War-weary Christians celebrated a Christmas Mass amid the ruins of the bombed-out St. Elias Cathedral in Aleppo Sunday, just days after civilian refugees were evacuated and the government regained control of the city.
Scores gathered amid the rubble in the Old City landmark, where they worshipped before a simple makeshift altar bedecked with a pair of golden candelabras and a gold cross, with a lighted star strung overhead.
Priests prayed for peace as Russian officers took part with other worshippers inside the cathedral, situated on what was long the five-year civil war’s front line in the Old City,.
“The festive atmosphere is great. It’s a new birth for Jesus Christ and a new birth for the city of Aleppo,” George Bakhash, a Christian community leader, told Reuters.
He said the number of people attending Mass across the city had surged now that worshippers no longer feared missiles from rebel-held areas.
Many Syrian Christians supported the government in the civil war, viewing President Bashar al-Assad, a member of a Shiite-derived minority sect, as a protector against rebel fighters mainly drawn from Syria’s Sunni majority.
In the comparatively undamaged parts of the city that had long been held by the government, restaurants were thronged by Christians late into the night.
Hundreds of people danced and celebrated in the Azizya neighborhood, where the public Christmas tree had gone unlit since rebels took the eastern half of the city in 2012.
Giant posters depicted Assad and his Christian ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Although some Christians stayed on the sidelines in the war, many saw the rise of ISIS and other Sunni Muslim insurgent groups as a threat to the very existence of their communities, some as old as the Bible.“I am sure his soul is in peace now because Aleppo has been liberated,” she said.
The Christian population of Aleppo has shrunk since the start of the conflict, from 250,000 to around 50,000, according to Bakhash.
Meanwhile, Russian jets resumed heavy strikes on rebel-held areas of Aleppo province after a pause to complete the evacuation of insurgents from the city.
