In the midst of the civil war, churches and Christian-owned businesses have been targets of bombings by the Islamic State and other extremist groups, and there have been many reports of Christians being abducted, harmed and killed. Even so, many of Syria’s remaining Christians are committed to staying and rebuilding their country. Others are now returning home following IS’s military defeat.

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Syria’s Christian villages ‘hollowed out’ by IS

Before the war there were many churches in the area around Hassaka who held regular services, like this one in Tel Jezirah.  (Photo: World Watch Monitor, 2009)

The Islamic State, following its defeat in Syria, has left behind hollowed-out Christian villages, reports the New York Times. Assyrian Christians, an indigenous Middle Eastern minority, once formed thriving farming communities along the Khabur River in Syria’s northeast. But when IS attacked the area in 2015, the militants demolished churches and kidnapped […]

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Church council calls for release of Syrian bishops abducted five years ago

(Source: World Council of Churches)

The World Council of Churches (WCC) has called for the release of two Syrian archbishops kidnapped five years ago. “The Central Committee recalls with heavy hearts the abduction five years ago of the archbishops of Aleppo, Yohanna Ibrahim and Paul Yazigi,” the WCC said in a statement following a six-day […]

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70,000 Syrian Armenians have fled during the war, and few will return

70,000 Syrian Armenians have fled during the war, and few will return

The fragrance of Middle Eastern cuisine wafts into your nostrils, even before you open the door of the café opposite the central railway station in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital.   Nerses Kevo, the café’s owner, is one of thousands of Armenian Christians who fled the Syrian civil war and moved to […]

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Syria: Report highlights ‘brutality against Christian clerics’, with five still missing

Fr. Paolo Dall’Oglio, a Jesuit priest who was abducted in Syria in July 2013, is one of the clerics who disappeared and whose fate remains unknown. (Photo: veDro via Flickr / Creative Commons)

A report about violence against Syrian church leaders during the ongoing civil war shows that clerics have been beaten, abducted – five are still missing – and killed, and that 2013 was the worst year. In ‘The Good Shepherd: A Report on Brutality against Christian Clerics in Syria March 25, […]

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Syria: Christians and Yazidis among 250,000 displaced in Afrin

Turkish-backed Syrian rebels walk past a burning shop in Afrin on 18 March. (Photo: BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images)

Significant numbers of Christians and Yazidis have fled their homes in northern Syria’s Afrin enclave, World Magazine reports, ever since Islamist militants joined with the Turkish military this past January to oust Syrian Kurdish fighters from the region along Turkey’s border. Turkey considers the Kurdish YPG (People’s Protection Units) to […]

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‘Christianity in Syria is under threat from forces the West is supporting’

‘Christianity in Syria is under threat from forces the West is supporting’

Two thousand years of Christianity in Syria could be wiped out by the very forces Western governments are supporting, an Anglican vicar has claimed. Rev. Andrew Ashdown, who has made ten trips to Syria since 2014 and is studying for a PhD in relations between Christians and Muslims there, also […]

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