Syria’s Maaloula: “Fajr” removes the dust of war to welcome tourists – our lives

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Maintenance workshops in the ancient town of Maaloula in the countryside of Damascus are busy rehabilitating Mar Takla “Faj”, the most prominent Christian pilgrimage site there, in the hope of attracting visitors and tourists again, after it was damaged and neglected during the years of war.

Maaloula, known for its ancient churches and monuments, and its caves dug in the rock, is located in the mountainous Qalamoun region on a strategic road linking Lebanon with Damascus. Narrow between the two ends of a tall mountain.

The legend says that Saint Thecla, a young Syrian woman who converted to Christianity in 67, fled from her father to this mountain, which suddenly split open to open a way for her.

The residents of Maaloula hope to complete the maintenance process before the Assumption of the Virgin Mary on August 15, which constitutes an annual date for hundreds of visitors who go to the town’s landmarks for pilgrimage and blessings, after thousands visited before the outbreak of the conflict during this period, especially from neighboring Lebanon.

Yehia (29 years old), one of the town’s volunteer workers in the maintenance workshops, wipes with a wet cloth the drawings and writings painted on one of the walls of “Al-Faj” and says, as sweat pours down his forehead, “We will make it more beautiful than it was.”

In the vicinity of it, a number of workers are parked in the shadow of the mountain, after they finished the process of peeling the floor to level it and paving it with old stones from inside Maaloula. After a break, during which they sip tea, Yahya and his colleagues try to lift a large stone, which probably fell from the top of the mountain, and then they begin to collect a pile of stones, with simple tools, in preparation for transporting them to a square that has turned into a mound of backfill and gravel.

The 500-meter-long corridor, with a height of between 50 and 100 meters, and a width of between two and 10 meters, connects two ancient churches in the city, and hardly a visitor comes to Maaloula without passing through it, to inspect its towering height, and take souvenir photos for himself.

The Damascus Countryside Governorate is supervising the rehabilitation process, which is supposed to be completed within a month. “Al-Faj is one of the most prominent features of Maaloula,” Ibrahim al-Shaer, the mayor of Maaloula, told AFP …

This article was originally published on Saudi 24 News website. Please click here to read the full text.