“The situation is not okay” Thimar partners face attacks and threats in Syria  

By Ghinwa Akiki and Hunter Williamson

August 5, 2025

It was around 6:30 pm on a Sunday in late June when a suicide bomber attacked Mar Elias Greek Orthodox Church in Damascus, a partner-church of Thimar’s relief and development ministry MERATH. 

The attack took place during the church’s evening liturgy, which had been launched — in addition to its morning service — to accommodate students who attended classes earlier in the day. 

Armed with a rifle and wearing a vest rigged with explosives, the attacker entered the church and began shooting at the congregation. Several young men reportedly charged at him, preventing the attacker from further entering the church. Their heroic response likely saved many more lives, but it came at the cost of their own, as the attacker detonated his vest.  

The attack killed at least 25 people and injured 63 others.  

Father Paul*, one of the church priests, had just returned home from a hospital appointment when he received a call about the attack.  

The news devastated him. Father Paul had served at Mar Elias in Dwel’a, a neighbourhood in Damascus, for several years and seen it grow. Now, the walls he had once helped adorn were strewn with blood. 

“Today, we are still tending to the wounds,” Father Paul told us nearly a month later. “We are continuing the journey of this first church, the church of martyrs, walking the same path, following the same example, and bearing the same testimony.” 

More than eight months after a coalition of opposition forces ousted the former Syrian regime from power after 14 years of civil war, Syria remains fragile and tense. Despite government promises to form an inclusive state for all of Syria’s communities, sectarian violence rages.  

Initially, MERATH’s partners in Syria found themselves caught in the middle. Churches continued to provide unconditional support to their communities and people impacted by the violence, just as they did during the civil war. But the attack on Mar Elias was different — for the first time since the fall of the previous government in December, Christians were now the direct target of extremist violence. 

In the immediate aftermath of the attack on Mar Elias Church, the Syrian government blamed the Islamic State (ISIS). But it was a different group that ultimately claimed responsibility: an obscure Islamist organization named Saraya Ansar al-Sunnah (SAS). In a statement, the group said the bombing was in response to a government ban on unapproved proselytization in Dwel’a. 

In the weeks since the attack, Father Paul and members of the congregation have been visiting the families of victims, doing their best to comfort grieving hearts. Yet Father Paul sees how the attack has shaken Christians, prompting many to once more consider emigration. Amid sectarian violence and a perception that religious extremists are becoming more empowered, many Christians feel that their country is no longer safe. 

“The situation in Syria today is not okay,” said Father Paul. 

Calls for jihad and the killing of Christians 

On a Sunday morning a few weeks after the attack on Mar Elias Church, a MERATH-partner church located on Syria’s eastern coast woke to find threatening flyers scattered in front of their church building and on the village streets.  

The flyers called for Muslims to wage jihad and kill Christians. There was no attribution on the papers. That made Sami*, the pastor of the church, suspicious about who was behind the flyers, but the message was clear enough. 

The threats shook Christians in his village, who were still unnerved by the attack in Damascus. Fearing something similar would occur in their own community, attendance dropped at the church that Sami pastors. 

The church considered whether to accept an offer from the government to station security personnel in front of the church building. For some church members, such armed force offered reassurance. But others pushed back. 

“Christians are divided,” Sami said. “Some believe that these security threats are real and feel unsafe. Others view this as an attempt to undermine the new government and are unwilling to give it a chance.” 

Ultimately, the church decided not to have security forces in front of the church. 

Despite the concerns, the church has kept its doors open. For Sami, the main role of the church is to embrace people, help them face reality, and remind them that God is present and that true peace comes from Jesus Christ. He believes this is a time to stand with people, not abandon them, and to help them keep living by turning their gaze toward Christ. What brings the most peace, he said, is seeing the church doors open and services continuing. 

“We are encouraged. We are optimistic,” said Sami. “The reason is our confidence. We have partners around the world who are praying for us. It is this Christian spirit that makes us one heart and one soul. Through it, God will do great things.” 

Another exodus of Christians from Syria? 

In mid-July, fighting broke out in the southern province of Suwayda between Druze militias and Sunni Bedouin tribes. Syrian government forces soon intervened on the side of the Bedouin armed groups. Reports of sectarian massacres against Druze civilians quickly emerged as fighting reportedly left more than a thousand people dead and displaced another 128,000. Israel also intervened, launching airstrikes on Syrian government forces as part of what it said were efforts to support Druze. 

Among those killed in Suwayda, according to Thimar partners and sources, were Christian believers who come from Druze backgrounds. A Greek Catholic church in the region was also reportedly attacked and burned. While a ceasefire has mostly brought the fighting to an end, the situation remains tense with critical humanitarian needs.  

As the fighting raged in Suwayda in mid-July, we spoke with Abdel Massih*, the head of another Thimar-partner church in Damascus, as he returned from a prayer meeting. 

“Emotionally, we are exhausted,” he said. 

When the previous government fell last year, the initial days felt a bit like a honeymoon, Abdel Massih described. But joy turned to skepticism and then to concern as sectarian violence erupted. Before the fighting in Suwayda and the bombing at Mar Elias, other bloody sectarian clashes and massacres occurred in Syria’s coastal regions and on the outskirts of Damascus. 

(MERATH partners responded to the humanitarian crisis that resulted from the violence. You can watch and read about it at these links: A peacemaker amid Syria’s sectarian massacres and Lebanon’s latest refugee crisis.) 

This series of sectarian violence is leading many Christians, especially young believers, to consider leaving Syria. Such emigration poses to further deplete a severely shrunken Christian community. Before Syria’s civil war erupted in 2011, Christians made up about 10 percent of the population. But conflict and economic hardship prompted many to leave the country. Today, only 300,000 Christians are estimated to remain in Syria — less than 2 percent of the total population. 

At this critical moment, church leaders are trying to encourage members to remain in Syria. 

“We cannot force anyone to stay,” said Abdel Massih. “But like Esther was in that position for that special time to save her people, we believe that as Christians, we are here for a specific mission from God.” 

Faced with violence and threats, Abdel Massih recognizes the challenge of staying in Syria. But he is driven by a conviction that the church is a light to its community and country. 

“I know it’s not the most comfortable approach (to stay), but we are not called to do what is more comfortable,” he said. “We are called to do what is right — not right in our own eyes, but what is right in the eyes of God.”