By Fr. Paolo Dall'Oglio

Translation from Arabic

Easter comes after a year of untold suffering, unpredictable and unimaginable for most of us. Unfortunately, what we wrote on the same occasion a year ago still applies to the current situation of our unhappy country. At that time, we had expressed our solidarity with the victims of the conflict and our participation in the expectation of those who were hoping for a deep reform of Syria without falling into the logic of violence, and fearing the explosion of civil war and loss of national unity. Misfortune has reached us and we fear the worst.

The 18^th of July 2011

Very dear friends,

In this letter we ask, by increasing importance, for money, commitment and prayer.

Let’s describe the whole situation, first.

“المسيح عيسى ابن مريم اغفر لي أنا الخاطىء وارحمنا”

“Christ, Isa Son of Mary, forgive me, the sinner, and have mercy on us”

The Prayer of the Heart, also known as the Prayer of the Name of Jesus, can be traced back to the early Christian communities. According to St. Paul, we should “pray without ceasing” (Thessalonians 5: 17).

My comments presented here are based upon the reflections given by the Monastic Community of Deir Mar Musa el-Habashi in Syria to the Lineamentaprepared for Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East, which I consider still to be important, even after publication of theInstrumentum Laboris, I present them here, together with the text I wrote on the basis of my impressions of the latter, after our discussions in London. I would wish to stress here that the Lineamenta and the Instrumentum Laboris are both full of interesting insights. However, our role here is not simply to reiterate them, but rather to state what we think is either missing or insufficiently emphasised. Our approach is always intended to be constructive, even when critiquing the documents.

Alliance of Civilizations High-Level Symposium, Auckland 24^th of May 2007

Paolo Dall’Oglio

Considering the fact that the members of this High Level Group are outstanding and known representatives of academic and political worlds, I had to address a question to myself: What can it mean, this invitation to the leader of a very local experience in Syria, the leader of something still not 'fixed' either ecclesiastically or socially, committed nonetheless to Christian/Islamic harmony building, in the desert mountains of Syria, to the mission of the Alliance of Civilizations?

Interview with Father Paolo Dall’Oglio, winner of the 2006 Euro-Mediterranean Award for Dialogue on ‘Mutual respect amongst people of different religions or any other belief’ for the Deir Mar Musa Monastery, Syria’: questions Dr. Traugott Schoefthaler(TS), Executive Director of the Anna Lindh Foundation.