Translation from Arabic

Easter comes after a year of untold suffering, unpredictable and unimaginable for most of us. Unfortunately, what we wrote on the same occasion a year ago still applies to the current situation of our unhappy country. At that time, we had expressed our solidarity with the victims of the conflict and our participation in the expectation of those who were hoping for a deep reform of Syria without falling into the logic of violence, and fearing the explosion of civil war and loss of national unity. Misfortune has reached us and we fear the worst.

Christmas Letter from Iraqi Kurdistan

Kirkuk, December 20^th, 2011

Dear friends,

Thank you again for the warm welcome I received this fall from the Swiss and Italian members of the associations of friends of our monastic community. It felt good to have you near. Many thanks also for your numerous expressions of solidarity in these turbulent times for the Middle East. Our website's statistics and our “inbox” that you are following us attentive, thank you! The Middle East, and especially Syria, really needs much prayer and solidarity. We are witnessing a continuous rise of violence, and we cannot but call with all our energy to non-violence and reconciliation.

Christmas call 2011

That the pastors, we hope, will share with their Christian folks and with all Syrians of good will and sound hope.

(translation from Arabic)

Dear brothers and sisters,

Peace, love, solidarity and reconciliation, from our Savior,

We deemed appropriate to write you about the service of reconciliation, because we consider it part of our sacred duty and charisma. We retain that, in the treatment of the current tragic situation, adopting any non-evangelical project or trespassing, for any reason, the ethnics of our Messiah, or the positions of his most pure Mother, or the tradition of the disciples and apostles in the original church, is forbidden to us.

Press release in conclusion of the 1 october 2010 about the

Week of spiritual jihad, through fasting, prayer

and sakina (God-inspired peace of the soul)

for reconciliation between the children of Mother Syria

at the monastery of Mar Musa al-Habashi

Monks and nuns of the monastery dedicated themselves, with friends and a number of visitors from the vast Syrian mosaic, to fast and prayer. We met daily in the church to read the Gospel, recite the Quran and meditate on a selection of texts about non-violent activism for reform, through forgiveness, through a dialogue based on brotherly reciprocal listening, through the acceptance of difference without conditions. A large number of friends (people and organizations) from around the world joined us in spirit, which made us feel deeply in communion and unity before God.