From being kidnapped and held hostage by Islamic terrorists, miraculously liberated and now ministering to a dwindling Christian community in Syria, Archbishop Jacques Mourad, Syriac Catholic Archbishop of the ancient Christian community of Homs, exemplifies the suffering and resilience of his people during the darkest days of a brutal civil war and the reign of terror by ISIS.

“Christians are now not actively persecuted in Syria, but the situation is still not stable and they continue to leave the country,” he said at an online news conference June 3 hosted by the pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), which supports oppressed Christians (and other faith groups) in Syria and around the world. “After the big moment of change (the take-over of the country by dictator Bashar Assad’s opponents in December 2024), things are a little calmer, but there is still a lot of fear.”

Mourad — who for five months in 2015 was a prisoner of ISIS — said the recent removal of sanctions imposed on the country by Canada, the U.S., EU and Saudi Arabia has lit a spark of hope in the suffering population, impoverished by the long years of the brutal civil war between the Assad government and opposition forces that had held the country in its grip from 2011 to 2024. These sanctions, intended to target Assad and an elite coterie of government officials, caused endless hardship to most of the civilian population, depriving them of the basic necessities of life, including food, fuel and medicine.

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To add to their misery, Christians and other minority faith groups had been targeted for genocide from 2014 to 2019 when the fundamentalist ISIS held sway over large swaths of Syria and neighbouring Iraq, causing thousands of Christians to flee and reducing the Christian population drastically from 1.5 million, or 10 per cent of the population in 2011, to approximately 300,000 in 2022 (less than two per cent).

But Christians’ troubles are not over, despite the defeat of ISIS by a U.S.-led coalition in 2019 and the overthrow of Assad by a group of Islamist militias, headed by the HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham), whose commander Ahmed al Shaara is the president of the current transitional government of Syria.

HTS was once designed a terrorist organization, and has a record of mistreating faith minorities, said Jenan Moussa, an award-winning Arab journalist. But after gaining control of Syria, Al-Shaara has made an effort to give his party a more liberal face and made several conciliatory gestures towards minorities, even appointing a Western-educated Christian woman, Hind Kabawat, a dual citizen of Syria and Canada, as the Minister of Social Affairs and Labour.

But Syria’s Christians, Alawites, Druze and other minorities are getting mixed messages, and are hovering between anxiety and hope that the new Syria will be a safe and welcoming place for all its diverse groups.

“Syria has always been a land of diversity, a place of encounter for Muslims, Christians, Druze, Kurds and others,” Mourad said, adding that despite the government’s efforts to distance itself from its Islamist roots, its control of the country is uneven, and Salafists (who adhere to an extreme version of Islam) continue to be active in some parts of the country, threatening people and enforcing their rules and social norms such as the mandatory hijab (head scarf) for women.

“The country is still in chaos, with checkpoints everywhere,” Mourad said. “The people have no jobs and live in poverty and without dignity. They thirst for justice and long for a life with minimum economic well-being which can’t happen if there is no equilibrium.”

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The lack of security and an uncertain trust that they will be accorded their rights is not good for families, he said, adding that Christians continue to leave the country.

“Until now it was mostly young men who wanted to avoid military service, which was a nightmare, but now it’s families because they don’t want their children to live in such circumstances,” he said.

He emphasized the importance of the Church in building trust among the various groups, in ensuring a peaceful future and in helping to sustain families. He also acknowledged the role of Catholic charities such as Aid to the Church in Need in helping Syrians during their darkest hours.

“In the name of all Syrians, and especially Christians, we are extremely grateful to ACN and its international supporters for helping us to help Syrians to survive this time of hunger, thirst and lack of basic necessities,” he said.

Regina Lynch, executive president of ACN, gave a brief account of the help ACN provided to Syria during the civil war.

“Between 2011 and 2022, ACN supported over 1,100 projects in Syria, with funding of more than €50 million. These efforts provided emergency relief — medicine, food, shelter, education — but they also gave something even more precious: hope,” she said, adding that the organization still stands by Syria.

The archbishop’s vision of post-war Syria is not all gloom and doom.

“The lifting of sanctions removes barriers to the transfer of money to Syria,” he said. “This will help a lot. We can support big projects such as the construction of homes, hospitals and schools. This will give our people jobs, and hope. We can help young Christians who want to get married to sustain their families and we can encourage those who left to come back, if they can find work and build a future with dignity.”

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Mourad’s optimism is rooted in his own unshakeable faith and his experience of surviving the ordeal of his kidnapping by Islamic terrorists. After his five months in captivity, he escaped with the help of a Muslim man who was grateful to him for allowing Muslims to shelter alongside Christians in the monastery of St. Elian when the civil war broke out. He attributes the miracle of his escape to the power of prayer and to acts of Christian love.

“Life is in God’s hands,” he said. “God performed the miracle of returning me to freedom and life. He will not leave Syria. There is hope for Syria and the Church.”