The aftermath of the suicide attack on St. Elias church in Damascus.
Yesterday, June 22, in the heavily-Christian neighborhood of Duweila, just a short walk from the Old City of Damascus, explosions ripped through St. Elias Orthodox Church, where worshipers had gathered for evening mass.
The attacks left nearly 30 Christians dead and around 60 wounded. It was the first major incident of anti-Christian violence in Syria since jihadist forces seized control of the country in December 2024, after overthrowing the hated Assad dictatorship.
Witnesses said either one or two attackers entered the church during the mass, opened fire with an automatic weapon, and then detonated a suicide vest. “I met a little girl who saw her father die in front of her,” one Syrian Christian told CSI. “She was maybe six or seven years old.”
While Islamist terrorists have massacred Christians at worship services in Iraq and Egypt in recent years, this kind of violence has been unheard of in Syria for generations. Some local Christians told CSI that Damascus’s churches have not seen this kind of attack since the great massacres of 1860.
Throughout Sunday and Monday, Muslim Syrians donated blood for the wounded. “The victims are my family, my siblings, my neighbors,” one woman who donated blood explained. “The explosion happened in a place of worship, so we were all targeted.”
Syria’s new government, which has continually promised Syria’s Christians safety and equality in the “new Syria” since coming to power nearly seven months ago, condemned the attack, which it blamed on the Islamic State (ISIS). Syria’s only Christian cabinet minister visited the church within hours of the massacre. On Monday, the government claimed to have broken up the terrorist ring responsible for the attack.
However, many local Syrians doubt these claims. Some questioned how the government could have determined that the Islamic State was responsible so quickly, without a claim of responsibility from the group. Others asked how a man with a large rifle was able to enter the church – which is located at a busy intersection close to Damascus’s well-protected old city – without being stopped. “It’s a big question mark,” one Syrian activist told CSI.
Damascus’ Christian community was shaken by the attack – many chose to spend the night with friends and avoid walking in the streets. Local Christian leaders expressed doubt to CSI about whether any Christians would be in church the next Sunday. Several viral social media posts over the weekend threatened attacks on churches in Syria’s Hama province on Sunday, June 29. Another viral video apparently showed graffiti reading “Your turn is coming” scrawled on the gate of a Christian church in the village of Kafr Buhum.
After pro-government forces carried out massacres of Alawite Muslims in Syria in March, and attacked Druze communities in April, many Syrian Christians fear that their turn has indeed come.
One Syrian Christian woman told CSI, “Islamic State supporters are now moving freely throughout Syria. They set the tone and harass us and our children. They are the new masters and want a Syria without Christians, without Alawites, without Druze. We are defenseless.”
On Monday night, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch traveled to St. Elias church to pray in the ruined, bloodstained sanctuary. He was joined by the heads of many other churches in Damascus – a sign of solidarity and determination to remain in their ancient homeland.
