Speech of HB Patriarch John X At the beginning of…

Patriarch John X at the New Year’s Liturgy:

“Our prayers are for those who have fallen asleep and gone before us to behold the face of Christ. We mention in particular our children and loved ones, the martyrs of the Church of Saint Elias in Dweila.”

Damascus, 1 January 2026

 

His Beatitude John X, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East celebrated the Divine Liturgy for the New Year at the Mariamite Cathedral in Damascus. He was assisted in the service by Metropolitan Ephrem Maalouli (Aleppo), Metropolitan Gregorios Khoury (Homs), and Bishops Romanos Al-Hannat, Moussa Al-Khoury, Youhanna Batash, Arsenios Dahdal, Moussa Al-Khasi, along with a host of clergy. His Beatitude delivered a homily as follows:

“Today we turn a page of a life span on this transient world. We turn a page of time, which has been folded byour sweet Jesus at His birth, becoming the axis of history. Today we turn a page of time, which our East from the Levant sanctified throughout, thirty-three years that He spent among us, taking on our humanity and raising it to the glory of the heavens. Today, we turn a page in time, which He sanctified by His burial, His resurrection, and the beginning of His Gospel. We turn this page while being conscious and aware that time is a space of salvation granted by the Dweller of the heavens to each of us, so that we may pass it by the mercies of the Most High and by the creature’s striving to please Him, Glory to His name.”

The Patriarch added:

“We turn this page in Damascus and in the East, which our East of the Levant, Jesus Christ—as the Nativity liturgy calls Him—willed to be the place where humanity meets its Creator. I would like to recall here the thrice-blessed memory of Ignatius IV Hazim, who once said in a heartfelt reflection:

‘I reject any conception of the Middle East without Christians and without Christianity, because Christ Himself is Middle Eastern. We speak of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. We have Tyre and Sidon, and we have Damascus, through which the Apostle Paul passed. We have Antioch. These places are not a handful of soil; they are the place of the divine Incarnation. It is no surprise if circumstances arise that lead some to consider surrender or emigration as necessary. We will not leave. We are Antiochians, and so we will remain. We will stay in the Antiochian land, and Antioch will remain our apostolic capital… We are destined to be Antiochians in Antioch, and nothing will make us surrender.’”

He continued:

“Here, once again, we reaffirm that, as Christians in these lands, we are not seekers of protection. We affirm that together with our partners in citizenship, we protect these lands and build them.

Our prayers today are for peace in Syria and Lebanon, in the Middle East, and in the entire world. We pray for the abducted, among whom are the Metropolitans of Aleppo, Youhanna Ibrahim and Boulos Yazigi. We pray for those who reposed in the Lord last year among our brothers and beloved ones and went before us to behold the face of Christ. We mention in particular our children and loved ones, the martyrs of the Church of Saint Elias in Dweilaa. We pray for them and ask them, from on high, to pray for us and for the Church of Antioch, a witnessing and martyred Church at the same time.”