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(NewsNation) — As thousands of Syrians celebrate the fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime, the country’s Christian minority remains deeply concerned about its future, and as vulnerable as ever.

Despite celebrations in Syria’s capital Damascus, uncertainty grips the nation as the main rebel group behind Assad’s ouster, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, forms an interim government. The group’s links to ISIS and Al Qaeda worry Christians in the region who suffered genocide, along with other religious minorities, at the hands of ISIS. The United States officially recognized that genocide in 2016 under President Barack Obama and in 2018 President Donald Trump signed the Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act providing aid to religious minorities, including Christians, Yazidis and Shiite Muslims. 

According to Aid to the Church in Need, an international Catholic charity, in 2011 at the beginning of the civil war, Christians in the predominantly Sunni Muslim nation numbered around 1.5 million, making up 10% of the total population. Now the group says that number has dwindled to less than 300,000.

Syria’s Christian communities are ancient, dating back to the 1st century A.D. According to the Bible, St. Paul was converted to Christianity on his way from Jerusalem to Damascus. Syria soon became a center of early Christianity, even producing several popes. 

I asked Nina Shea, senior fellow and director of the Center for Religious Freedom at Hudson Institute, about the plight of Christians in Syria. Shea has served as a commissioner on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom seven times and is the author of “Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians.” She regularly testifies before Congress, delivers public lectures, organizes briefings and conferences, and writes frequently about religious freedom in leading publications. 

Interview with Nina Shea

Susie Pinto: How many Christians are there in Syria? 

Nina Shea: “The numbers of all Syrian Christians together have plunged about 90 percent since 2010. They were about 2 million then and now they are about 250,000, according to the head of Syria’s Mar Mussa monastery. They can be expected to drop further with the new alarming developments.”

SP: The collapse of the Assad regime has left a vacuum in Syria. The main rebel group has said it would treat Christians and other minorities fairly. What’s your take?

NS: “The new leader, Al-Jolani, was the founder and head (emir) of Al Nusra Front, which became HTS. The US listed him as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist over a decade ago and lists HTS as a terrorist organization.  He is a hardened jihadi militant and leader. Most recently he has ruled Idlib and in 2022 the New York Times reported that only one 90-year-old Christian remained there. That will be the fate of all Christians in Syria under HTS rule, I fear.  

Jolani’s assurances of moderation are not credible and remind me of the Taliban’s assurances to the US negotiators on the American withdrawal from Afghanistan that women’s rights would be respected. Now Afghan women are banned from education after the sixth grade and are enshrouded in burkas, under penalty of corporal punishments. Deception is a tactic being used by Jolani to obtain sanction relief from the US and the rest of the West.”   

SP: How did the ousted Bashar al-Assad treat Christians during his reign? 

NS:  “He was said to be their ‘protector’ but this is belied by their massive exodus from Syria over the past 13 years.” 

SP:  Are Christians allowed to worship freely in Syria? 

NS: “Syria is a fractured country. In certain parts, such as those controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and where Assad had control, they could go to church, carry out charitable activities, operate monasteries and convents.”

SP: Can Christians expect fair treatment under any Islamic government in Syria or any part of the Middle East?  

NS: “Most Middle Eastern governments in Muslim countries, including Assad’s, incorporate Islamic or Sharia Law, to greater or lesser extents. This deprives Christians and other non-Muslims of equal rights under the law in certain areas. These can hurt them to greater or lesser extents, religiously, economically, legally, and politically. Lebanon is an exception. Saudi Arabia, which is becoming more open to the world, still won’t legalize a single church or non-Muslim house of worship, not only in their holy cities of Mecca and Medina, but everywhere else in their whole country.”

SP: Can the dwindling Christian population in Syria play a role in rebuilding the country? 

NS: “The survival strategy of the Christian leadership seems to be to serve as interlocutors to the West to lift economic sanctions and provide reconstruction aid following Syria’s devastating civil war. Their messages now talk of helping to rebuild their country.  For a long time, they have been an important source of humanitarian and development aid, including skills training. Whether they can carry out this larger role of rebuilding will depend on the actions and stability of the new government. If the new rulers continue to impose strict sharia and express global jihadi goals of conquest — as they appear to be doing — or if there is further conflict with competing factions and foreign governments, then obtaining Western aid probably won’t be achievable. Turkey has played a major role in supporting HTS in the overthrow of the Assad regime and its future role in Syria is uncertain and complicates the picture.”

SP: Why is it important for Christians to remain in Syria and in the region in your view? 

NS: “There are several reasons. Syria is part of the region called the Cradle of Christianity. The first time the term ‘Christian’ appeared in the Bible, it was applied to Syrian Christians. Syrians were present at Pentecost. Their ancient traditions influenced the Western Church. It’s important to Christians that a living community with a continuous presence, such as the Syrian Christian community, remains in the region of Christianity’s birth. But it’s also important for the region and the world that the Middle East retain religious pluralism. Middle Eastern Christians have founded schools, including for girls and women, hospitals, publishing houses and many other benefits in the lands that they have inhabited centuries before the arrival of Islam. They are known as the Middle East’s modernizers, moderators and mediators (including with the West), as Lebanese scholar Habib Malik has written.”

SP: What role should the U.S. play in Syria’s future in your view? 

NS: “The US should play a leading diplomatic role to steady and moderate Syria’s rulers going forward. It should work to obtain the cooperation of our NATO ally in this endeavor. The president should also appoint a Special Envoy to protect Middle Eastern Christians, who are in danger of disappearing.”

SP: What can the Vatican do to support Syria’s Christians and Christians in the region? 

NS: “The Vatican can direct prayers, and aid for the survival of Middle Eastern Christianity. The Holy See can also use its diplomacy with its dialogue partners in the Muslim world, in which it has invested greatly, to ensure security and equal rights of the vulnerable Christian communities.”