Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai during his Sunday homily in Bkirki on Easter, March 31, 2024.
Gaza and the Way of the Cross, the presidential election and the war in South Lebanon. These were just some of the topics addressed on the Catholic communities' Easter Sunday by the political and religious figures who spoke on the occasion, from Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai to Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri.
In his Easter homily, the head of the Maronite community called for greater efforts to prevent Lebanon from "being dragged into war" as Hezbollah and Israel are engaged in deadly fighting on the Lebanese-Israeli border.
"Our culture is to be peacemakers and not war-makers, to call for negotiations and not disagreements," stressed Rai. He denounced "the killings and demolitions planned against Gaza and its inhabitants," calling them a "crime against humanity."
"In Lebanon, efforts must be made to prevent our country from being dragged into a war that affects the South and other areas," he pleaded.
The Maronite patriarch also called for "political peace that promotes the common good" as well as "economic and social peace" at a time when Lebanon has been in the grips of economic collapse since 2019. At the same time, the country has been facing a vacancy in the presidency since Michel Aoun's term ended in October 2022, with MPs failing to elect a new president due to a lack of consensus on a candidate.
In a homily delivered on Monday, the Patriarch also denounced "external interventions that interact with internal ones and cause Lebanon to lose its positive and active neutrality," adding that "South Lebanon is a victim of this."
The Greek-Orthodox Metropolitan of Beirut, Elias Audi, deplored a situation where everyone "is taking advantage of the state and its institutions, overstepping its laws, ignoring its Constitution, violating its borders and the will of its people, serving their own interests, undermining the authority of the State and its sovereignty, and blocking the election of a president."
In an Easter message, Berri said that between the Passion of Christ and the current situation in Palestine, "history is repeating itself" in "the pain and blood of the martyrs." He also dedicated his message "to the resilient people of the Lebanese border villages, to Gaza and its inhabitants with bleeding faces, who are walking on the road to Calvary."
Bassil "ready for anything"
The leader of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) Gebran Bassil, who went to Bkirki for Easter mass and talks with the Patriarch, also spoke about the political crisis in Lebanon with a particular focus on the protection of Christians' political rights. "We are ready to do anything to protect our presence, and to forgive whatever wrongs and injustices we have been confronted with," he said.
"We are not only responding to the Bkirki appeal but are also calling for and working towards the unification of the position" of the Christian parties, he added, insisting that this was "the least we can do in view of the existential crisis" in the country.
Three inter-Christian meetings were held in Bkirki at the behest of Rai, following an appeal by the FPM leader to try, among other things, to break the deadlock in the presidential elections. The main Christian parties and the opposition are converging on the candidacy of Jihad Azour, a former finance minister and current head of the International Monetary Fund in the Middle East, against that of Marada leader Sleiman Frangieh, supported by the Amal-Hezbollah bloc. Since the beginning of the presidential vacancy, Bassil has accused the other communities, in particular caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, of arrogating to themselves the prerogatives of the presidency, traditionally a Maronite Christian role, by taking decisions that do not fall, for the cabinet, within the scope of current affairs management or, in the event of a meeting of Parliament, "legislation of necessity."
After the Easter mass, Patriarch Rai met the caretaker ministers of Justice Henri Khoury, Telecoms Johnny Corm, Tourism Walid Nassar and Information Ziad Makari.
This article originally appeared in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.