The priest would prefer that the ghosts of his community’s violent past are laid to rest. Every family in Maaloula — where Christian and Muslim neighbours were riven by bloodshed — has a deeply personal memory of the civil war: a killing, an abduction, a disappearance; displacement, grief and loss.
In the interests of reconciliation Father Fadi Barkil believes it may be better to forgive and forget.
Yet as word of the latest sectarian violence against the Druze community in Syria spreads, fears for the future keep Maaloula’s ghosts of the past alive.
