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We're in Bab Tuma, the Christian district of Damascus.
Militants are mortaring it constantly.
Militants have dealt a precise strike resulting in 6 killed and 25 wounded
in the moment when church people were coming out from Christ's Church after the service.
You can see the marks of those shell explosions.
Building walls are studded with white dents from shell splinters.
Cars which have burned down due to the shell hits.
We live and coexist together on this soil for many centuries already.
Christians were living here already when Muslims came to Syria 1400 years ago.
We were always living in peace and harmony with them, have been finding the common language.
And Christians have not felt any oppression and did not move away from here for all of this time.
Many different things happened but this didn't lead to enmity as the history approves.
This is the Fatherland for those who were born in this land, for those who live here and consider their root to be here.
Until this crisis began, this history turn we have become witnesses to.
Some specific people have painted these events in religious colour unfortunately.
They try to make everyone fight everyone so that one doesn't recognize another
by sowing the seeds of dissention among Syrian people.
I have to protect my family, my home, myself the way I can
when I feel that someone wants to harm or kill me.
We the Christians are constantly praying for peace and don't call anyone to war or ***.
And the difference between Western and Eastern Christianity lies here.
Western Christians have other views and Western Christians have never lived in the kind of unity we do.
But we have always lived in peace with anyone here.
All the Christian religious figures are calling for one thing here:
- do not kill, they call for peace like Jesus has taught us.
Thus we haven't changed now either and wish harm to no one.
We call and will call for peace.
Many people have abandoned their home and left their cities [and towns] of course.
This has happened in Homs and other places, this has happened here in Damascus suburbs.
And people hope to return in spite of them having been forced to leave their homes.
I would go abroad and wouldn't sit here and talk to you otherwise.
But we stay where we were born, where we lived and where mutual respect has been!
Where everyone greeted anyone and lived in peace and harmony.
An alien spirit has intervened when the crisis began, we have felt that!
This is an alien ideology, unfamiliar and strange.
Everything will get back into place when those good people will return! 37 05.57-05.59 Father Jabrail!
A statue of Christ calling for peace 39 meters tall
has been placed at Cherubim monastery in Sednaya on Protection of the *** day.
What can you tell of that.
God bless us everyday!
Thus when we place a monument to Christ we hope for His blessing upon Damascus city and all of Syria.
This ceremonial event became possible due to support by Russian believers
and the people true to the idea of equality here.
Minister Av Kaf and many Muslim leaders have been participating in the discussion
since the very first meetings when this project was planned
since it was being done for all of Syrians,
both Muslims and Christians, for all of Damascus city.
ANNA-News Agency. Marat Musin, Andrey Filatov, Igor Nadyrshin, Victor Kuznetsov. Syria.