His Beatitude Theodoros II, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, having learned with sorrow the tragic news of the blind hate attack, which took place at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Prophet Elias, in the Duweila area of Damascus, on Sunday, June 22, 2025, made the following statement:
“It is with great sadness that I learned today of the tragic event of the suicide attack by a bomber on the Greek Orthodox Community of the Prophet Elias in Duweila in Damascus, which has been repeatedly tested in recent years and which resulted in the horrific death and injury of dozens of our Orthodox brothers and sisters. Therefore, I hasten to support with all the strength of my soul, but also with the power of consoling prayer, both my brother, His Beatituude Ioannis Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, as well as to the grieving families and the other members of the Orthodox spiritual family of Damascus.”
With a heavy heart, I wonder, what is the reason for this hatred between brothers, who have coexisted for centuries in the blessed lands of renowned Damascus? Why this destruction towards peaceful Christian brothers, who, finding themselves in the same painful vortex as all their fellow citizens of the Middle East, regardless of race or faith, of the painful moments of the chilling whistling of deadly missiles and the deafening sounds of murderous bombings, resorted to the consolation of the Liturgical life and specifically to the Mystery of the Holy Eucharist, on the holy day of Sunday, praying fervently “for the peace of the whole world”? What good do these abominable acts of hatred, blood, and destruction do in the two-and-a-half-centuries that humanity has been experiencing with terror?
Let us pray with all the strength of our souls to the One and Great God of Peace and Reconciliation, that this unjust, horrible and absolutely condemnable event of the tragic end of our brothers and sisters may become the beginning of a unified movement of reconciliation and mutual understanding at the level of the daily life of our fellow human beings of the bleeding Middle East, tortured by the many years of conflicts, so that never again will a fratricidal act of blind hatred be repeated, especially in the name of God.
In the name of the Lord, I express once again from the God-walked land of peaceful Egypt the sympathy and sorrow of the holy clergy and the Christ-loving people of the Patriarchate of Alexandria and all Africa and of myself personally to the Greek Orthodox Community of Damascus and to the families of the martyred victims and those injured in the bombing attack, invoking upon the Church of Antioch, Her Most Blessed Primate and Her suffering Christian flock the support and consolation from above and the protective Grace of the Triune God.”
From the Chief Secretariat of the Holy Synod
of the Patriarchate of Alexandria
