 |
News & Events
|
 |
News & Events
Patriarchal Letters
CALL TO PRAYER AND FASTING
FROM HIS BEATITUDE GREGORIOS III
PATRIARCH OF ANTIOCH AND ALL THE EAST, OF ALEXANDRIA AND OF JERUSALEM
On the occasion of the Fast of Our Lady, Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary among Eastern Christians and that of the beginning of the blessed fast of Ramadan among our Muslim brethren, we should like to address these spiritual words particularly to our sons and daughters of our Damascene Patriarchal Eparchy.
We congratulate them upon this holy Marian month and invite them to practise fasting and abstinence for the first fortnight in order to prepare themselves for the greatest of feasts of Our Lady, the Virgin Mary, the Feast of her Dormition and Assumption body and soul to heaven.
We are glad to address our Muslim brothers and sisters who are approaching God through the practice of fasting, prayer and alms-giving, wishing this month to be a source of good and blessing for them all.
What a wonderful symbolic circumstance that we Christians and Muslims are fasting together during this month of August/Ramadan and in churches and mosques are raising our invocations to the Most High, to accept our prayers, actions, fasting, repentance, alms-giving, good works and charity as sweet-smelling incense in his sight, and are hearing the call of bells and muezzins; better still, are hearing the words of God addressed to us through the Holy Gospel and the venerable Qur’an, calling us to faith, hope, love, mutual help, solidarity, brotherhood and to rejection of hatred and bitterness, violence, discord, confrontation, ruin and destruction.
We are a single country! A single people! We share the same history! Our present is shared by us all as is our future!
We invite all our parishes to celebrate every evening the prayer of the Paraclesis or Intercession of the Virgin Mary, and for petitions to be selected especially for our homeland of Syria, for its security, preservation and stability and for the solidarity of all its children. And God is powerful to dispel this dark cloud and guide Syria on the road of justice, freedom, democracy, dignity and mutual respect, working together for a better future for this beloved homeland with all its citizens and denominations, and for Syria to remain, under the guidance of our President Dr. Bashar al Assad, strong, prosperous, secure, and victorious in the unity of all its sons and daughters.
And on the occasion of Army Day 1 we remember our brave army in our prayers and supplications! May God protect it and protect all citizens and enable our beloved country to avoid more bloodshed in its ranks and among all citizens. We pray for all the victims of the army and security forces and for the victims of these disastrous days in our beloved country.
With my love, blessing and prayer,