Syria has called on the Patriarch of Antioch to resign

On January 8, 2025, the Syrian public organization “Antiochian Movement for Change” published a statement demanding Antiochian Patriarch John X to resign. The organization believes that the head of the Patriarchate of Antioch has lost the legitimacy and trust of the people, so he should leave the post of Primate. This is reported by the Syrian edition of The Levant.

The statement emphasizes the patriarch’s close ties with the government of Bashar al-Assad, as well as, according to the authors, the invalidity of the process of his election, as he did not meet the requirements for candidates specified in the internal laws of the Antiochian See. The document also mentions the direct intervention of Assad’s intelligence services to explicitly manipulate religious institutions for the benefit of the regime. This interference “violated the sanctity of the electoral process, deprived the Church of its independence and made believers lose confidence in their spiritual leaders.”

Recall, earlier we reported that Patriarch John X of Antioch and All the East is concerned about the lack of dialog between the new authorities of Syria and the Christian society of the country. According to the patriarch, despite statements in the media about the upcoming all-Syrian conference, there have been no official contacts with Christian communities by the authorities so far. He noted that the Church is committed to dialog for the sake of peace and stability in the region.