LATAKIA: In Syria’s northwestern port town of Latakia, Christian worshippers attending Mass on Sunday at St. George Greek Orthodox Cathedral were hopeful that the country’s new largely Sunni Muslim leadership would respect their religion.
Like other Christians around the country, they were attending the first Mass since militants overthrew President Bashar Assad a week ago
Last Sunday, Church authorities warned people to stay away from worship amid the upheaval as militants — led by former al Qeada offshoot Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham — swept into Damascus and ended 50 years of brutal rule by the Assad family.
Athanasios Fahed, the Metropolitan of Latakia and its dependencies for the Greek Orthodox Church, led Sunday’s service in Latakia and the cathedral filled with people in brisk morning weather.
“Last Sunday, we were surprised just like all Syrian people, of the change that happened. Of course, we had many fears, especially for those who are called minorities,” Fahed told Reuters, although he added he did not consider Christians minorities since they were “part of this country.”
“But of course, a lot of questions rose because obviously there was chaos in the street due to the fall of the state and its security, military, official and civil institutions,” Fahed said.
Fahed said that while many Christians were displaced to other regions under Assad’s rule, the coastal regions such as areas around Latakia were unaffected. Latakia was a stronghold of Assad’s rule.
Syria’s population includes historic ethnic and religious minority communities including Christians, Armenians, Kurds and Shiite Muslims, who like many other Syrian Muslims had feared during the 13-year civil war that any future Islamist rule would imperil their way of life.
Lina Akhras, a parish council secretary at the church, said Christians had been “comfortable” under Assad in terms of their freedom of belief.
“It happened all of a sudden, we didn’t know what to expect. So in order to protect everybody, we stopped (worship) until we saw how it will develop,” she told Reuters.
“Thank God, we received a lot of assurances and we saw that members of the (HTS) committee reached out to our priest... God willing we will return to our previous lives and live in our beautiful Syria,” she told Reuters.
“Your religion is yours, but our country is for all of us.”

JERUSALEM: Thousands of Israelis demonstrated Saturday for a deal to release the remaining hostages still held in Gaza after more than 14 months of war against Hamas in the Palestinian territory.
“We all can agree that we have failed until now and that we can reach an agreement now,” Lior Ashkenazi, a prominent Israeli actor, told a crowd gathered in the commercial hub of Tel Aviv.
Itzik Horn, whose sons Eitan and Iair are still being held captive in Gaza, said: “End the war, the time has arrived for action and the time has arrived to bring everyone home.”
There has been guarded optimism in recent days that a ceasefire and hostage release deal for Gaza might finally be within reach after months of abortive mediation efforts.
Palestinian militants abducted 251 hostages during Hamas’s October 2023 attack, 96 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Qatar, a key mediator in the negotiations, said last week there was new “momentum” for talks.
US Security of State Antony Blinken said during a visit to Jordan on Saturday: “This is the moment to finally conclude that agreement.”
In Egypt, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met on Saturday with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Middle East envoy Brett McGurk.
“The meeting addressed efforts to reach an agreement for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange in Gaza,” El-Sisi’s office said.
The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s attack last year that resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 44,930 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.