Synod on Synodality World Tour: The Middle East, Part II
Synod Participants from the Middle East
This is the sixth in an occasional series exploring the contributions of different parts of the globe to the upcoming Synod on Synodality in October.
Earlier this week, I analyzed the key themes in the synodal continental document from the Middle East. The continental document explains the roots of the concept of synodality in the Eastern Christian tradition and how the concept was expressed in the governance of the Churches in the East for many centuries. The document also explores what it would mean for the Church to be synodal in the unique context of the Middle East. For example, it expresses the challenges of being a minority group in the majority-Muslim societies of the Middle East, but also calls for resisting “minority complexes,” attitudes of fear and immobilization that keep the Church from bearing prophetic witness to the world.
In today’s post, I will focus on the participants in October’s Synod of Bishops coming from the Middle East. The participants from the Middle East make up the smallest continental group. By my count, there are 22 participants from the Middle East, including patriarchs and eparchs, but also religious and lay people serving as delegates and theological experts. I am not sure if, in terms of the Vatican’s classifications, the Bishop of Teheran-Isfahan in Iran, Dominique Mathieu, O.F.M.Conv., is from the Middle East or from Central Asia (and hence should have been counted as part of the delegation from Asia), but I am counting him as a participant from the Middle East.
For the first time, there were several continental delegates, and one invited expert, I was not able to identify, which is disappointing. This may be because a name is misspelled in the Vatican’s official list of participants, or because a variant spelling is used. It could also simply be because these participants do not have a presence on the web, or that their web presence is inaccessible to me because it is written in Arabic. I hope this survey is still useful to readers even though I could only identify about two-thirds of the participants.
In my survey of the Synod participants from Asia and Oceania, I noted that the bishops coming from Asia included two heads of Eastern Catholic Churches, both from India: Cardinal George Alencherry, the head of the Syro-Malabar Church, and Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, the Catholicos of the Syro-Malankara Church. Several of the Eastern Catholic Churches are centered in the Middle East, and the leaders, or patriarchs, of these Churches will likewise be present at the Synod.
In many ways, the nation of Lebanon is the center of Middle East Christianity. Lebanon has the largest Christian population in the region, as a percent of the population: about 32 percent of the people in Lebanon are Christian, according to the CIA Factbook, and early in the twentieth century, just over half the population was Christian. Four of the Eastern Catholic Churches have their administrative centers there.
The most prominent of these Churches in Lebanon itself is the Maronite Church, which includes two-thirds of the Christians in Lebanon, but also includes members in Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt, and a diaspora throughout the world. The roots of the Maronite Church as a separate church go back to the 7th century and the Muslim conquest of the area. As a result of the conquest, the Byzantine Patriarch of Antioch remained in Constantinople. In 685, the Maronites, a Christian community that had grown up around the Beth-Maron monastery, appointed a rival patriarch, Bishop John Maron of Batroun. The Maronite Church, with its own distinctive traditions and hierarchy, has persisted to this day.
Today, it is headed by Cardinal Béchara Boutros al-Rahi (or Raï), O.M.M., the Maronite Patriarch of Antioch. Although historical Antioch is in Syria, the Maronite Patriarchate is today based in Bkerké, Lebanon, north of Beirut. Interestingly, from 1967 to 1975, al-Rahi was responsible for producing the Arabic-language content for Vatican Radio. He was first made a bishop in 1986 and was elected patriarch in 2011. Pope Benedict XVI appointed him a cardinal a year later, in 2012.
As the religious head of the Maronites, the patriarch plays an important social role in Lebanon. Although officially remaining neutral regarding politics, the patriarch still has significant political influence. Since the end of the Lebanese Civil War in 1990, politics in Lebanon has revolved around balancing the power of rival religious groups—Shiite and Sunni Muslims, Maronite Christians, the Druze, and secular Lebanese—and managing Lebanon’s relationship with its larger neighbor, Syria. Syria’s military had occupied Lebanon at the end of the war, a major factor in establishing peace, and only withdrew in 2005 after the Cedar Revolution, a series of protests led by Christian, Sunni, and secular leftist movements.
Perhaps surprisingly, upon his election in 2011, Patriarch al-Rahi took a more pro-Syrian stance, and likewise expressed some support for Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite political party and militia closely tied to Syria and Iran. Arab Spring protests in countries like Libya and Yemen that quickly devolved into sectarian conflict, and the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, convinced al-Rahi that Sunni Muslim extremism posed the greatest danger to Christian minorities in the Middle East, and that therefore an alliance of convenience with Shiite Muslims was prudent. This political maneuvering demonstrates the difficult political and social situation Middle East Christians find themselves in, even in a diverse country like Lebanon.
In 2019, the Lebanese economy underwent a massive currency devaluation and debt crisis that devastated the economy and that was exacerbated by the port explosion in Beirut and the outbreak of COVID-19, both in 2020. The poverty rate has surged to more than three-quarters of the population. The political class, so used to squabbling over power, has been unable to govern the country. In the midst of this crisis, Patriarch al-Rahi has excoriated the political class, including Hezbollah, for the lack of leadership.
In addition to al-Rahi, the Maronite Church will be represented at the Synod by Mounir Khairallah, the Eparch of Batroun. Like Patriarch al-Rahi, Eparch Khairallah has blamed the corruption of the political class for Lebanon’s current woes.
Lebanon is also home to the Patriarch of Antioch and All the East of the Syriacs and the Melkite Greek Patriarch of Antioch, although the latter’s official archepiscopal see is the Cathedral of the Dormition of Our Lady in Damascus, Syria.
The current Syriac Patriarch of Antioch is Ignatius Joseph III Yonan, who was elected in 2009. Beginning in 1986, he worked as a church-planter for Syriac Catholics in the United States, and in 1995 was appointed by John Paul II as the first Eparch of Newark, New Jersey. In 2010, Pope Benedict XVI called for a special Synod for the Middle East region, and Yonan served as one of four co-presidents. Yonan also met with Pope Francis when the latter visited Iraq in 2021.
The Syriac Catholic Church has its roots in the split that occurred in Christianity after the Council of Chalcedon in 451, that declared that Christ is two natures, human and divine, united in one divine person. Those Christians in the Antiochene patriarchate who rejected Chalcedon’s teachings, instead holding to miaphysitism (the belief that “Christ is fully human and fully divine, in one nature”), became the Syriac Orthodox Church. In 1677, a faction of the Syriac Orthodox Church sought union with Rome, and this union was finalized in 1782, leading to the formation of the Syriac Catholic Church. As I noted back in May, in recent decades there have been significant ecumenical gestures between the Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches that hold to the miaphysite position.
The current Melkite Greek Patriarch of Antioch is Youssef Absi, a native of Damascus. The Superior General of the Missionary Society of St. Paul from 1999 to 2006, he was elected patriarch in 2017. Patriarch Absi has been an outspoken proponent of greater unity among Christians in the Middle East.
The Melkite Greek Catholic Church has its roots among those Antiochene Christians who held to the teachings of the Chalcedon. The Melkites likewise followed the Patriarch of Antioch tied to the Patriarch of Constantinople, rather than the Maronite Patriarch of Antioch, beginning in the seventh century. Because of these ties with Constantinople, Melkites worship using the Byzantine Rite, as opposed to the Maronite and Syriac Catholic Churches, which follow variations of the West Syriac Rite (as do the Syro-Malankara Catholics in India). In 1729, the Melkite Greek Catholic Church broke from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and entered into union with Rome. Patriarch Absi has called for a Jubilee in 2024 celebrating 300 years of union with Rome (dating it from the election of Patriarch Cyril VI Tanas in 1724, rather than his recognition as Patriarch by Pope Benedict XIII five years later).
Like al-Rahi, both Yonan and Absi have taken stances sympathetic to Syrian President Bashar Assad and critical of United States involvement in the Syrian Civil War. For example, Yonan and Absi, along with the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch and the head of the ecumenical Middle East Council of Churches, wrote a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden in 2021 urging an end to economic sanctions against Syria (which is, arguably, the correct position). Patriarch Yonan has gone further, arguing that the uprising against Assad’s rule that began in 2011 was misguided. He has criticized Westerners who “hastened to support the violent uprising, mostly for geopolitical reasons, imagining a democracy that is undoubtedly unfit for the Middle East region, that ignores the separation of church and state, religion and politics.” As with al-Rahi, his comments suggest that he believes Christians and other religious minorities are safer under Assad’s authoritarian rule than under a Sunni Muslim-dominated democratic majority.
The fourth Catholic patriarch residing in Lebanon is the head of the Armenian Catholic Church, Raphaël Bedros XXI Minassian, the Catholicos-Patriarch of Cilicia. The Armenian Church, like the Syriac Orthodox Church, rejected the teachings of the Council of Chalcedon in the fifth century and adopted miaphysitism. In 1742, the Armenian Catholic Church was established by those Armenians who sought union with Rome, while the majority of Armenian Christians remained part of the Armenian Church (or the Armenian Apostolic Church). During the Armenian Genocide from 1915 to 1917 and its aftermath, many Armenian Christians, including Armenian Catholics, fled from Armenia to other parts of the Middle East, including Lebanon. Patriarch Minassian therefore leads a primarily diaspora population. Prior to his election in 2021, he had served as the bishop for Armenian Catholics in Eastern Europe, including Armenia itself, as well as Georgia, Ukraine, and Russia. Minassian has also advocated for increasing unity between Armenian Catholics and the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Two other Middle Eastern patriarchs will be present at the Synod. The first is Cardinal Louis Raphaël I Sako, the Chaldean Patriarch of Baghdad (or Babylon). Cardinal Sako is perhaps the best-known of the Middle East patriarchs mentioned here because of his role as a leader of the besieged Christian minority in Iraq both during the Iraq War and the later conflict with ISIS.
In 2002, Sako was appointed Eparch of Kirkuk, a city with Kurdish, Arab, and Turkmen populations, and sitting on the boundary of Kurdish and Arab-dominated areas of the country. Although Kirkuk did not see heavy fighting during the Iraq War, it was subject to heavy violence during the conflict with ISIS that intensified in 2014. In Kirkuk, Sako sought peace and reconciliation among Iraq’s religious and ethnic groups.
Elected Patriarch of Baghdad in 2013, Sako became the face of Christians in Iraq during the worst days of the conflict with ISIS. Pope Francis appointed him a cardinal in 2018, and Sako hosted Francis in Iraq in 2021. More recently, in July, the President of Iraq revoked Sako’s status as “patriarch” of Baghdad, and Sako in turn fled to the Kurdish city of Erbil. It may seem strange to Americans, but the idea that the government would ratify the status of patriarchs and other religious leaders dates to the Ottoman Empire, or even earlier to the time of the Caliphate, and is put into practice in a number of Middle Eastern countries. The president’s decision does not affect Sako’s ecclesial position, only the recognition of that position by the government.
The Chaldean Catholic Church, which Sako heads, has its origins in the Church of the East (also called the East Syriac Church or Assyrian Church). In 410, Christianity was adopted in the Persian, or Sasanian Empire, and thus the Church of the East became jurisdictionally independent from the Church in the Roman Empire. In 431, the Council of Ephesus condemned Nestorianism, the belief that Christ was a human being personally united with the Son. The Church of the East, however, rejected the council’s teaching and adopted Nestorianism, leading to a doctrinal split with the rest of the Church. The Church of the East persisted even after the rise of Islam in the seventh century. In 1552, a schism in the Church of the East led some to seek union with Rome, eventually leading to the establishment of the Chaldean Catholic Church. Patriarch Sako has sought unity with the other branches of the Church of the East, the Assyrian Church of the East and the Old Assyrian Church of the East, even proposing a union of the three churches in 2015.
The remaining patriarch is Ibrahim Isaac Sidrak, the Coptic Catholic Patriarch of Alexandria, in Egypt, who was elected to the position in 2013. The majority of Christians in Egypt belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church, a miaphysite church like the Syriac Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic Churches. Coptic Catholics are those Copts who sought union with Rome. Like his patriarchal colleagues, Sidrak has sought greater unity between Eastern Catholics and their fellow Christians.
Also like other patriarchs, Patriarch Sidrak has expressed support for an authoritarian government that is perceived as a protector of the Christian minority. Sidrak has praised Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who was elected president in 2014 after leading a military coup in 2013 against President Mohamed Morsi. Morsi was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and had proposed a new constitution based in Islamic law. Since the coup, El-Sisi has eliminated meaningful opposition through repressive rule.
Two other episcopal leaders are quite different from the patriarchs of the Eastern Churches. Dominique Mathieu, O.F.M.Conv., originally from Belgium, is the Archbishop of Teheran-Isfahan, in Iran. Pope Francis appointed him archbishop in 2021, after Mathieu had worked as a missionary in Lebanon since 2013. The Archdiocese of Teheran-Isfahan is tiny, encompassing six parishes and including about 2,000 Catholics total.
Likewise, Paolo Martinelli, O.F.M.Cap. serves as the Apostolic Vicar of Southern Arabia, appointed to that position in 2022. Based in the United Arab Emirates, Martinelli serves an area that also includes the countries of Oman and Yemen. The Apostolic Vicariate of Northern Arabia, led by Aldo Berardi, O.SS.T. (who will not be at the Synod), includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar. Both vicariates primarily serve migrant workers and their families from South and Southeast Asia. Martinelli has advocated for interreligious dialogue between Christians and Muslims and has praised the Document on Human Fraternity signed by Pope Francis and Ahmed Al-Tayyeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, in Abu Dhabi in 2019. Martinelli has also spoken in support of the Abrahamic Family House, a religious complex in Abu Dhabi including Muslim, Christian, and Jewish houses of worship, that has been criticized by some traditionalist Catholics.
Mathieu and Martinelli have much in common with Cardinal Giorgio Marengo, I.M.C., the Apostolic Prefect of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia who I highlighted in my survey of Asian participants in the Synod. All three are Europeans with a missionary spirit serving tiny Catholic minorities in isolated regions. All three have demonstrated independent thinking and have supported interreligious dialogue.
Whereas the episcopal leaders in the Middle East, and particularly the patriarchs and eparchs of the Eastern Churches, are responsible for leading their flocks in the fraught circumstances of the Middle East, the religious and lay delegates from that region offer a different picture of the Church.
Fr, Gaby Hachem, a Melkite Greek priest from Lebanon, is the Director of the Middle East Council of Churches’ Theological and Ecumenical Department. The Middle East Council of Churches is an ecumenical organization bringing together the region’s Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and other churches. The Theological and Ecumenical Department, as the name suggests, focuses on theological dialogue. Fr. Hachem is also a member of the Pontifical Faculty of Theology at the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik and also a member of the Vatican’s International Theological Commission. He will serve as a theological adviser for the Synod.
Fr. Khalil Alwan, M.L. is a Maronite priest, and is the Secretary-General of the Council of Catholic Patriarchs of the East, a coordinating body of the patriarchs mentioned earlier. He is also the Vice Rector of the Shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon. Fr. Alwan served as the coordinator of the Middle East continental assembly that produced the Middle East continental document, and he will be a voting delegate at the Synod.
Sandra Chaoul, also from Lebanon, is the Director of the Accompaniment Network, which is part of Discerning Leadership, an organization run by the Jesuit order and based in Rome focused on promoting a synodal style of leadership in the Church. Like Fr. Hachem, Chaoul will be a non-voting expert at the Synod.
Sr. Houda Fadoul is a religious sister at Deir Mar Musa, a monastery of men and women in Syria. Sr. Fadoul and others at the monastery have assisted refugees during Syria’s Civil War. She also spoke out against military intervention when the United States and other Western countries were considering becoming military involved in Syria in 2013.
Finally, Sr. Caroline Jarjis is a member of the Congregation of the Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Erbil, Iraq. She is the Director of the Institute of Christian Education in that city. She is also a trained physician, and her order recently built a new infirmary in Erbil. Both Sr. Fadoul and Sr. Jarjis will be voting delegates at the Synod.
Like I mentioned earlier, there were a number of other lay delegates, both voting and non-voting, that, unfortunately, I couldn’t identify.
Despite their small size, I think the Synod delegates from the Middle East will make important contributions in October. For one, they will bring with them the Eastern Churches’ deep understanding of synodality, embodied in their leadership structures. They will also bring a unique perspective on what it means to live out synodality as a minority group faced with persecution, but also a group that seeks partnerships and dialogue with fellow Christians and practitioners of other religions.