians in the United States and the West to know about the Church in Syria?

The Church in Syria has the privilege and honor of having baptized Paul and given him the Spirit. I tell that to all the Christians: We can call on St. Paul and tell him, “You owe us your Christianity, your baptism. We have converted you, and we need you now to intercede for us, that the Lord may give us peace; that the Lord will give peace to this holy land that has been irrigated by the blood of millions and millions of martyrs, because they didn’t agree to deny the Lord. So St. Paul, we now have a big need of you.”

 

What is life like for the Christians in Aleppo?

Two years ago, people were scared and used to not go out very often. But it’s now more than one year and a few months since they again go out and try to work, to do something. They feel more confident that the danger is not very close.

[But] the days after Easter have been terrible, and, again, people are very much scared. We have had bombings in a residential area where Christians live: Fifteen were killed and 40 injured. Houses and apartments have been destroyed. Three churches were targeted and damaged.

 

What was the situation of your people before the war?

In Aleppo, you were able to go anywhere at any hour — alone, a woman, a man — nobody would disturb you. There was a maximum of security. You could go all over Syria, and you were not afraid to go without protection. You were able to take with you a bag of money, and nobody would take it from you. There were many things which made us feel that life was good: Business was good, everybody had work, and prosperity came; and continual progress had been seen for 15 years.

Syria also became a tourist country: 15 years ago, it had 2 or 3 million tourists a year. In 2010, there were around 7 million tourists. It was going up, up, up. All these were signs of well-being, but also of improvement.

 

With the war raging all about you, what have you and your brother bishops asked of Syria’s Christians?

We want to encourage them to resist: to remain in the country and not to leave. We’re doing what we can to help them survive.

 

What has the Church been doing to alleviate their suffering?

We distribute thousands of baskets of food every month. We help them with school for children: We have been offering 1,000 scholarships to families so that they can continue to allow their children [to be enrolled] in Catholic schools. We have been helping fathers who have two, three or four children and no income, because industry and business has been destroyed.

We have also been helping them warm houses through this winter, which was very hard. We are always beside them for emergency help or medical care. Of the government hospitals, which used to operate free for citizens, many have been destroyed. So we do what we can.

 

How do you try to get your people’s minds off the everyday horrors of war?

This year I decided to make many celebrations for Christmas, and also for Easter, that they may have some fun. … I organized a banquet for the elderly people; some theater, things like that, for the younger [people].

I have organized for the mothers a feast to congratulate them and offer them some gifts at Christmas in recognition of what they do for their children. Because I noticed we take care of the children at Christmas and forget the persons who gave them life.

Also, we have the youth movement: I encourage them to organize; and even if the war is here, we can be happy — we can live some time of joy together.

 

What more would you like to see done?

What I am looking for is to go to another position, a position looking positively to the future: that their future in the country will be good and be better — if they prepare themselves. We ask them not to go: to remain and stay. But speeches and words are not enough.

 

Is this where the Build to Stay movement comes in?

In the movement I have launched, we will build up the human being: We will build their homes, we will build their education, and we will also build services for them. We will help them to start a job; we will help them to restore their business; we will help them to have skills: that they may work and be autonomous and prepare a better future for their children. This is a first step, but we think that, later on, if they remain, we will launch housing projects and construct hospitals or cultural centers or schools or even libraries — whatever is needed to give them a quality of life better than the one that they had and to give them hope that their life in the country may become as beautiful as it was.

 

Do you believe Syria will really see peace after all of this conflict?

Even though the violence is terrible now, I feel that, after this, people will realize, particularly Muslims, it was folly to do this war. This will change their mentality and allow us to make a non-confessional society in which every man can make his own choices — he may be Christian or Muslim or anything, freely — a society where each citizen respects the other and all the citizens live friendly and brotherly together, you know, without fighting. If we can have that, life would be beautiful.

 

Can Syria’s Christians be instruments of peace?

I hope so; I do what I can. I have decided to consecrate the rest of my life to that, and if I succeed in that, it will be the work of my life. Thirty-seven years of priesthood will not be as important as what I am doing these two or three years.

Here, I am restoring, maintaining a lively Church, in which every stone is a human being who can be a witness, a testimony to the world, but particularly to the Muslims in this part of the world, which is very important, and I think that the Lord expects that of us.

 

In some ways, Christians in the West may feel powerless to help. What can we do?

You can pray for us! This is very important. And if you begin to communicate that “something should be done,” I think that, soon perhaps, your decision-makers will do something to stop it. And they can; you can. The American government can do it.

 

How can we help you with the Build to Stay program?

You can help us by supporting this movement, both morally through prayers and encouragement and also by your financial support.

We must do whatever we can do in realizing this hope and help them to find work, to restore businesses, if damaged, rebuild houses and have skills. That’s why we have decided to establish a solidarity fund to help them with what they need to go ahead. We hope many Christians will help us from this country and contact Aid to the Church in Need (ChurchinNeed.org), which is our partner, about how they can be of help to this movement.