Bishop of the Szeged-Csanád Diocese László Kiss-Rigó returned from Syria on 13th May where he had discussion over the conflict striking the country and the humanitarian situation.
The main request of the Syrian Christians is that the world should know about them. They would like more and more people to know that in spite of their decreasing number a Christian community has been living in Syria for 2,000 years that keeps its faith and its traditions and would like to stay there – said Laszló Kiss-Rigó on 14th of May, Saturday, following the visit to Syria to the Hungarian Media Agency.
In Syria László Kiss-Rigó had discussion over the conflict striking the country and the humanitarian situation with Ahmed Bahreddín al-Haszún, Syrian chief mufti, the religious leader of the Sunni community with Afram al-Malúli, vicar of the Syrian Orthodox Christian Church; with Samuel Rizk, Syrian director of the development program of the UN and Mario Zenari, Vatican nuncio. The bishop visited the Maronite community of the settlement called Kharab Maqiyya in order to give over the donation of the believers of Szeged-Csanád Diocese.
László Kiss-Rigó pointed out that Balázs Major, supervisor of the Hungarian archeological team doing excavations in Syria, cast light on one of the biggest Christian communities of the Syrian seashore. The team conducts extensive humanitarian work among not only Christians but also all people in need. He wanted to help their work by calling for donations in the diocese. However, it was amazing even for him that in a span of two weeks believers of the diocese collected 11 million forints upon one single letter. He added, when he wanted to transfer the money he was requested to take it personally because ”while they are grateful for all pennies, personal presence as sign of solidarity, is even more important for the community.”
László Kiss-Rigó highlighted that in the Asian country, millions of internal refugees live who do not want to leave their homeland; Christians are supported by the leasers too to stay. Most of them do so but their situation is more severe than that of those leaving the country. International aid organizations are present in Libya and Jordan but nobody cares for millions of internal refugees, orphans, widows whose families have died out, whose houses have been taken, whose settlement has been shot apart and have nowhere to go back. In those parts of the country where there are no fights people try to house refugees, in many cases they share their homes with them but in those territories many people struggle with lots of difficulties: constant money depression because of which everything is more and more expensive, extensive cuts-off of electricity and other services and unemployment – said the bishop.
László Kiss-Rigó emphasized that the lack of hospitals and physicians are a severe problem since they cannot properly treat the wounded. He added: Szeged-Csanád Diocese has been providing scholarship for years for students studying at the University of Szeged coming from countries in a difficult situation. ”We keep doing so, said the bishop – and we consider increasing the number of scholarship positions according to our possibilities so that students graduating from the Faculty of General Medicine may help the inhabitants upon their return home. He also mentioned that the Maronite community he visited started building their church six years ago but in the current situation they cannot continue the building, thus it also arose in him, that the Diocese ought to give financial support for this. ”It is very difficult to find the priorities – said he – because building the church is important and it is important to treat the wounded as well but it is at least as important to train the future elite as well who will once rebuild this country in ruins.”
Source: MTI
Photo: Szeged-Csanád Diocese
Magyar Kurír
