AP<\/a><\/p>\n It was not how Rev Maroun Ghafari had envisioned this Holy Week \u2013 for years, he had held Easter sermons\u00a0in his predominantly Christian village of Alma al-Shaab in southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel.<\/p>\n
This year, he is preaching from a Beirut suburb, beside a cardboard cutout depicting his church in Alma al-Shaab, now caught in the crossfire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Lebanon-Jdeideh-Easter-procession-030426016.jpg\")
Parishioners walk in a procession after a Good Friday Mass at St Anthony Church, which was devoted to expressing solidarity with Christian villagers in southern Lebanon displaced by the war in Jdeideh, a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, on Friday, 3rd April, 2026. PICTURE: AP Photo\/Emilio Morenatti.<\/p>\n
Since hostilities erupted last month between Israel and Lebanon\u2019s Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group \u2013 in the shadow of the wider, US-Israeli war on Iran \u2013 over 1,400 people have been killed in Lebanon, and more than a\u00a0million have been forced to flee\u00a0their homes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe country is going through a critical situation due to Iranian interference through Hezbollah and Israeli aggression. Our hearts bleed for the victims of the conflict imposed on Lebanon.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Patriarch Beshara al-Rai of Lebanon\u2019s Maronite Church<\/p>\n
Among those displaced from the war-torn south are thousands of Christians. They now find themselves far from their ancestral churches in Lebanon, where Christians have maintained a strong presence through centuries of Byzantine, Arab and Ottoman conquest and plenty of\u00a0modern-day crises.<\/p>\n
Christians are estimated to make up around a third of Lebanon\u2019s population of roughly 5.5 million people. With 12 Christian sects, the country is home to the largest\u00a0proportion of Christians\u00a0of any nation in the Arab world.<\/p>\n
Despite being far from the strikes in and around their villages in southern Lebanon, they were reminded of the war by the deep rumbling of Israeli jets and the sounds of deadly airstrikes over Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs.<\/p>\n
Christian villagers\u00a0who stayed behind in southern Lebanon, ignoring Israel\u2019s blanket evacuation warnings for the area, have increasingly hardened into enclaves surrounded by fierce clashes.<\/p>\n
And though villagers in Alma al-Shaab had been uprooted before, in the 2024 Israel-Hezbollah war, this time around, they were adamant they wouldn\u2019t leave, even as airstrikes came closer and closer.<\/p>\n
The villagers huddled in their church for protection as Israeli warplanes pounded large swaths of southern and eastern Lebanon while Israeli troops stepped up a\u00a0ground invasion\u00a0and Hezbollah kept firing rockets at Israel.<\/p>\n
In his annual Easter homily, Patriarch Beshara al-Rai of Lebanon\u2019s Maronite Church blamed both Hezbollah and Israel for the suffering wrought by the war.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe country is going through a critical situation due to Iranian interference through Hezbollah and Israeli aggression,\u201d he said. \u201cOur hearts bleed for the victims of the conflict imposed on Lebanon.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Lebanon-Jdeideh-St-Anthony-Church-prayer-at-Easter-030426017.jpg\")
Worshippers pray during Good Friday Mass at St Anthony Church, which was devoted to expressing solidarity with Christian villagers in southern Lebanon displaced by the war in Jdeideh, a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, on Friday, 3rd April, 2026. PICTURE: AP Photo\/Emilio Morenatti.<\/p>\n
Ghafari\u2019s brother, 70-year-old Sami Ghafari, was among the villagers who sought refuge at the church in Alma al-Shaab.<\/p>\n
But he dashed out briefly on 8th March to tend to his garden, and was killed by an Israeli drone strike. His killing prompted the remaining villagers \u2013 including his brother \u2013 to pack up their belongings.<\/p>\n
The UN peacekeepers in the area \u2013 a force known as UNIFIL that has monitored the region for nearly five decades \u2013 evacuated them to the northern suburbs of Beirut.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to stay, but it was always possible that one of us could be targeted or killed at any moment,\u201d Rev Maroun Ghafari told The Associated Press from St Anthony Church in the northern Beirut suburb of Jdeideh, where the displaced from Alma al-Shaab came to worship on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone is tired, and we see that war brings nothing but destruction, death and displacement.\u201d<\/p>\n
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For many Lebanese Christians, it\u2019s a tradition on Holy Saturday \u2013 the day between Good Friday, which commemorates the crucifixion and death of Jesus, and Easter Sunday, which marks his resurrection according to the Gospels \u2013 to visit the graves of their loved ones.<\/p>\n
This year, displaced Christians could only reflect from afar.<\/p>\n
Nabila Farah, dressed in black for the Saturday service at St Anthony Church, was among the last to leave Alma al-Shaab. She still feels heartbroken, a month later.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou miss the smell of home, the lovely traditions and customs, the sounds of the bells of three churches ringing,\u201d she said, reminiscing about her village. \u201cAs much as we experience the Easter atmosphere here, it will never be as it is over there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those who remain face other challenges.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Lebanon-Beirut-St-Anthony-Church-Mass-030426018.jpg\")
Worshipers pray during Good Friday Mass at St Anthony Church, which was devoted to expressing solidarity with Christian villagers in southern Lebanon displaced by the war in Jdeideh, a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, on Friday, 3rd\u00a0 April, 2026. PICTURE: AP Photo\/Emilio Morenatti<\/p>\n
Marius Khairallah, a priest in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, where much of the Christian community has hunkered down, says that he and his congregants are staying put \u201cnot out of stubbornness, but out of a sense of mission, to remain alongside their fellow faithful, as witnesses.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA significant number of parishioners have been displaced or are absent,\u201d he said. \u201cYet churches still open their doors. Prayers are still raised \u2013 even with fewer voices.\u201d<\/p>\n
Worries are mounting among Christians in the area as the Lebanese army \u2013 which seeks to stay neutral in the Israel-Hezbollah war \u2013 pulls out from parts of southern Lebanon, leaving them exposed to Israeli forces pushing deeper into the territory.<\/p>\n
On top of that, supply stocks are dwindling, and humanitarian access is extremely difficult. A convoy carrying over 40 tons of aid led by the Vatican was supposed to reach the Christian village of Debel, but was canceled for what Lebanon\u2019s Maronite Church said was \u201csecurity reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n
St Antony\u2019s main priest, Rev Dori Fayyad, used his Good Friday sermon to take solemn note of the war\u2019s widening toll on the southern Lebanese Christians, as the faithful recited prayers in Arabic and Syriac, a dialect of the Aramaic language spoken by Jesus.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, you understand what the cross means, not as an idea, not as a concept, but because you are going through it,\u201d he told the fully packed pews, the crowd so thick that dozens had to stand or crouch on the back stairs.<\/p>\n
Some wiped away tears as Fayyad named one by one the southern churches, illustrated in the cardboard cutouts next to the pulpit.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese churches in these villages are not only places of worship,\u201d he said. \u201cThey are silent witnesses to suffering and to faith.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KAREEM CHEHAYEB and ISABEL DEBRE, of Associated Press, report from Lebanon where people displaced from villages in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[32],"tags":[9659,847,3680,17471,100,34,196,37,21330,93,21331,21332,21333,3304],"class_list":["post-53400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lebanon","tag-alma-al-shaab","tag-beirut","tag-christians-in-lebanon","tag-easter","tag-hezbollah","tag-iran","tag-iran-war","tag-israel","tag-jdeideh","tag-lebanon","tag-maronite-church","tag-patriarch-beshara-al-rai","tag-st-anthony-church-jdeideh","tag-tyre"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116355544065093206","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}