Four Lectures on the Massacres of the Christians in Syria/Lecture I
FOUR LECTURES
ON THE
MASSACRES OF THE CHRISTIANS
IN SYRIA.
LECTURE I.
DELIVERED IN THE ROTUNDO, DUBLIN.
(From Freeman's Journal.)
F. Palgrave expressed the pleasure he felt in having the opportunity of addressing an audience in the city of Dublin, composed of the members and friends of so admirable and useful an institution as the Catholic Young Men's Society. Although not personally acquainted with this society in Ireland or England, he had heard much of it, and he had himself attempted—not without success—to introduce it into Syria. A poor missionary for fifteen years amongst a people who did not understand English, and with whom he must communicate in their own tongue, it was not to be expected that his accent now was perfect, and he, therefore, claimed their indulgence on that account.
At the present moment, he continued, the eyes of all Europe, particularly of Catholic Europe, are turned with horror to the east. I have myself been a witness of horrors and desolations that chill the very blood to read of; I saw them with my own eyes, heard them with my own ears, and only escaped by the providence of God from being amongst the number of the victims. This narration is not necessary to evoke your sympathy for the Christians of Syria, for that sympathy already exists; but I may be able to put you in possession of the true circumstances connected with the frightful events that have taken place in that country, concerning which you get intelligence only by piecemeal—by detached morsels, often incorrect, sometimes false, and altogether of a nature that gives no clear, or distinct view of the occurrences under consideration. Syria, by its geographical conditions, favours the development of different races. That long strip of country lining the east of the Mediterranean is divided first by a chain of mountains called the Lebanon range, running north and south. This district is principally inhabited by two nations, the Maronites and the Druses. Behind this is a spacious, splendid, and fertile plain, bounded by the Anti-Lebanon range of mountains, inhabited principally by Christians, mixed, however, with Mahomedans, schismatics, and a colony of Druses. Behind this range stretches the Syrian desert to the Euphrates; on the verge of the plain are the cities of Damascus and Aleppo. The Christian population of these districts are drowned, as it were, in a mass of the most fanatical Mahommedans that exist on the face of the earth. The Maronites are Catholics, united with the assemblage before me in the bonds of holy faith, having the same sacraments and laws, and differing only in the circumstance of their ritual, prayers, and ceremonies being in the ancient Syriac language, instead of Latin. They were the descendants of Syrian Catholics instructed by the Apostles.
In the 5th century a monstrous heresy was introduced amongst these Catholics. It was a denial of the Incarnation of our Blessed Lord, and an assertion that His life, His death, His resurrection, were merely phantasmagoria. A certain portion of the Syrian Catholics stood fast to the faith of their fathers, they were consequently made the subject of dreadful persecutions, which for two centuries were, perhaps, equalled only by the persecutions endured by the Catholics of Ireland. Numbers of the Syrian Catholics fled to the Lebanon, where they formed a body, and nation distinct from, and hostile to, the heretics. After some time, instead of reorganising their laws and customs, which had suffered from persecution, they chose, with the permission of the Holy See, a Patriarch whose name was Marone; hence they were called Maronites, and from that period to the present, a term of 1,200 years, the Maronites, with a constancy having few, if indeed any examples, have remained faithful to their faith and their God.
Now, as to the Druses. They are the most extraordinary people on the face of the earth; they are the Atheists of the East. From an intimate acquaintance with their sentiments, I can speak authoritatively of their belief. The Druses deny absolutely the existence of a Creator in Heaven, or of a Prophet or Redeemer on earth. They give their curse (God forgive me for saying it) equally to the religion of Moses and the religion of Mahommed, and hold that the happiness of man is in being free from all law and religion. It is wonderful that such monsters can exist, and more, that they should be not only an organised, but the most organised nation of the East, having an aristocracy to which they are subject, consisting of only five noble families. Obedience to their chiefs alone has preserved the Druses, whose morality is expressed thus in their own language—"Everything done in secret is lawful—everything done in public is subject to religion and morality;" or, "if no one sees you, you may do as you choose." They are brave, but the Christians, after all, are more courageous, and better soldiers, considering their perils and persecutions.
The great plain is inhabited, too, by Greeks, one-third of them Greek Catholics, obedient to the Holy See. For 150 years—the date of the existence of these Greek Catholics—persecutions were upon them. In Aleppo once, twelve heads of families were beheaded for no other reason but that they were Catholics. The total population of Syria was about two and a half millions, of which one third were Christian. Having given you this outline of the country generally I will refer at once to the origin of the recent outbreak. The Christian powers saved the Turkish empire from threatened destruction by the taking of Sebastopol. Articles of treaties were then signed between the Sultan, and the Christian powers, by which the Christians in the East were raised from the abject condition of slaves, to the prerogatives of free men.—This change created hatred and jealousy amongst the Mahommedans, who could not restrain themselves when they found the Christian on the same footing as themselves, and saw the prosperity of the Christians—religion and civilisation spreading over the whole of Syria—new churches raised in every direction—schools opened in every town and village, and the Christians assuming great political importance. The bitter hatred of the Mahommedans quickly developed itself. In a few weeks a Mahommedan preacher, in the principal Mosque of a Syrian town, openly preached that it was permitted to destroy every Christian they could lay hands upon, saying it was insufferable that "these dogs should have so noble a place amongst dignified Mahommedans." This atrocious doctrine was publicly proclaimed throughout the whole of Syria: it was well known to the Turkish government, yet no measures were taken to repress it, no censure was given by that government. The Christians, with the knowledge of all this, felt, of course, that their safety rested on a sandy foundation, but they hoped that the Christian powers who gave them freedom would have maintained it to them in safety. Meanwhile, the work of darkness went on. In 1858, only 18 months after the treaty of Sebastopol, a meeting of Mahommedan authorities was held in the sacred city of the Turkish empire, the city of Ikimduni. I mention this fact upon the authority of an influential gentleman employed in the office of the English Consul at Beyrout, and I had it also from the Turks themselves. At this meeting were eleven heads or chiefs, one coming from each of the great cities, such as Aleppo, Cairo, Beyrout, Damascus, Bagdad, &c. The deliberations of these eleven chiefs lasted, I was informed, three days, and the object was to see by what means the progress of Christianity could be stayed. The conclusion come to was worthy to be written in letters of blood. It was, that in order to ensure not only the prosperity, but the very existence of the Mahommedan religion, it was necessary to exterminate every Christian, man, woman, and child, found in the eastern Turkish empire—to drown the name of Christian in blood. The chief solemnly confirmed this resolution, and each returned to his own place, to propagate and carry out the murderous design thus formed. A few months afterwards the first blow was struck in the city of Jeddah, at the instigation of the chief of Beyrout, with whom I was acquainted, and while the massacred victims were yet writhing in their agony there, the same chief of Beyrout went to Mecca, the city of the pilgrims, and in that centre of the Mahommedan religion made the pilgrims from all parts of the East swear a solemn oath that, on their return to their respective towns and villages, they would omit no means of rising against, and massacring every Christian they could lay hands upon. This fearful project is now being developed in 1860; it was to have been carried out in 1858, but for various reasons was delayed. These facts were not known in Europe, and it is well that they should be stated now. It was impossible for the Turkish government then to carry out their fiendish plans, as the Maronites were too numerous in the neighbourhood of Mount Lebanon. The Maronites were fine, active, vigorous men, such as I have seen in Tipperary.
The first thing to be done was to weaken the Maronite nation. This was worked out by sowing the seed of discord between the nobles and the people. The Turkish Government succeeded in depriving the Maronites of their chiefs, and instead of proper government, anarchy and disorder got in amongst them. This was all brought about between the year 1858 and 1860, and in the beginning of the present year all was ready for the massacre of the Christian population. Up to last Spring the Christians were aware that their very existence was in peril. From the sense of their danger they went to the Turkish governors, and asked them, in the name of former and old friendship, for protection at least for their wives and children. It was most dangerous for a priest, even at that time, to go out in public. I myself had to fly, surrounded on every side by those who were anxious to take my life, and meeting on my road the victims of the Druses, bleeding from head to foot. The Turkish Government took their measures for carrying out their fiendish projects. It might appear strange that the Christians, so numerous, being at least one-fourth of the population, should be so easily overcome. The cause was this. The Turkish Government supplied the Druses with muskets, powder and shot, while if a musket was seen in the hands of a Christian it was taken from him, and if he was known to have powder and shot it was regarded as high treason. On one occasion I saw one hundred mules laden heavily with ammunition starting from the palace of the Turkish governor of Beyrout. I asked where the ammunition was going, and was informed that it was going to one of the Druse chiefs in the mountains: for these reasons, it was no wonder that the Christians in their defenceless position, should be defeated.
On the 27th of May, in this year, forty Christian villages in Syria were in a blaze, while the Druses, with savage and relentless barbarity, were cutting down the inhabitants, who were flying from their burning homes; in the midst of this scene of horror and carnage was the tent of the Turkish governor, surrounded by soldiers, and notwithstanding the solemn promises given to the consuls that the Christians should be protected, they were slaughtered by thousands.
To give an idea of the terror of the scenes which were enacted in Syria within a few months would surpass the power of human description. In an hospital of the convent belonging to the Sisters of Mercy at Beyrout (that blessed institution) I heard, from the breathing corpses who were there, the records of the perfidy and cold blooded barbarity of the Turkish government. What did some of these people tell me of the Turkish governors? They received the Christians in their palaces, and swore on Mahomed, and on their own children that no harm should be done them. It was only required that they would not bear arms, and they in their Christian truth and simplicity relied on the truth of the promise which had been made to them, and laid down their arms. But what was the result? That while the Christians were in these very palaces they were given over to the assassins and murderers who surrounded these palaces, to be put to fearful and lingering deaths. One Christian whom I knew, to avoid the demons who sought his blood, jumped from the roof of the palace to the ground, where he lay senseless for three days amidst the heaps of corpses that surrounded the place. On recovering his senses he had to crawl on his hands and knees, for safety and shelter, to Beyrout. They who hear me can say what must be the feelings of a Christian on seeing the terrible sufferings a people endured for their holy religion, guilty of no fault, but making the sign of the cross. In a city in Syria, which had been in the possession of Christians who had given up their arms and ammunition, the slaughter of the Christian inhabitants has had, perhaps, no parallel, save in your own Drogheda or Wexford.
On the evening before the massacre, and before the hatchets of the Druses were stained by Christian blood, some of the ruffians, headed by Turkish soldiers, went to the house of the principal priest of the town—the vicar of the Bishop. They stripped him of his clothes, cut off his fingers one by one, and stuffed them into his month, saying "receive the body of Christ." It is unnecessary for me to say what cruel tortures these demons put the good and holy man to before they deprived him of life. The rev. lecturer gave a vivid description of the massacre in the city of Sida, where the Turkish soldiers went out to meet two thousand fugitive Christians and inhumanly butchered seventy-five of them in one hour, and left their bodies to be devoured by the dogs and vultures. When on one occasion the Turks saw the dogs tearing asunder the body of a Christian priest, they observed that "dogs should be eaten by dogs." The rev. lecturer gave a most appaling account of the massacre of the 11th of June, when he escaped to the mountains by all but a miracle. He referred to the burning down of forty Christian villages, which were one mass of flame, and spoke with startling eloquence of the miseries and privations to which the Christians had been subjected. He drew a vigorous and heart-rending picture of the desolation which was poured out on the country.
Amongst the long list of fiendish cruelties he gave one instance of a most respectable and accomplished man, who had been on terms of intimacy and friendship with a Turkish governor, and was in the habit of sitting at the same table with him. When the massacre commenced he went to the Turkish governor for protection. He was received with a demon-like smile. The Christian gentleman observed, "Is this the way you requite an old friendship?" The governor made no reply, but observed, "take away this dog." The Druses took him into the court-yard, when they held a consultation as to how they could inflict the greatest amount of torture upon him. At length one of them aimed a blow of a sabre at him, and, with an instinct for the preservation of his life, he raised up his hand, and the sword cut off his fingers. They next hacked the skin from his body, and cut the shape of a cross in his flesh, which they filled with powder, and set fire to it. They, with hellish cruelty, brought forth his wife, and held her in front of her agonised and bleeding husband. They next cut off his limbs one by one, cut out his tongue, and then sawed him in two, and put an end to his sufferings. His wife became a maniac, and imagined in her frenzy that she was wading up to her knees in blood. I will add but one word, continued F. Palgrave. When you hear of the measures taken by the Turks for the pacification of the country, and the punishment of the guilty, you must not believe it all, and what you do believe you should not regard as of the smallest importance as a safeguard for the lives of the Christians who remain in Syria. The beginning was come—the end is not far off. These demons are determined to carry on their work. I have it from their own lips that there will be no rest in Syria until the Christian name is exterminated, and only through God's mercy will this fatal design be frustrated. I beg the heartfelt prayers of the assemblage to Almighty God to save the Christian inhabitants of Syria and the Holy Land. Ireland has endured persecution for the faith for 300 years, and she can feel sympathy for Syria, which has endured persecution for 1,200 years in the midst of infidels, assassins, and murderers.
Having mentioned that the recent massacres were not only massacres inflicted upon the Christians in Syria, and stated that hundreds of them were murdered in Cairo and Damascus, the rev. lecturer announced that in a few days he would be on his return journey to Syria, to share the fortunes and the fate of the Christians who were still there. He had heard from the Archbishop of Dublin that it was intended shortly to make an appeal in Ireland for the Christians of Syria, to save them not only from temporal but eternal death, for kidnapping of the faithful was being practised there. He knew that this appeal would be answered by the Catholics of Ireland in the spirit they had always displayed where their faith was concerned. For himself, going back with joy to the country where he had laboured so many years, where he would remain with his colleagues while a Christian remained—he besought their prayers in his own behalf, and that of the Catholics of Syria.