An Open Letter to the World Council of Churches from a Syrian Arab priest

Father Elias Zahlawi

Damascus, 18/3/2018

Gentlemen,

If only you did not speak!

Yes, you should have kept to your most weird silence about the heinous war that has been waged by „only” 140 (!) countries - led by the United States of America - against Syria, for seven years.

Seven years, and you were silent like the graves!

In spite of all that happened in Syria throughout these years, the intensity of its terror, horror and injustice that was able to bring forward even the mummies out of their graves!

Yes I wish you stayed silent like graves!

Look, what prompted you to write what you wrote?

You, who sit on your chairs in Geneva, you reminded me of the rabbinical court, called Sanhedrin, who condemned Jesus, and urged Pilate to crucify him.

But do you still remember Jesus, and what he meant by the love and sanctity of man, every human being, even dying for them?

Or are the chairs, on which you sit or were made to sit by the current authorities of Rome – by which I mean the United States of America! – made you forget about Jesus, and what you are called to represent in the name of Jesus?

Gentlemen,

How long will you ignore the fact that the Security Council in the same way as the Council for Human Rights, and others like them and before them, the United Nations General Assembly, have all been deprived of any legal, moral and humanitarian content by the savage empire of the United States?

How come that you are ignorant or ignore what this creepy empire has inflicted on hundreds of millions of people in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Venezuela, and Chile, and before them in Korea and Vietnam of despair, injustice, horror, murder, scorching, famine, destruction, and displacement?

Your hearts have been raised on the Eastern Ghouta, and you have missed all the horror brought about by the U.S., which has embraced and entangles the entire world, to the point that today it threatens with a nuclear war?

Gentlemen,

I cannot help. And the world is just about to enter the week of passion remembering the suffering of Jesus, and the remembrance of his resurrection. But I also repeat to you, in front of the world, some of what He said about His death, just a few days before His trial.

He said, as stated in chapter 23 of the Gospel of St. Matthew:

1. "You Blind guides! You strain your water so you won't accidentally swallow a gnat, but you swallow a camel!"

2 - “ Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like white washed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and every impurity.”

Finally, what can I add to these final statements?

Only these two facts:

First, you all know, in theory, that Jesus, who is by all measures the greatest of the sons of Syria, got slain for all mankind.

Second, you insist on ignoring it so far: Syria that offered a great number of its sons and daughters, to redeem all humanity, will also resurrect, and with it will bring forth a new world.

Cannot you understand ?!

Peace be with you from Damascus!

Father Elias Zahlawi