ROC and Vatican plan to join efforts in helping Syrian children

Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church are planning to develop joint projects to help Syria, reports Interfax-Religion. Within the framework of a humanitarian mission sent to Syria on December 18, humanitarian aid and children's Christmas presents to Russian-Syrian families that lost their breadwinners in the war will be delivered.

"We are planning to hold joint humanitarian actions aimed at helping Syrian children and destroyed shrines," said DECR’s secretary for Inter-Christian Relations Hieromonk Stefan (Igumnov).

Along with this, in the foreseeable future additional meetings with the participation of the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches will be held in Lebanon and Syria, which once again will bring together representatives of different faiths in order to coordinate actions aimed at helping the victims.

In October, another humanitarian project of the two Churches was held. In all the cities of Syria a rally "Peace to Children" was organized, in which schoolchildren prepared an appeal and drawings urging the international community to stop the war in the country. The three heads of the Syrian Churches (Antioch, the Syriac-Jacobite and Melkite) handed children’s messages over to the EU leadership and the United Nations High Commissioner.