Inside a centuries -old monastery on top of a mountain in western Syria, a priest swing an incense holder on a chain, led his flock in melodic songs and handed over a timeless sermon on the importance of loving the neighbor.
But when the congregation gathered for coffee after the service, their current concerns emerged, on how peaceful the future of Syria would have been.
Are the Islamist rebels who ousted the strong Bashar al-Assad man in December Ban Pork and Alcohol, would they impose a modest dress for women or limit Christian worship? Would the new security forces protect Christians from attacks by Muslim extremists?
“Nothing happened that makes you feel that things are better,” said Mirna Haddad, one of the faithful.
Elsewhere in the historic city of Maaloula, its Muslim minority had different concerns. Like their Christian neighbors, they had fled their homes here at the beginning of the 13 -year civil war of Syria. But unlike Christians, he had been forbidden to return from the Assad regime and a Christian militia he claimed.
“The problem is the majority”, in the sense that the Christians of the city said Omar Ibrahim Omar, leader of a new local security committee. He had returned home to Maaloula only after the fall of Mr. Al-Assad, after being kept out for more than a decade.
“We will not let this happen again,” he said.
Maaloula, nestled between robust outcrops 35 miles north -north of the capital, Damascus, has long embodied the ancient roots of Christianity in Syria and served as an important piece of the country’s religious mosaic. It is a rare community in which the premises still speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus, and boasts a history of coexistence between two thirds of its population which are Christians and the other third, which are Sunni Muslims.
But the war started in 2011 placed the two communities on different paths, snatching Maaloula’s social fabric. Many Muslims supported the rebels who fought to overthrow the regime, while Christians were largely to Mr. Al-Assad, who considered the protector of the Syrian minorities in a country with a Sunni majority.
Now, Mr. Al-Assad has disappeared, the city is damaged and its people are fighting to understand how they could live together again.
“I want to live with you as brothers,” said the priest, Rev. Fadi Barkil, in an interview as if he spoke with his Muslim neighbors. “If we continue to return to the past, it will never end.”
Christians live in Syria before the conversion of the apostle Paolo on the road to Damascus. Before the civil war, they constituted considerable minorities in Damascus, Aleppo and in other places, but their number has fallen since then. Christians emigrated to Lebanon and West to escape the violence and economic difficulties that devastated their communities.
In Maaloula, Father Barkil supervises his Greek Catholic Church and the Monastery of Saints Sergio and Bacchus, whose fourth century Sanctuary is partially expressed by a summit overlooking the city. Next to it are the remains of the Hotel Safir. Once the best destination in the city for pilgrims and tourists, it was destroyed during the war and is now deserted.
His terrace overlooks the city, with the domes and crosses of the many churches of Maaloula and the minaret of a mosque that climbs from its simple houses.
The civil war arrived for the first time in Maaloula when a suicidal bomberman made the main army checkpoint explodes protecting the city in September 2013. Almost all of its thousands of residents – both Christians and Muslims – fled while fighting and rebels led by the Nusra front, a affiliate of Al Qaeda, took control.
The rebels created bases in the hotel and the monastery, which allowed them to shoot on government forces below. They kidnapped 13 nuns and three assistants from a Greek Orthodox convent.
His Christians returned to find their damaged holy sites.
“When the priests returned after the war, everything was destroyed in the monastery,” said Father Barkil.
The upper part of his altar had been broken and the bombing had given a handful to holes in its stone walls and in the blue dome above the sanctuary, spreading the debris through the wooden desks. Many of its icons were missing and those remained had been defaced.
And in what Father Fadi described as a profoundly symbolic blow, two giant bells had been stolen from his and another sanctuary, removing their rings from Maaloula’s sound landscape.
For the duration of the war, the Syrian army held the city together with a Christian militia that armed. The Christian sites were restored, although few tourists who once supported the economy returned.
When the rebels passed Mr. Al-Assad in December, there was little joy among the Christians of Maaloula. The army fled, leaving the city unprotected and residents feared that the new Islamist sovereigns of the country would limit their religious freedoms.
“What do we want to Maaloula?” He asked Father Barkil. “Having a state and security, but we will not accept for Muslims to governing us by force.”
Exceptional their concerns is the fact that the founder of the Nusra front, the jihadist group who attacked Maaloula in 2013, is now the president of Syria, Ahmed al-Shara.
Father Barkil recognized that Al-Shara said he cut the ties with Al Qaeda and promised to serve all the people of Syria. But the priest invited the new president to strengthen this inclusive message with a visit to Maaloula.
“It can come to tell Maaloula that Christians are important and that nobody can damage them,” said Father Barkil. “But if he never says it, what will happen to us?”
After the fall of Mr. Al-Assad, the new authorities sent police officers to secure the city. At the local police station, some of these new officers – former rebels, all Muslims and none of Maaloula – have fallen asleep quickly in the middle of the day.
Elsewhere, a group of men from a newly formed security committee were crowded around a wood stove, trying to warm up. They were all Muslims of Maaloula, who claimed to be fled from the fighting in 2013, but that the regime had forbidden them to return home because he suspected them to support the rebels.
Akram Qutayman, 58 years old and a member of the Committee, said that the residents of different faiths had lived together peacefully before the war.
“Where I live, I was surrounded by Christians,” he said. “They would celebrate Ramadan with us, as if we were a hand.”
But he accused the local Christian militia of burn Muslim homes while they were away to try to prevent them from returning.
“We have no houses,” said Omar, the chief of the committee, also observing that the main mosque was still damaged. But it remained confident that the tensions would pass and that the city would have been reconstructed.
“I expect that there is reconciliation and we will live together again,” he said. “We will leave the past.”
Some positive signs have emerged in recent weeks.
The two bells stolen from the churches were returned. They were cleaned, polished and reinserted in their Befries during a ceremony last month, their sounds resonate for Maaloula for the first time in 13 years.
“Hanging these bells provided people with people,” said Father Barkil. “In the end, they are the voice of God.”
Muhammad Haj Kadour Contributed relationships.