Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch and All the East Gregorios III Laham called on Muslims and Christians in the Arab world to unify efforts in facing Takfiri thoughts.

Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch and All the East Gregorios III Laham called on Muslims and Christians in the Arab world to unify efforts in facing Takfiri thoughts.

At a forum organized at on Saturday evening on rapprochement between Muslims and Christians, Patriarch Laham said the Zionist occupation is the source of problems where it destabilized the region and made the Arab Palestinian people homeless.

The forum organized at Al-Assad Library, was under the title “ A message from an Arab Christian Patriarch to his Muslim brothers all over the world."

The Patriarch said he forwarded his message to the Muslims, particularly in the Arab world, because the dangerous situation of the region where the Takfiri movements brought destruction to our homelands especially to Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya.

Co-existence is threatened by immigration caused by wars and crises basically resulted from the Arab Israeli struggle and its repercussions of extremism, fundamentalism, violence, terrorism and hostilities within societies, Patriarch Laham said, according to SANA news agency.

He called upon Muslims and Christians of the Arab East to be in the same front facing the danger of the Takfiri terrorism.

Minister of Religious Endowments Mohammad Abdul-Sattar Al-Sayed affirmed that Syria is the cradle of civilization, where mosques are next to churches.

Syria represents the true Islam, the minister said, stressing the importance of differentiating between true Islam and the extremist Wahabi Islam.

For his part,, Syria’s Grand Mufti Ahmad Bader-Eddin Hassoun called upon the westerners, who pretend to be protecting Christians, to tell what the population of Christians was in Bait Lahem in 1967 compared to population of today, affirming that it was about 62 thousands then while it is now only 7 thousands which means that “Europe had to work on returning al-Quds (Jerusalem) to its real owners”.

In turn, Father Mikhael Finenger read the message of Cardinal Jean Loui Touran, the President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue to the forum where he pointed to the role of religion relations committee with Islam which was found by Pop Pol VI.