This is a three-part series about the Alawite sect in Syria and the March massacre in its community.
A small congregation in the Tartous countryside of western Syria held an unusual Mother’s Day service this March.
The passages were customary, as the pastor read from Proverbs 31 and 1 Corinthians 13. So were the praise songs, including an Arabic version of “How Great Thou Art.”
The crafts, snacks, and cake were like those served at any youth-focused event. Fifty moms and their kids enjoyed the cool weather at a lakeside pavilion under pleasant gray skies. Enthusiastic girls acted out the parable of the prodigal son, emphasizing that God’s love is for everyone. This, too, was a typical message.
The unusual aspect was who was in the audience. Half the families were Syrian Alawites, a heterodox Muslim sect, three weeks removed from a massacre that killed more than 1,700 men, women, and children from their community.
In Syria, Mother’s Day is celebrated on March 21, and the event offered a small measure of joy amid great tragedy. The service was so successful the church repeated it twice more in the following weeks, according to Bassem Khoury, the church’s pastor. Christianity Today agreed not to use his real name as the country remains unstable.
“Suffering is an opportunity to direct people to God’s love,” Khoury said.
Khoury described how his evangelical church ministered to hundreds of Alawites fleeing the coastal villages of Jableh and Baniyas and as far away as Hama and Homs, cities 50 miles to the east. Local Christians offered food, medicine, and words of comfort. Khoury preached about Jesus—but also about reconciliation between Syria’s diverse religious groups, Sunni Muslims, Alawites, and Greek Orthodox Christians. And the families witnessed a unity the pastor prays his nation may one day reflect.
Khoury served from extensive experience. Throughout the 14-year Syrian civil war, he has offered aid to Alawites, Muslims, and Christians displaced by the fighting. Some came from Raqqa, once the seat of the self-proclaimed ISIS caliphate. Others came from Aleppo, where current Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa led a rebel offensive.
They arrived at Tartous and the nearby city of Lattakia, seeking safety in the Alawite stronghold of then-president Bashar al-Assad. Assad and his father, Hafez, who seized power in a 1970 coup, hailed from the sect and promoted fellow Alawites to key positions in government and the military. Others toiled in the agricultural fields, as the regime cultivated loyalists from all sects rather than depending on a single group.
Alawites, a ninth-century offshoot of Shiite Islam, make up the majority of residents in the Syrian coastal and mountainous region, living among Sunni Muslims and Christians, mostly from the Greek Orthodox church. The sect, which represents 10–13 percent of the overall population, relocated to relative isolation in the 13th century to escape persecution for their heterodox beliefs. (In coming parts of this series, CT will explore Alawite beliefs and why other Muslim groups consider them heretical.)
During the civil war, rebels seized much Syrian territory but never dislodged the regime from Tartous and Lattakia. Jableh hosted a major army installation near the military base of Assad’s Russian allies. Baniyas suffered a massacre of its Sunni residents in 2013 after the government dispelled a rebel attack. But overall, the area remained religiously mixed. As the war continued to rage, local relative stability led many internally displaced people from all sects to seek refuge.
Khoury first came in more peaceful times, commuting from about an hour away. In 2009, he began planting a church in a village of Alawites and Greek Orthodox Christians, not far from the famous Crusader-era Krak des Chevaliers castle. With the outbreak of civil war in 2011, his small congregation dwindled to near zero as members fled the conflict.
But as displaced Syrians arrived, Khoury relocated to the Tartous countryside full-time. He introduced himself to weary individuals arriving at the village square and provided food and medical aid, following up with home visits. Word spread, and more came. And in every encounter, he was clear about his faith. Over time, Khoury worked with a network of 10 evangelical churches that provided aid to 2,000 families.
The chaos of war provided an opening for Christian witness outside his church’s own community. Still, local authorities accused the church of exploiting the displaced, Khoury said. Khoury countered that he never spoke against anyone’s religion, only presenting his own.
And then in December, the Assad regime fell.
“Syria was an exhausted country undergoing a slow death,” Khoury said. “And now with the rapid political changes, we are experiencing PTSD.”
The rapid rebel triumph was a shock, he said, and fear ruled the area. Sharaa, the new president, reassured religious minorities they would be included in the new Syria. The new regime even offered to place a guard at Khoury’s church, which he declined. But in December, videos circulated of an arson attack on an Alawite shrine in Aleppo and the burning of a Christmas tree in a Christian village near Hama.
Mysterious messages then appeared on social media, stoking anti-Alawite prejudice. Syria’s majority Sunni population already harbored resentment toward the sect due to Assad’s long and oppressive rule. And Islamic extremists recalled medieval and Ottoman-era fatwas declaring Alawites to be non-Muslims and worthy of death.
The massacre began on March 6, triggered when groups formerly connected to Assad attacked the military base in Jableh. By March 8, the government announced it had regained control of all affected areas. But during that time and in the days that followed, militias affiliated with the new regime went house to house throughout the area, killing Alawite residents.
Khoury knew what to do—the same as before. But this time, his neighbors also needed help. While their village was not attacked, all Alawites felt under threat. As thousands streamed into the area and cars clogged the roads, he posted the church number on social media. Anyone requesting assistance was welcome.
From the civil war onward, Khoury has viewed his service through a lens of biblical reconciliation. Through the cross, Jesus broke the barriers between peoples to create a diverse church, he teaches. The church should then reach out to help a diverse world learn how to live together in peace.
By opening his church’s doors, Khoury gave opportunity for Muslims to hear directly from Christians about their religion, helping dismiss characterizations about worshiping three gods or aligning with Alawites against the Sunnis. But Khoury also sat Alawites and Sunnis together, and as everyone mixed, they became friends.
In groups of 25, the displaced families presented problems requiring immediate solutions. Many fled under duress and needed clothes. Restless kids needed toys. But church members also facilitated discussions about Syria. Sects often held wrong ideas about one another, which political and religious extremists exploited to further the conflict. Now members of the various groups imagined what a shared future might look like.
Still, in the weeks following the massacre, most Alawites remained holed up in their homes, fearful of more revenge attacks on their community. The church designed the Mother’s Day event to draw them out, to remember the beauty of nature, and to encourage those who were suffering to continue living life, Khoury said.
After the kids created purple-and-white paper hearts adorned with messages to their moms, Khoury led the mixed religious assembly in discussion about the prodigal son. The older brother, they observed, represents those who reject the other, no matter what. Khoury remembers an attendee saying, “But God is not what I imagined as a God of punishment. He is a God of forgiveness and love, awaiting our return.”
Khoury said in the past, local Alawites did not oppose the church but generally left them alone. Attitudes have warmed considerably since the massacre. For Palm Sunday, the church marched in leafy procession through the village streets, with several neighbors joining in. For Easter, they held two outdoor gatherings for the youth, hosting more than 200 children in total. Six new families are now regularly attending services, with 30 kids added to Sunday school.
Khoury does not know whether the current openness of Syrians will continue. He is encouraged by the lifting of sanctions and the appointment of a female Christian as minister of social affairs. But his church will continue to serve, he said, without discrimination between sects, in hope of a better future.
“Syrians were left like sheep without a shepherd,” Khoury said. “We introduce them to Jesus, who will never leave his people.”
The next story will introduce Ziad, an Alawite who survived the massacre.
