BEIRUT: Maronite Cardinal Beshara Rai voiced during a historic visit to Syria Saturday solidarity with Syrians and expressed hope for an end to the nearly two-year old conflict.
“[I express solidarity] with all the people who are suffering in Syria,” Rai, who headed a sermon at the Maronite Cathedral of St. Anthony in the Bab Touma district of Damascus, told Lebanon’s National News Agency.
“We pray each day for the end of war and violence and that a unanimous peace may be achieved through cooperation," he added.
Syrian Minister of State Joseph Suweid, representing President Bashar Assad, attended the Mass along with religious figures.
Rai’s visit to Syria, the first by a head of the Maronite Church since Lebanon’s independence from France in 1943, comes as the crisis in Syria approaches its second year.
Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2013/Feb-09/205739-lebanons-rai-to-syria-for-patriarchs-appointment-bishop.ashx#ixzz2KR2E8zQi
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)