ABDUCTED BY BANDITS AND FORGOTTEN BY THE WORLD: THE STORY OF FR MICHAEL KAYAL
Aleteia
April 16 2013
Carly Andrews
Kidnapped, lost and forgotten: On the 9th of February 2013,
27-year-old Father Michael Kayal from Aleppo, Syria, was abducted
by Islamic extremist rebels. Two months later he is still missing,
yet the world remains silent.
Monsignor Georges Dankaye, Rector of the Armenian College, Rome, and
Procurator of the Armenian Catholic Church under the Holy See, reveals
to us the facts about the kidnapping of Fr. Michael and about the
terrible reality in which Syrian Christians are living. This reality
is one of bloodshed, torture and inhumanity at an unthinkable level.
“Fr. Michael was my student in seminary for two years in Aleppo. He
was very kind and intelligent,” recounts Dankaye, smiling sorrowfully.
“He loved sport and music, and to sing, especially liturgical songs.
He was always ready to help.”
The two were also over a year together in the Armenian College in Rome,
where Michael studied Canon Law at the Pontifical Oriental Institute,
after which he was ordained a priest on the 2nd of November 2011.
By the time Fr. Michael returned to Syria, the uprising had already
begun and violence swept through the land, making every movement one
of uncertainty for the young priest. But his “spirit, enthusiasm and
zeal” captured the hearts of both his parish priest and parishioners.
As the situation worsened, and refugees flooded in from the peripheries
of Aleppo, Fr. Michael along with three other young priests started
up a mission with the migrants. “They went every day to the schools
where the Muslim families were taking refuge and took them food to
eat, providing both lunch and dinner, and then they brought other aid,
and doctors as well.”
It seems that Fr. Michael was walking in the steps of the saints –
a man of servitude and compassion: “I remember one of his phone calls
to me; he said, ‘what I can always do is serve, and nothing can be
greater than this,” recalls Dankaye.
On the 9th of February, Fr. Michael set out from Aleppo. He was
scheduled to visit Rome, stopping first in a small city on the way to
Beirut before arriving in Italy on the 12th of February. He had not
long been travelling when at one of the many blockades that plague
the Syrian roads a band of rebels stormed the bus. “There were three
priests aboard, two in clerics and one Salesian dressed in plain
clothes. They saw the two priests dressed in clerics and made them
get down; to the third they said nothing.”
“Half an hour later they had phoned his brother, saying, ‘we’ll be in
contact soon to come to an agreement.'” Dankaye continues, “From that
moment on the only contact was with his brother, never with the Church
itself; then his brother spoke to the bishop … and it seems that the
bishop informed the government.” Fr. Michael’s family revealed that
they made a request for one million Syrian lire and for the liberation
of 15 prisoners. However, after having asked the group which prisoners
they wanted releasing, the terrorists renounced the request, asking
only for the money. “This makes us think that it is a small armed group
rather than the Syrian Liberation Front … because the liberation of
15 prisoners would be considered as a good offer.” He explains that
“there are about 2000 of these little groups. They don’t organise or
coordinate among one another; each group has their own objectives,
their own ideals.” Their disorganisation became apparent when, after
the family had agreed to pay the ransom, the group made no further
attempt at claiming the ransom money.
So what is the situation now for Fr. Michael? Is he still alive?
Dankaye states that “the only information we have is from one phone
call on the 20th of February; they let him talk to his mother for less
than half a minute, where he said, ‘Mum, I’m OK, but pray for me.’
Then from that date on, there has been no more contact. We don’t know
anything. It remains a mystery.”
In reference to what the Church is doing to resolve the issue, sadly
Dankaye tells us that for now, “they cannot do anything for Fr.
Michael without any contact from him or his kidnappers.” Indeed,
silence cannot be negotiated with. So where does this leave the young
priest? The harsh reality of the situation is that the future of Fr.
Michael does not appear to be hopeful.
Are we witnessing, then, a blatant and merciless persecution of the
Christian Church in Syria? The answer, of course, is yes. But the
situation is complex; Dankaye explains that “at the beginning of the
uprising, the opposition said they wanted to preserve the Christian
community. They said, ‘don’t be afraid to go against this system;
we will treat you well,’ but obviously, they didn’t get the positive
reply that they were expecting.” According to Dankaye, the opposition
expected the Christian community to take arms and join their rebellion,
“but this Christian community in Syria are not a community that knows
how to use arms or enter into war,” he exclaims. “They are normal
citizens that love their country, and so it’s difficult for them
to take up arms against anyone … So they weren’t involved in the
manifestations nor in the bearing of arms, and this angered them.”
The result now is that they are not offering any security to the
Christian community, “they no longer say ‘we’ll treat you well,'”
Dankaye states, as he echo’s the voice of the opposition. “They say,
‘we’ll take vengeance on you. You Christians didn’t enter into the
war, you didn’t join the opposition, and now you have to pay for it;
this is your choice.” This is an attack of revenge rather than a
specifically religious persecution. Dankaye does, however, refer to
other groups such as the “Jihadists and Nasrats, where we can clearly
talk of religious persecution.” He also mentions the Alawites, and
says “that a good part of the Sunnis are also pro-government and they
commit massacres.”
When asked if he saw a way towards peace, Dankaye answered with the
heartbreaking reply: “Tragically, I don’t see it.” He refers to the
“political pride” of the regimes, which “won’t let it ever go back,”
and “even if they wanted to stop it now, they couldn’t, because the
initiative is no longer in their hands.” He continues, “Unfortunately,
I have to say that the very worst that exists in man has been awoken,
and now it’s out of control, and no one can stop it.”
At these piercing words, the soul shudders to think of the fate of the
Armenian Catholics in Syria. “The Christian community doesn’t have any
way out; it’s surrounded,” exclaims Dankaye, “it is preparing itself
for martyrdom … we don’t want it, we don’t hope for it; we fear it,
but that’s how it is.” He remembers the haunting words of his father
two weeks earlier: “He told me, ‘if you hear of our deaths, do not
come to our funeral; we would not take you with us.'”
Dankaye also shares a message that he received from a friend a few days
ago, which epitomises the shocking gravity of the situation for Syrian
Christians: “The wolf kills those pups that can’t manage by themselves
so that they are not eaten alive by the rats and ants. It’s an act of
mercy. Don’t judge my words too harshly. Talk with your parents. It’s
so that those animals don’t get to them first.” When parents are
driven to thoughts of ending the lives of their children, one can only
imagine the atrocities that await them a few paces outside their doors.
To the final question as to what Christians round the world could do,
his reply was: pray. “Remain always in prayer. It is also a moment that
our Lord lived in Gethsemane. There is the temptation to escape, or to
cry out to the Lord, ‘save us!’ But then, if it is his will, we have
to be ready, as the martyrs were, to face death in faithfulness …
it is thus in prayer that we remain welded in faith and strong in
hope, and moreover, until the last moment, we remain in love, even
in the face of those who know not what they do.”
We thus call out to all Christians of the world: Pray for Fr.
Michael; pray for Syria, a bloodstained land ravaged by an inexorable
surge of evil; pray for the tortured and mutilated men, the violated
women and girls, the persecuted Christians; pray for the lost ones
committing these unthinkable atrocities, and most of all pray that
the world rouses from its silence, and runs to the aid of its brothers
and sisters.
Lastly we cry out a desperate appeal to the humanity of Fr. Michael’s
kidnappers: Let him home. Please, let Fr. Michael Kayal home.
http://www.aleteia.org/en/world/news/abducted-by-bandits-and-forgotten-by-the-world-967001