Lebanon an oasis of peace for Christians

On the Saturday before Easter, residents of Beirut’s Mar Mikhael neighborhood enjoying an evening drink began to shout over the surrounding noise.

But it wasn’t because of the music piping out of the neighborhood’s cafes and bars. Instead it was the cacophony of hundreds of fireworks mixed with the peals of the many churches in the area. “It’s almost like they were competing over which one is the loudest,” complained one reveler when quiet finally returned.

It was yet another sign, several Lebanese Christian leaders said, that when it comes to their communities, Lebanon is the exception in the Middle East.

“There,” said Sebouh Garabedian, the laid-back media representative of the Armenian Catholic Church, “you have explosions, and then they blew up the church in Egypt, so there is more fear.”

The “there” he referred to was neighboring Syria, where the sixyear civil war has decimated the country’s minorities.

A 33-year-old priest with stylish stubble and designer glasses, Garabedian was preparing recently for a large Mass at a nearby school.

“Here it is the opposite. The churches are even fuller than in past years … because it is safe, and there is no fear regarding this sort of attack.”

Raffi Aywazian, a 25-year-old Syrian Lebanese man, agreed.

Aywazian recalled his time in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. In the years before the war, Aywazian said, the city’s sizable Christian community would have large street celebrations.

“It was even bigger than here,” said Aywazian with a note of wistfulness. He had come to Lebanon with his family five years ago, after the Syrian civil war finally reached Aleppo.

Archpriest Mesrob Kerkezian credited Lebanon’s 18 sects for its relative tranquility. The country’s politicians constantly jockey for benefits for their communities — none really gaining the upper hand.