source – asianews.it
UPDATE: Newer reports verified that Fr. Gregorius is hospitalized in critical condition. We are praying for his recover…
Lebanon: Israeli bombs strike Greek Orthodox priest
This afternoon Fr Gregorius Saloum, parish priest at the Greek Orthodox Church in Ibl al-Saqi, southern Lebanon, was reported killed by the Quds News Network.
Initially, it was thought that the clergyman, who belongs to the Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, was only wounded. As the hours went, his death was reported but not officially confirmed.
Amid a cacophony of contrasting voices, a feeling of great fear and deep concern is gripping Lebanese Christians, marked by the war between Hezbollah and Israel, which saw Israel launch a “limited” ground operation overnight.
Initial reports indicate that Fr Gregorius’s wife and children were also wounded. His home, located on al-Sagi hill, appears to have been hit by several rockets.
The fate of the Orthodox priest is but the latest in a series involving attacks and destruction that have affected Lebanese Christians in a war pitting Hezbollah against Israel but in fact affects everyone in the country.
Yesterday, Kfour, a Christian village near Nabatieh, was also hit by Israeli fire with heavy damages at the local church.
Before that, the village of Aïn el-Delb, near Sidon, in the south of the country, was hit by Israeli planes. In the Christian majority location, 32 deaths have been confirmed, including a Christian woman, plus scores of wounded.
A source told AsiaNews that the target was a prominent local Hezbollah fighter, named Ahmad Awarki, who leads the Shia movement in the city of Sidon.
To reach him and be sure to kill him, Israel did not hesitate to fire multiple rockets and an entire building collapsed once it was hit.
Tragically, Lebanon, once a thriving European-like country, with 50% Christian population, has been a bone of contention between Muslims and Christians, and Israelis and Muslims. There was a thriving Greek expat community in Beirut, likened in prestige and wealth to Alexandria. That’s all gone now. Since the 80’s, sectarian fighting, Iranian and Syrian militias, Israeli incursions, have left a country in ruins.
The priest in the above article is not actually Greek. He is part of the Greek-Orthodox church of the Antiochian patriarchate, which caters to Arab Orthodox, a diminishing and endangered minority. The Antiochian patriarchate was always under a Greek speaking Patriarch, until it became an Arabic speaking church, with Arab clergy
A couple slight historical correction here…The Antiochian Patriarchate is considered one of the historically Greek Orthodox Autocephalous Churches, including Liturgical tradition, etc. The current Patriarch is definitely “Greek-speaking”, as he was a Mt. Athos monk from Syria that obtained a Theological Degree from Thessaloniki. Of course, he’s also Arabic-speaking, too, just as his predecessors going back over 100-125 years, when the last “thoroughbred Greek Patriarch’s” reign ended… This was one more natural consequence of ecclesiastical “ethnophyletism” that really took hold during the years when the Ottoman Empire started falling apart…in post-byzantine years, all these populations in the Balkans, Near & Middle East considered themselves “Byzantine” (Rum).
The rapid decline and disappearance of Greek-speaking Christian populations under Antioch’s jurisdiction is a fairly modern historical phenomenon (mostly in the last 150-200 years or so) The history of the Ottoman and Arab invasions is well-known, and the barbaric oppressive insistence in not allowing conquered cultures to teach/speak their language to the next generations is the reason that you see most Orthodox Christians in the Middle East not speaking Greek but Arabic. However, if you ask these Orthodox populations, they will disagree with you that they are “Arabs”, especially in Lebanon, and they do refer to themselves as “Rum” (Roman – Ρωμιος).
And in a very interesting phenomenon, there are still many Lebanese Orthodox who don’t know conversational Greek, but they do know how to chant Χριστος Ανεστη in Greek every year, WILLINGLY, and with great Joy, almost as a historical reminder that their ancestors actually spoke Greek. Most of them will actually not really identify as “Arab” in the classic sense of the word, even though our modern Western bias tends to “bucketize” all “arabic-speaking populations” under the same “epithet”…
In conclusion, the internet references to Fr. Gregorius being a “Greek” Orthodox priest should not be automatically dismissed.
The big question nobody is asking is, are we expected to believe that the Israeli military intelligence folks don’t know the difference between a Christian village and a Moslem (Iranian-backed) village? The fact that nobody in the West seems to care about this “minor” detail, and that everyone in Southern Lebanon is portrayed by Western media as automatic “friends of Iran” is not acceptable, either… We saw how that Orthodox Church in Gaza was attacked, too, several months ago…did anyone “pay for the ‘collateral’ damages”?
Glory to God it’s been reported that Fr. Gregory is not dead but in the ICU in Beirut. Pray for him.
Memory eternal for this priest. Cannibals bomb people.
Newer reports say he is in critical condition in a hospital. I will post update.
Thx for update.