Rome, Jan 4 (LaPresse) – ‘I do not consider Syrian Christians a minority but an integral and important part of the history of the Syrian people. I lived for a long time in the Governorate of Idlib, where I got to know the commitment of two brothers, Father Hanna and Father Loai, in favour of the people of that area. They helped and supported all those who came to them without any distinction. I felt esteem and respect for them'. These are the words with which the new Syrian leader Ahmed Al-Jolani responded to a question on the presence of the Christian minority in Syria and in particular on the mission of the Custody of the Holy Land by the Vicar of the Holy Land, Father Ibrahim Faltas, who recounted his meeting with al-Jolani in L'Osservatore Romano. The occasion was the meeting he granted us on the last day of 2024 together with the heads of other Christian denominations in the Presidential Palace in Damascus, the vicar in the Holy Land recounted, adding that al-Jolani also took the opportunity to express ‘first of all great admiration, esteem and respect for Pope Francis: he is a true man of peace,’ he stressed, ‘I appreciated his appeals and his actions in favour of peace and peoples in difficulty’.