Anagha Subhash Nair is a multimedia journalist based between Lebanon and Syria. She has reported from the region for Foreign Policy, New Lines Magazine, Anadolu Agency and other outlets.
On a hot Sunday morning, families and friends strolled into the compound of a towering white church in the Damascus neighborhood of al-Qassaa, one of the city's Christian hubs. Decorations dotted the area, as people posed for photographs in front of cardboard cutouts and paintings. In the background, chants from the church echoed through a loudspeaker, resonating through the streets.
"Christ has risen."
"Indeed, he has."
It was Easter, or what one worshiper at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Cross described as the "festival of festivals." For Syrians, Easter this year held a special place as the first one celebrated after the surprise toppling of Bashar al-Assad's Baathist regime in a rapid rebel offensive late last year.
A young Syrian woman at the church said that the prospect of lasting peace in a new Syria, suddenly free from 54 years of Assad family rule and the past 14 years of brutal civil war, feels unreal to her. "We got used to the war," said Anne, whose name has been changed to protect her identity. "There's peace now, but we don't believe it. We're waiting for more war."
A young Syrian woman at the church said that the prospect of lasting peace in a new Syria feels unreal to her.
- Anagha Nair
The Assad regime often positioned itself as a protector of minorities, including Christians, in Sunni-majority Syria, which is home to a wide range of ethnic and religious minorities, among them the Alawite sect to which the Assads belong. After the emergence of ISIS and other radical Islamist groups during Syria's descent into civil war, the Assad regime's propaganda branded all opposition and rebel groups, most of which were made up of disaffected Syrian Sunnis, as "terrorists"—and Assad as the only bulwark against them.
The regime was acutely aware of the country's "internal divisions," Karen Sudkamp, a researcher at RAND and former analyst at the U.S. Department of Defense, told Democracy in Exile in an interview. "They then used them to their advantage in the fight," she says.
Syria's new self-declared president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former rebel leader of the Islamist militia Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) that led the rebel offensive that ousted Assad, has promised inclusive governance in Syria. HTS is an offshoot of the since-dissolved al-Nusra Front, once al-Qaida in Syria, with which Al-Sharaa publicly cut ties in 2016. As president, occupying Assad's former Presidential Palace on a hill looming over Damascus, he has traded his military garb for a suit and shed his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.
Anne was at the Church of the Holy Cross with two of her friends, all of them university students, expressing mixed feelings over what their future holds. "When Christ dies and gets up, we feel real joy. This year, the joy wasn't as real as we used to feel," Anne said. "I feel uncertain," she added of the new government. "I'm just waiting to see if they're going to be just like [Assad], or if we're really moving on."
Just across the street was the St. Kyrillos Church, its compound adorned by decorations, including cutouts of a smiling chick and Easter Bunny. On Good Friday, the church had organized scout marches following the evening mass, but had decided to restrict them to the compound. On the streets, however, scouts from other churches marched carrying flags, keeping beat to their tunes with drums.
Dr. Ibrahim Akzam, a representative of the St. Kyrillos Church, said the old regime aimed to create strife between the country's diverse communities. "The goal was to sow discord between the people, division between the sects, and the army was of one color," he says, referring to how the majority of high-ranking military officials in the regime were Alawites like Assad.
Akzam admitted that initially, he was scared after the regime collapsed, but now he was hopeful about Syria's direction. "I'm from this area and I never experienced any trouble," he said of the neighborhood, which lies just outside the still-walled Old City of Damascus and its historically Christian quarter of Bab Touma, which is home to churches from many different Christian denominations. "In these four months, they've let us be optimistic about the future."
The air was permeated by the joy of worshipers, but there was still a trace of suspicion among the congregation. Many in the church were hesitant to talk directly about the seismic changes in Syria.
- Anagha Nair
The roads surrounding the churches in al-Qassaa were dotted with members of Syria's new general security service, established by the transitional government after Assad's regime fell. "The security really cooperates with us," Akzam said. He pointed out that the White Helmets, a humanitarian group that provides emergency services and for years had worked across Syria rescuing people from buildings bombed by the regime and its ally, Russia, hadn't left the church's doors since the day began and had offered support in case of medical emergencies. "The security is very cooperative, and the people are very respectful," Akzam said. "We didn't ask for anything, not even collaboration. We weren't expecting it."
Eliana, a youth leader at the Church of the Holy Cross, said that Christians were able to celebrate Easter as they always did. The holiday this year, in her mind, was "not so different, honestly." She said it was the prevalence of "propaganda" about the new government's anti-Christian sentiment, which was especially prevalent online, that frightened her, and which didn't reflect the reality in Damascus.
The air was permeated by the joy of worshipers, but there was still a trace of suspicion among the congregation. Many in the church were hesitant to talk directly about the seismic changes in Syria, and others declined to comment on anything remotely political.
"I wouldn't be surprised if the interim government believes that they're making good-faith efforts for inclusion," Sudkamp said. "But it seems like there's still a lot of distrust among the minority communities."
Christianity in Syria is as old as the religion itself. The biblical Street Called Straight still runs across the Old City of Damascus. "Our connection to this land is a very strong one, and our hopes for the future are big too," Akzam insisted, emphasizing how Christians are "rooted" in Syria. He reminisced about his childhood, recalling a time when religious differences were not as pronounced. "In school, we didn't know if the classmate sitting next to us was Christian or Muslim, Orthodox or Catholic, or Sunni or Shia."
"I hope things stay like that," he said. "If all the religions don't stand together, hand in hand, this country will never grow."
