On Christmas Day, Michel Butros al-Jisri, one of the last Christians in the Syrian city of Idlib, didn’t attend services, because the Islamic rebels who control the area had long since locked up the church. The past decade has been particularly brutal as the upheavals have left Christians in parts of Iraq, Syria and beyond under the control of Islamic militants. He was born in 1931 in Idlib, a city surrounded by olive groves and farmland in northwestern Syria, one of four children, he said. Syrian Christians pray during a Good Friday service at St. Paul’s Franciscan Church and Monastery in Damascus, Syria, March 29, 2013. | ANDREA BRUCE / THE NEW YORK TIMESIn 2015, Islamic rebels stormed the city of Idlib.

Source: New York Times January 24, 2022 14:18 UTC