Adventures in Asia: Homs, Syria

From Maaloula we drove about 90 minutes further north along the highway to Homs. Homs has historically been Syria's third city--diverse and economically vibrant for centuries or even millennia. In 2011, however, Homs was the scene of some particularly serious urban warfare, and although Homs has been under Syrian government control for almost ten years now, the destruction is still very evident. 

We entered the city from the south, which was largely spared the devastation of the central and northern neighbourhoods. 

Our first stop was a roadside shawarma shop for a quick lunch.

Then we carried on to the recently restored Khaled Ibn Al-Walid Mosque, which lies in the middle of a still-devastated neighbourhood.

To be honest, the mosque seemed somewhat unremarkable as far as beautiful mosques go. 

In one corner there is a shrine for Khalid ibn al-Walid and his son, which is a pilgrimage destination. Khalid ibn al-Walid was a 7th century Muslim general who drove the Christian Byzantines out of Syria in the 600s CE.

For me, though, the neighbourhood around the mosque was much more memorable. The destruction is almost overwhelming. I was particularly surprised at how little has been done in the last almost ten years to "clean up." I did not necessarily expect extensive reconstruction (hundreds of thousands of people left Homs and many of those will probably never come back, so it is understandable that the city may not reconstruct certain neighbourhoods), but I would think I would want to tear down the damaged buildings, if for no other reason than they are a terrible reminder of war. I suppose it is impossible to know for sure how I would feel, though, unless I had lived it myself. As it is, I found it a very heavy, sobering few minutes standing in the middle of all that destruction. That said, the destroyed buildings do not seem to be preventing families and children from enjoying their lives--many were picnicking outside of the mosque on this Friday afternoon, for example. Here are some photos from around the mosque.

After the mosque we drove a few blocks back towards the city centre, and were let out at the entrance to the old city. 

While some of the buildings here have been refinished, you can see bullet holes still present in many of them.

Notice in the photo below, you can also see where fighters have created barricades in the window frames to shoot from behind. I was very surprised to see this still, especially in a building that appears to be semi-occupied!

In the case below, these are barricaded windows in what was a mosque!

The damage was evident all through the old city, although perhaps some of these buildings have benefited from more restoration than further north by the Al-Walid mosque. 

After walking about ten minutes we reached the Um Al Zenar Church.

This is a Syriac Orthodox Church and the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II just happened to be there for a meeting. He greeted us in the courtyard in perfect English and was able to talk about Canadian geography with surprising confidence and accuracy! We were also the beneficaries of a blessing as the Patriarch and his entourage made their way out of the compound.

The caretaker opened the church for Marie to show us around. 

This relic is where the church gets its name--it is apparently a piece of Mary's girdle and the church's name translates to something like "Saint Mary Church of the Holy Belt."

The relic is housed in an underground chapel . . .

. . .  which itself is above the remains of an early Byzantine church, perhaps dating from as early as 59 CE! We were able to go down into that room, too, but I must not have photographed it. Anyway, there is not much to see as it pretty much just a cave.

Outside the church complex is this storefront. One thing that struck me is the picture of Assad in the window. 

Really this should not surprise me because a) photos of Assad are everywhere; b) I assume displaying photos like this mitigates the risk that the Syrian government believes you to be disloyal; and c) the Assad government is seen to be a defender of religious minorities, so actually enjoys strong support amongst the Christian communities of Syria. Still, I find it hard to imagine there are any churches outside of Syria displaying photos of Assad!

Our driver picked us up outside of the church to take us on to our final stop of the day, Krak des Chevaliers!