Weimar honors abducted Syrian bishops: A sign of hope for Christian minorities in the Middle East

According to the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP), it is a "sign of hope for the Christians in the Middle East" that two abducted Syrian bishops will be honored with the Weimar Human Rights Prize 2014. "The internationally renowned award goes to two extraordinary personalities from the embattled city of Aleppo, who worked as mediators and ambassadors of peace throughout the Syrian civil war, who were there for the people in times of suffering and who advocated for a peaceful coexistence of all ethnic and religious communities in the Middle East," said Tilman Zülch, the STP's Secretary General, in Weimar on occasion of the Human Rights Day this Wednesday. "Archbishop Yohanna Ibrahim of the Syrian Orthodox Church and Bishop Boulos Yazigi of the Greek Orthodox Church in Aleppo had repeatedly called for reconciliation, forgiveness and dialogue – and had tried to find ways to put an end to the violence and to work towards national unity in Syria, based on pluralism and tolerance."

During the award ceremony in Weimar, the two prize winners – who have been missing since they were abducted on April 22, 2013, most likely by radical Islamists – will be represented by Moses Alkhassi, the Archimandrite of the Greek Orthodox Church in Aleppo, by Philoxenos Mattias Nayis, bishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Germany, and by Isaac Barakat, Metropolitan of the orthodox Church of Antioch in Germany and Central Europe. The STP had suggested the two bishops for the prize.

The two ecclesiastical dignitaries had been on their way to negotiate about the release of a kidnapped priest when they were ambushed and kidnapped near Aleppo. For their driver, the journey ended fatally: the deacon was shot.

In 2011, Archbishop Ibrahim had traveled to Berlin to draw attention to the plight of the Christian minority in his country and to ask the German politicians for help. At that time, he was afraid that the pressure upon the Christians in Syria would continue to increase – as if he had known that, soon after, many members of his community would have to fear for their lives or would be kidnapped, tortured or murdered. In July 2012, the Archbishop had published a call for peace in Syria and pointed out ways to stop the violence and to preserve the unique pluralistic structure of the Syrian society and the country's national unity.

"The two bishops share the fate of many members of their community who were driven from their land in hundreds of thousands, who were kidnapped, raped or murdered; not only the Yezidis and the Kurds, but many other people from Syria too," said Zülch. More than 300,000 people have already fallen victim to the war in Syria; more than 1.5 million were injured and 3.2 million were forced to flee.

You can download the laudation (in German) of Tilman Zülch (founder of the Society for threatened people and juror of the "Weimarer Menschenrechtspreis") here.

You can download the programm of the award presentation (in German) here.

Tilman Zülch is available for further questions: +49 (0) 551 49906 24 or politik@gfbv.de.

Header Photo: Moses Alkhassi the Archimandrite of the Greek Orthodox Church in Aleppo.