The June Attack on a Greek Orthodox Church Highlights Plight of Syrian Christians

An HTS splinter group, Ansar al-Sunna, claimed responsibility for the bombing, as Syrian Christians worry about their community’s security under the current government.

Over the past week, Syria has been rocked by a new wave of sectarian violence, after clashes broke out between members of the Druze minority and Bedouin groups in the southern region of Suweida. Hundreds have reportedly been killed in the fighting, which, in addition to Druze and Bedouin militias, involved militia groups aligned with the Damascus government, as well as the Israel military. Following threats to the government to withdraw its forces from Suweida, the Israeli Air Force carried out a wave of airstrikes in the area in support of pro-Israel Druze groups. Israel also carried out a series of attacks on high-profile government sites in the Syrian capital city of Damascus that killed at least three people.

Amid the ongoing instability in Syria, the country’s Christian minority has also been targeted by extremist groups that have sought to capitalize on the security vacuum and reassert their presence. Shortly before the violence began in Suweida, a gruesome terrorist attack targeting a historic church in Damascus highlighted the ongoing danger to the country’s ancient Christian community, amid an unstable and deteriorating security situation. The story below, written by journalist Santiago Montag, highlights the voices of Syrian Christians responding to attacks on their communities and aiming to survive in Syria’s uncertain present.

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—Murtaza Hussain

The scene of the aftermath at the Mar Elias Church on June 22, 2025 in Damascus, Syria (Photo by Ali Haj Suleiman/Getty Images).

Report by Santiago Montag

On the evening of June 22, Elias Bshara, a 56-year-old civil servant, headed to the Mar Elias Greek Orthodox Church in Damascus with his children, wife, and several other family members. The Bshara family was going to attend the Divine Liturgy in honor of an aunt, who passed away earlier that month. The Mar Elias Church is located in the Christian-majority neighborhood of al-Duweila, located just one kilometer from Bab Sharqi, the Christian quarter of the old city of Damascus that is host to its most historic churches.

The Divine Liturgy’s weekly mass began at 6 p.m. with chants. As the liturgy began, Elias, together with his family, were in front—close to the priest conducting the ceremony. An altar, alongside dozens of ornate icons, watched over them from the walls of the historic church.

But, in an instant, the tranquil religious ceremony was upended by horror.

“Suddenly we heard gunshots, the glass on the walls exploded,” Bshara told Drop Site News. “Everyone went crazy, nobody understood what was going on, people started running and screaming.”

A man armed with an AK-47 had burst into the service from the front yard of the church, where he had already killed five people. In the chaos, Bshara rushed over to his children to protect them.

“The bullets ran out. He walked about three steps with complete confidence, as if dominating the place,” Elias said, describing the attacker.

As congregants fled in every direction, his two brothers, Jiris and Petros, ran to the front of the church and came face-to-face with the assailant, whom they attempted to restrain as he reached for a grenade. They were joined by another man, a 37-year-old church worker named Milad, who threw himself on the grenade when it fell to the ground, ultimately without detonating.

The three men struggled to keep the attacker under control, grabbing his arms and legs in an attempt to restrain him. Amid the struggle, the men and other onlookers realized that the shooter was also carrying explosives in his backpack. “They held onto him to prevent him from detonating the bomb, but it was already activated," Bshara recounted in anguish. "Within 10 seconds of the struggle, the bomb went off a metre from the door."

The explosion killed the attacker, along with many others, including Bshara’s two brothers and Milad.

“I am sure that if my brothers had not given their lives, many more would have died,” Elias said proudly. ”During the fight they bought some time for many children to hide in the basement of the church.”

Residents in the area who heard the explosion and rushed to the church to help encountered a scene of horror A group of locals who had previously established a support group to provide security and other basic services after the collapse of the government functioned as de facto first responders at the scene of the massacre, offering first aid to the many wounded and dying.Minutes felt like hours. As forces from the General Security department of the new Syrian government arrived about 10 to 15 minutes later, alongside the White Helmets rescue team, the chaotic situation was gradually brought under control. Wounded survivors were transported to the hospital and a security cordon was placed around the church by government security forces.

"Those were difficult moments. Doctors and members of the administrative staff volunteered to help triage the injured,” Maryam al-Saeed, a 30-year-old doctor at al-Mujtahid Hospital in Damascus, told Drop Site. “Some cars arrived carrying body parts, which were immediately sent to the morgue. Some individuals were brought in already deceased, unidentified, and there were many injured.”

She added, ”Everyone was in shock, overwhelmed with compassion, working tirelessly in an innocent attempt to cope with the tragedy and [to] embrace those affected by the disaster.”

Elias suffered a severe blow to his leg that shattered some bones. He is now recovering at home after a complex operation. “I was conscious the whole time, but on the ground,” he said pointing to his leg with an external support embedded in its bones. “I was just worried about my children.”

“Strike at the Heart of our Community”

An initial statement by the Syrian Ministry of Health stated that 25 people had been killed in the attack on Mar Elias, along with 63 injured. But, as the days went by, the toll rose, as others who were wounded in the attack passed away in hospitals. The church was heavily damaged. The pews are now unusable, the icons ruined, and the paintings that adorned the walls of the ancient building are stained with blood.

In the aftermath of the attack, Damascenes have been united in horror. Father Yuhanna Shahadeh, who was present during the attack, told Drop Site that the church had, ”received the solidarity of the neighborhood who gathered for days to clean the church.” He added that the attack, “was against all Syrians, not only against the church, so among those who helped and sent their condolences there were also people from other religious communities.”

Nasser, a 24-year-old telecommunications worker who lived in the area added that al-Duweila is a close-knit community where hundreds of people attend mass each Sunday. His friend, Marian Aldrra, 22, who conducted volunteer activities for impoverished children in the neighborhood, was badly wounded in the attack, dying in hospital two days later. "The aim of the attack was to strike at the heart of our community," he said.

In the aftermath of the massacre, Syria’s new president, Ahmad al-Shara, expressed condolences to the community, promising justice against those who perpetrated the attack. The government’s new Ministry of Interior immediately attributed responsibility to the terrorist group the Islamic State (ISIS), dispatching special operations troops to conduct raids to dismantle alleged ISIS cells in the Damascus suburbs, and arresting at least one man in the vicinity of al-Mujtahid Hospital who was accused of planning a follow-up attack.

Despite the initial attribution of blame to ISIS, the group did not claim responsibility for the massacre at Mar Elias. Instead, a shadowy new group, dubbing itself Ansar al-Sunna, issued a statement taking responsibility for the killings. The origins and structure of Ansar al-Sunna are largely a mystery. Joseph Daher, a political economist and author of the book “Syria after the Uprisings: The Political Economy of State Resilience,” described the organization as a splinter group from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, adding that it had previously been implicated in crimes against the Alawite community in the country, including a massacre of over 1,500 people in coastal Syria earlier this year.

The attack on Mar Elias took place amid a larger security vacuum in the country since the fall of the Assad government. After the regime fell in an HTS-led offensive, many of the country’s security institutions abruptly collapsed, after already being hollowed-out by 14 years of war, sanctions, and a much longer legacy of dictatorial rule and corruption. Many militia groups now fill part of the vacuum left by Assad’s former government. Some have attempted to reorganize themselves and challenge the new provisional government.

The new government, led by veterans of HTS, has attempted to chart a course in governing Syrian society that would win the confidence and support of foreign powers and reintegrate Syria into the global economy. But much sectarian violence has still broken out in the country since the fall of Assad, including not just attacks on Christian sites like Mar Elias, but massacres of Alawite communities, and clashes with Druze militias.

"The administration seeks to consolidate its power through various means, including the instrumentalisation of sectarianism,” said Daher.

The massacre that took place on the coast this year, after an aborted uprising by coastal Alawite militias, reportedly enjoyed support from senior figures in the chain of command of the new government—the denials of official involvement notwithstanding. But the situation of Christians in Syria is different in many respects. Unlike the Alawites and Druze, the Christians do not have their own militias, nor are their communities concentrated in well-defined geographic areas.

“Christians are unarmed, dispersed across towns and villages throughout the country, often in small numbers,” said Youssef Sabbagh, a Syrian lawyer and human rights activist. “The new authorities have not issued any statements labeling Christians as enemies. This contrasts with their stance toward pro-Assad Alawite militias and Druze groups that refused to allow the new authorities into their territories.”

There are lingering suspicions about the intentions of Syria's new rulers.

“During the funeral of some victims, Patriarch Yazigi delivered a sermon calling on the state to take responsibility. His words resonated with the Christian community, but the authorities dismissed his message as unwise,” added Sabbagh. “Christians were also disappointed by the government’s official condolences, criticizing the use of terms like ‘victims’ or ‘dead’ rather than ‘martyrs’—a term traditionally used in Syria for such incidents.”

"We want Peace and Security"

The Syrian Christian community has been beleaguered by the country’s civil war, dwindling from nearly two million in 2010 to an estimated half-a-million today. Many Christians fled the country to escape the fighting, as well as the economic devastation caused by sanctions and corruption, while others were killed in attacks by extremist groups or while doing forced conscription service in the former Syrian army.

While the fall of Assad has been a cause for relief for many Syrians, including many Christians who had hoped for a change in the country’s dire economic and political condition, it has also fostered a climate of uncertainty and fear.

In this environment, many Christians who survived the war are now contemplating their future in the country.

At Al-Maryamyeh Church in the old city, Bishop Musa, representing the Damascus Patriarchate in the heart of the old city, told Drop Site that "we are experiencing threats since the fall of Assad, which was not the case before". The bishop described threatening graffiti and messages on social media directed at Syrian Christians that have unnerved much of the community. In early June, a shooting attack took place at another in the city of Homs, though no one was injured.

Father Fadi Barkil, 45-year-old, at Saint Sergios church in Maaloula, told Drop Site that Syrian Christians "don't feel safe," adding that their feelings of uncertainty are shared by other Syrians as well. “In general, Syrians see that there is no security. The government is doing their best, but it is not enough.”

Father Barkil added that, despite its claims to inclusivity, in practice “the government doesn’t include all Syrians, and there are Islamic extremist groups that threaten us.” The fall of the government has also introduced new divisions, and the shock of the attack on Mar Elias has led to fears that more generalized targeting of Christians may soon become the norm. "Before we were in the same position as all Syrians, we suffered equally, but this attack was something specific,” he said. “If the situation continues like this, no Christians will be left in Syria.”

His fears are shared by many Syrians. In the wake of the Mar Elias, many WhatsApp groups in the country have become active to share advice and information for Syrian Christians on how to leave the country. Both the security and economic future of Syria appear deeply uncertain, raising the prospect that a final exodus of Christians may take place in the years to come.

Yet Bishop Musa vowed that attacks like the one at Mar Elias would not break the will of the Christian community to stay in a country where they have maintained thousands of years of presence.

"We have been on this land for 30 years after Christ’s death," he said. "They will not expel us. We will not leave."