A new ecumenical committee formed to follow up on Beirut's appeal:

MECC and its member churches working together for the relief and reconstruction of the stricken capital

At the invitation of the Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC), Dr. Souraya Bechealany and with the blessings of the heads of the member churches and the metropolitans of Beirut's dioceses, the Beirut Appeal’s Ecumenical Committee held its first meeting in order to organize and coordinate the humanitarian and relief work between the Council and the churches in Beirut and follow up on the disaster relief operation targeting the biggest number possible of people affected by the Beirut blast.

This committee is composed of a team from the Middle East Council of Churches, Reverend Philbert Van Saint from Kirk in Actie in the Netherlands who is an advisor to the committee, and representatives of the member churches in Beirut; including the Armenian Orthodox Patriarchate, the Armenian Catholic Patriarchate, the Maronite Archdiocese of Beirut, the Syriac Orthodox Eparchy of Beirut, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Beirut, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Beirut, the Syriac Catholic Eparchy of Beirut, the Greek Catholic Archdiocese of Beirut and the Union of the Armenian Evangelical Churches in the Near East.

During this meeting, Father Gaby Hachem, Director of the MECC Theological and Ecumenical Department (TED), who was representing Dr. Bechealany, gave a welcome speech in which he referred to the icon of ecumenical unity that is reflected through this common humanitarian work. He emphasized the council’s disaster relief appeal and the necessity to reveal the truth behind this disaster. Through the first part of the meeting, Mr. Samer Laham, Director of the Diakonia Department, explained the activities carried out by the Diakonia Department within the framework of this appeal, such as distributing in-kind donations, cleaning the rubble, restoring homes, schools, and several work centers.

On the other hand, during the second part of the event the participants presented the initiatives launched by their churches to help the injured families and provided an assessment of the damages to public and private properties. Father Gaby Hachem also talked about the Trauma Healing and Spiritual guidance programs which will be organized by the TED in Beirut, in order to provide distressed people with spiritual and psychological support.

At the end of the meeting, the participants agreed on several decisions and the most important for the council to send a standardized questionnaire form to the churches in Beirut in order to know their needs and priorities. It was also agreed upon that the churches would be informed periodically about the aid received by the Council in order to coordinate its distribution to the beneficiary families, provided that the committee meets every fifteen days.