Help and Consolation for Syria

Any country that disobeys the dictates of the Western powers is slated for retribution. Syria has lived this reality for nearly a dozen years now, as mercenaries, resource theft, air bombardment, and sanctions have all been deployed against her for refusing to comply with the West’s Arab Spring destabilization campaign across the Middle East and North Africa.

The sanctions against Syria have been particularly harsh and inhuman, not to mention ineffective at bringing about their main goal of regime change, all of which, thankfully, more and more people in the US are willing to point out, particularly after the recent catastrophic earthquake on the Turkish-Syrian border.

But here it is well to point out that the Syrian people are not walking this very difficult path alone. They have unseen helpers around them, holy saints who voluntarily lived lives of hardship for the sake of their love for God and their desire to be united with Him. They have not forsaken their brothers and sisters in Syria, nor will they. But who are these hidden helpers? They are wilderness hermits who lived without roofs over their heads, relying on the Holy Trinity alone to protect and sustain them. Let us have a look at a few of their number who are closely joined together:

St Thalassius:

‘Saint Thalassius of Syria lived during the fifth century. At a young age he withdrew to a hill near the village of Targala and passed 38 years there in monastic deeds, having neither a roof over his head, nor any cell nor shelter.

‘For his simple disposition, gentleness and humility he was granted by the Lord the gift of wonderworking and healing the sick. Many wanted to live under his guidance, and the saint did not refuse those coming to him. He himself built cells for them. He died peacefully, granted rest from his labors.’

St Limnaeus:

‘Saint Limnaeus began his efforts under the guidance of Saint Thalassius and dwelt with him for a sufficient time to acquire the virtues of his teacher: simplicity of manner, gentleness and humility. Then Saint Limnaeus joined Saint Maron (February 14).

‘On a hill he built a small stone enclosure without a roof, and through a small aperture, he conversed with those who came to see him. His heart was full of compassion for people. Wanting to help all the destitute, he built a wanderers’ home on the hillside with the help of his admirers, a dwelling for the poor and the crippled, and he fed them with what pious people brought him.

‘The holy ascetic even sacrificed his own quiet and solitude for these poor brethren, and took upon himself the responsibility for for their spiritual nourishment, inducing them to pray and glorify the Lord. For his holy life he was granted the gift of wonderworking. He once cured himself of a snakebite through prayer.’

St John:

‘Saint John, disciple of Saint Limnaeus (February 22), lived in Syria in the fifth century, and chose for himself the ascetic struggle of “a shelterless life.” He settled on a hill, sheltered from the wind on all sides, and lived there for twenty-five years. He ate only bread and salt, and he exhausted his body under heavy chains. When one of the nearby ascetics planted an almond tree on the hill so that Saint John could enjoy its shade and get out of the vicious heat, the saint told him to cut it down. This he did in order to deny his body any respite.’

The suffering Syrian people do not struggle alone. They have these and the other hermit saints (and many other saints) as their strong ramparts for protection, and as gentle friends who will embrace them warmly in their arms and grant them help with life’s needs – friends who can truly sympathize with their lack of shelter, heat, food, etc., and therefore are all the more willing and able to help them endure those hardships.

The skepticism sown amongst us by the atheists who believe in nothing but what they can perceive with the physical senses will make many hesitate to accept this, but historical experience shows their truthfulness. The 4th-century martyr Menas of Egypt intervened at the Battle of El Alamein during WWII in such a decisive way that the Nazi forces were in retreat from that day onward. Likewise, saints like Elder Gabriel of Georgia (+1995) continue to pour out compassion from beyond the grave on those who ask them for aid.

But here, too, the Syrians will encounter resistance from the West, as the rootless liberalism she has adopted as her guiding doxa makes her hostile to heroes who strengthen resistance to the Western enterprise of global hegemony. Hence the assassination of Iran’s General Soleimani by the US military. Hence the destruction of statues, and the desecration of graves, of Dixie’s heroic warriors by woke thugs. Hence the profaning of the relics and shrines of Orthodox England’s saints by the Roman Catholic Norman invaders.

But in adopting these beliefs and methods, the West has assured herself that she will lose the struggle to maintain her supremacy in world affairs. Contrary to the dominant opinion, it is not the material world that dominates the spiritual world (as in the systems of pagan magic), but rather the reverse: Actions in the spiritual world drive events in the physical world.

Because so many in the West have cut themselves off from good spiritual things – tradition, soul, memory, and even Christ the God-man Himself, the very Source of Life and Truth – the Western nations will inevitably weaken, and, without repentance, die out as other stubborn, rebellious, God-hating peoples have in the past, to be replaced by more humble and pious ones.

May God grant to the people of Syria, then, trust in Him and in their saintly protectors, consolation in their afflictions, and victory over their foes.