People Come to Maloula to Listen to the Language of Christ

posted on: Nov 14, 2018

By: Habeeb Salloum/Arab America Contributing Writer

Four times in the past two decades I had travelled to Maloula, one of Syria’s Christian strongholds, but my fascination for this town had not faded with the years.Today, we were again on our way to visit this relic from the past where the language of Christ is still spoken. As had happened during my previous visits, a feeling of anticipation engulfed me and I could hardly wait to walk its streets, converse with the people and explore its legendry religious sites.

Turning off the excellent four-lane Damascus-Aleppo expressway, about 56 km (35 mi) north of Syria’s capital, we made our way through ochre-coloured arid hills.  Passing through the village of Ayn Tin, much of it newly built, we followed the edge of a narrow valley lush with fig, olive and poplar trees overshadowing thriving gardens.  The rich looking canyon contrasted sharply with the surrounding lifeless countryside To a traveller, it appears to be a valley oasis waiting to be overwhelmed by the desert.

At the last bend of the road, Maloula, an Aramaic word meaning entrance, came into view.  The village, cuddled on three sides in a loving embrace by overhanging limestone cliffs, is set on the eastern slopes of the barren Qalamoun Mountains whose high pinnacles are crowned with mitre-like capitals, formed by the blasts of wind and rain.  The houses with their blue, violet, white and yellow frontages are clustered in a chaotic order along ledges and backed into the cliffs. It seemed that the whole town, clinging crazily to the mountainsides, was at the point of being crushed by the seemingly suspended boulders on the higher parts of the encircling heights.

Situated 1,500 m (4,920 ft) above sea level, Maloula, a town of 8,000 literally growing out of the mountain rocks, is a place where history still lives.  Boulders and caverns carved in the rocks all are impregnated with tales, written in the past. From the time of the Aramaeans to the Roman era when the town was called Seliocopolis; to the time of the Byzantines and later the Arabs when it became an important Christian religious centre, it has been in the limelight of history.

We drove through the heart of the village then up a steep natural ravine edged by homes clinging to the rocks like falcon nests sprouting out of lofty crags.  Past the caves, inhabited as far back as the pre-historic era, we parked our auto by the new luxury Safir Hotel, perched on the highest ledge above the town.  From its edge, we had a wonderful view of the village below before we walked next door to the Greek Catholic Monastery of Mar Sarkis – named after Sarkis, one of the Syrian horsemen in the service of the Romans who fell in 297 A.D. and later became a saint.

We entered this historic monastery, erected about 300 A.D. on the site of a pagan temple, through a four-foot-high door, built to humble the monks and as a defence against invaders.  Inside, a learned and pleasant priest took us for a tour of the building. He spoke with pride of his church, claiming that it is erected on the spot where the first house of worship in Christendom was built.  In the chapel, he directed our attention to one of the original stone altars in the Christian world – a modified version of an earlier pagan sacrificial slab. As a treat, after the tour, we sat down and listened to the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic – a recording especially made for tourists.

It felt strange to hear this tongue, spoken by most of the Middle Eastern people from the first century B.C. to the 7th century A.D.  A close relative of Arabic, it was the language of Christ, but fell into oblivion hundreds of years ago. Only the residents of Maloula and the two adjoining villages of Bakh`a and Jub`adin still speak Aramaic, but very few know it as a written idiom.  However, all this is to change. The Syrian government has established an Aramaic Language Academy in Maloula to revive Aramaic as a living language.  This, no doubt will guarantee that visitors will be able to come and listen to the language of Christ for many years to come.

We took a break from touring to have a Syrian-sandwich lunch in a family-owned restaurant near the monastery .  The waiters were friendly and smiled when I asked them to speak in Aramaic. They were happy to comply. Apparently, out of curiosity, many tourists ask them to say a few words in the tongue spoken by Christ.

Sated, we drove back to the centre of town then took a road to the right until we reached a terrace halfway up the slope on the northern face of the mountain.  Here, partially built into a cave is an imposing Greek Orthodox Convent, erected in the 1st century A.D. Considered the oldest nunnery in the world, it holds the remains of Saint Takla, after whom the historic convent was named.

One of the earliest saints in Christianity, Saint Takla was converted by Saint Paul and became one of his pupils.  When her pagan father, one of the Selucid princes, heard of her conversion he became furious and sent his soldiers to kill her.  Fleeing from his wrath, she reached the site where Maloula now stands.  Finding a high mountain standing in her path she raised her hands and prayed with passion as the soldiers closed in.  The mountain split at once and she passed safely to hide in one of the caves. The residents point to a narrow chasm in the mountain, near the convent, as proof of this legend.

Testing the legend, we walked through the fissure in the rock but it appeared to me to be a natural split.  As we leisurely strolled through the chasm my daughter remarked, “I guess one must believe to understand the legend.”

Through the centuries, the nunnery has had parts haphazardly added until it has become a rambling type structure.  Its most interesting part is the grotto where the water dripping from its rocky ceiling into a trough is said to possess miraculous power.  A good number of pilgrims, believing it will cure all ailments, drink the water from a cup attached to a chain to the trough. Not only Christian but Muslim pilgrims also come in the thousands to sip this water, make offerings and gain the blessings of Saint Takla.

As we drove away, I looked back at the town with its houses towering above each other, seemly ready to tumble into the valley below.  The scene gave me an impression of an improbable Garden of Delight encircled by the austerity of the landscape.  Making our way through the bare hills, I thought how true were the words of a traveller who wrote: “In Maloula, one enters an enchanted world of magic and legends that soon overwhelm the world of reality.”