Christians in Syria cautiously scale back Easter celebrations after violent attacks

Syrian church leaders have announced that Easter celebrations this year will be confined to prayers inside churches after dozens of armed men stormed a predominantly Christian town in Hama province on the eve of Holy Week, firing guns, smashing vehicles and damaging property over the course of hours.

The Greek Orthodox and Catholic patriarchs issued a joint statement saying Easter this year will be celebrated in Syria “only with prayer inside the churches,” The National reported.

The patriarchs said Syria was facing “challenges” aimed at undermining “common living between Muslims and Christians,” and called for confiscation of illegal weapons, equal treatment of all citizens and “respect for individual and public rights.”

The attack took place last Saturday in Suqaylabiyah, a town of about 16,000 residents in the Ghab Plain of Hama who are mainly Greek Orthodox Christians, according to the U.K.-based group Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

The violence began the day before when two young Muslim men from the nearby town of Qalaat al-Madiq verbally harassed Christian women in Suqaylabiyah. Local Christian men assaulted the two men, who were then expelled from the town and returned with dozens of others on motorcycles.

The mob fired guns in the air, smashed cars and damaged storefronts while residents hid inside buildings. The attackers also destroyed a shrine of the Virgin Mary.

Footage filmed by the attackers or secretly recorded by residents showed acts of vandalism and theft accompanied by threatening chants and insults, as reported by EWTN News. No casualties were reported.

Some national security personnel were reported to have participated in the violence.

The Syrian government deployed the army and national security forces to contain the situation, but mobs continued to gather and several attempts to storm the town were foiled by government forces.

A second attempted attack the following day was thwarted by security personnel, deepening residents’ fears of further assaults.

Christians in the town assembled before the main church in an expression of “popular anger,” while residents staged a protest sit-in demanding accountability for the perpetrators, including members of General Security whom protesters accused of participating in the violence.

Demonstrators rejected a “single-color army,” meaning a force dominated by one religious or ethnic group, and voiced frustration with state media coverage that characterized the incident as a personal dispute.

The Christian Emergency Alliance said the Suqaylabiyah attack was the latest in a series of violent incidents targeting Syria’s Christian minority.

“The assault, on the eve of Holy Week, lasted hours. Pray for the Christians of Syria – they need immediate help,” the Alliance wrote on X.

The Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East, along with most other churches in Syria, announced that Easter celebrations would be confined to prayers inside churches, citing “the current discouraging circumstances.”

The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East said incidents targeting the Christian community cannot be dismissed as “individual incidents” and called for an official investigation, accountability for those responsible and compensation for those affected.

The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Hama branded the attackers “outlaw groups” and demanded the formation of a judicial investigative committee and laws restricting weapons to the hands of the state.

Syrian Christians for Peace, a civil society organization, called on all Syrians to reject sectarianism, urged the government to launch a national dialogue initiative and asked Syrian authorities to enact legislation criminalizing hate speech.

Suqaylabiyah’s population has fallen from 20,000 to 16,000 after December 2024, when the government of former president Bashar al-Assad collapsed and many residents with ties to the old order fled the town.

During the civil war, some Christians from Suqaylabiyah were recruited into a local brigade of the National Defence Forces, a pro-government auxiliary, and the town’s association with the former government contributed to tension with surrounding, predominantly Sunni areas.

The new Syrian government, led by Sunni Islamists, has made improving relations with the United States its top priority, a stance that has helped spare Christians from the violence dealt to other minorities, including the Druze and Alawites.

A United Nations report documented more than 1,700 people killed and around 200,000 displaced during a single week of violence in southern Syria in July 2025, most of them Druze civilians, with documented violations that may amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity.

Easter falls on April 5 for western Christians this year, and on April 12 for eastern Christians.