Help people to stay, pleads archbishop

European nations are wrong to strive to accommodate an ever-growing number of Syrians as refugees, the Archbishop of Aleppo has said.

Greek Melkite Archbishop Jean-Clément Jeanbart conceded that Western nations that offered to fast-track Syrian Christian applications for asylum – on the grounds that they suffered particular targeting by jihadist groups – were well-intentioned. However, he said that such offers were “not the charity we need” but “terrible and very harmful for the Church”.

International efforts should instead focus on stopping other nations such as Turkey from intervening militarily, to bring about the peace that would enable Syrians to live in freedom, he insisted. This made better economic sense and would also leave Europe more peaceful, he added.

The archbishop was visiting Europe courtesy of the Catholic charities Aid to the Church in Need and l’Oeuvre d’Orient. He addressed a packed hall at the Jesuit church in Mayfair, London.

Jeanbart offered a nuanced position regarding Russia; one year ago he told a British newspaper that Russian intervention in the Syrian civil war was giving “hope” to some Syrian Christians because they believed it might hasten the end of the conflict. However, he told The Tablet on 4 November that the Russians were “not angels” but “perhaps their interests coincide with our needs”. The UK was right, he said, to have modified its position to call for President Bashar al-Assad to step down after a period of transition rather than immediately.

In a “Letter from the Bishop of Aleppo to his faithful” dated 23 October the archbishop wrote of “glimpsing signs of an approaching peace” thanks to military advances against rebels. He stressed his opposition to any scheme that took Syria’s manpower out of the country. “We have recently heard of major construction projects and considerable investments … But what worries us is to see the enemies of our country scheming to take away its human resources.”

The archbishop is now based in the government-controlled west part of Aleppo. “No Christian or moderate Muslim can live in the east,” he said, partly because jihadists were using civilians as human shields. The archbishop, 73, said the diocese now runs 22 aid programmes, including training adults to become builders, plumbers and carpenters ahead of the massive reconstruction that will be needed. However, charity was no substitute for cutting off the international supply lines of weapons and mercenaries that prolonged Syria’s conflict, he said.