Address of His Beatitude Patriarch John X At…

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Your Eminence the Most Reverend Metropolitan Silouan Moussi,

Metropolitan of Byblos, Botris (Mount Lebanon) and Dependencies,

Your Eminences,

Distinguished guests,

I greet you in the name of God, “the beauty that will save the world.”

I address you today from this beautiful Douma, founded by the ancient Greeks as a haven for legends and consecrated to Asclepius, the god of medicine. A town that embraced Christianity at the end of the fourth century, when churches arose where temples once stood.

A town whose central location made it an urban center— a space for exchange and interaction between inland Syria and the Lebanese coast — linking its families to the families of the cities of the East.

Nicknamed Douma Al Hadid (of Iron), it flourished in the nineteenth century as a radiant stronghold, reigning over this part of old Mount Lebanon. Its market became a destination — not only for trade but also for ideas and interaction. Through the diversity of its people, it came to embody the finest image of the Levant: a story of a proud eastern town founded by its people upon values that gave order to civilization and to marketplace.

This is the land of Metropolitan Antonios Bashir, whose museum we are inaugurating today — and the land of monks, nuns, and unknown saints who sanctified this land.

The World Tourism Organization has awarded Douma the title of “one of the most beautiful villages in the world.” Yet the beauty of places is but a reflection of the beauty of the people who created them. Among those was Metropolitan Antonios Bashir, Metropolitan of New York and All North America from 1936 to 1966, who sowed seeds of beauty not only in his Archdiocese — where he founded more than sixty-three parishes — but also in the heart of Antioch and All the East. He expressed his love by funding the construction of the Saint John of Damascus Institute of Theology. He is the son of Hay Al Sayida (the neighborhood of Our Lady), who remained his protectress and patroness in both his brightest and his darkest days. I can almost see him today standing before her icon, kneeling in prayer with his mother Zeina, asking for mercy for the souls of the servants of God, Hanna and Nina Ayoub, who generously funded the establishment of this museum.

Today we stand upon ground that belongs to the Lord of Hosts, surrounded by olive groves and humbled before the majesty of these mountains. We whisper to the earth, hoping the heavens will hear our sighs. On this land, we seek the holiness of the ruins of ancient churches — the shrines of forgotten Antiochian saints. We invoke the intercession of Charbel of Edessa, Artemius, Phocas, Nouhra, Doumit, and others.

We stand today in the town of Metropolitan Bashir — a symbol of the solidarity of the diaspora with the residents. These red brick houses recite the stories of families who emigrated to America but insisted on returning — if not in person, then in the form of a home of red tile. They joined those who stayed, in guarding the land and its soil.

It gladdens us to stand in this eastern town, one of the proud towns of old Mount Lebanon, to proclaim to the world that the East is still alive and well — and that it will never die. From here, we reaffirm our attachment to it as both a cause and a living memory of a cosmopolitan identity that shall endure until the end of time.

The East is the mosaic of the world’s ancient civilization and the enchantment of the Mediterranean — not merely a geographic space but a spiritual state, a way of life, a harmony of diversity and openness. It is where the disciples were first called Christians. It is the meeting place of plurality — not as a burden, but as a source of strength and richness. It is our safeguard, and the safeguard of the world, lest history turn into a battlefield of hostility and division.

Its people are unique: they learned English and French in missionary schools, Russian in Muscovite schools, and Greek in ecclesiastical seminaries. Their elders pray to their Lord in Arabic, Greek, and Syriac. Its cosmopolitanism was never confined to elites — it was woven into the fabric of daily life. It is the meeting of East and West, Islam and Europe, tradition and modernity.

Today I come to you walking in the footsteps of my predecessors, Patriarchs Macarios III Ibn al-Za‘im and Elias IV Muawad, to Douma to speak of just and comprehensive peace.

The people of this land have the right to live in peace — the right to live in dignity. Who, I ask, will stop the torrents of bloodshed in Gaza? Who will bring an end to this madness?

We pray for peace, stability, and prosperity in Lebanon and Syria. We pray for peace in our Levant, here in the land of Metropolitan Bashir, which endured the horrors of the Great War — when more than a third of its people perished, until the cemeteries overflowed with bodies, and another third fled hunger, crossing the sea that carried them to the shores of New York, especially to Brooklyn.

The people of this land must no longer remain displaced and wandering. It is time to beat swords into plowshares, and spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore, as it is written in Scripture.

We must erase the images of ugliness that breed cycles of violence and hatred, and instead paint images of peace worthy of the people of this land — so that war may never again be born from its ashes.

We pray that our ports may once again export diversity, civilization, and dialogue, not crises. We stand with those who remain, and we promise those who emigrated that together we shall work to preserve the memory as our identity, and “Levantine-ness” as our way of life — so that our flavor, our tone, and our color never fade from the face of the earth.

Blessed are you all.

Blessed is Douma, shaded by the glory of the Cedars of Lebanon.

Blessed is Douma — a banner and emblem of beauty, reflecting above all the beauty of your own souls, beloved sons and daughters of this town.

We ask the prayers of our late father, the thrice blessed Metropolitan Antonios Bashir, and together we ask God’s mercy for him and say: May his memory be eternal.

And finally, we pray that God may grant us to meet again in goodness, steady prosperity, peace, and perpetual blessing — through His mercy and divine care. Amen.