A suicide attack during Sunday worship at a Greek Orthodox church in Damascus has killed at least 30 people, marking one of the deadliest assaults on Syria’s Christian community in recent years.
The bombing took place on 22 June in the Dweilaa district of the Syrian capital, at the Mar Elias (St Elias) Church. According to the Syrian Interior Ministry, an armed man entered the church, opened fire with a Kalashnikov rifle, and detonated a suicide vest, causing mass casualties among congregants.
The attacker was reportedly affiliated with the Islamic State (ISIS) group, though this claim has not been independently verified. Witnesses and local media described scenes of panic and destruction inside the church, which is one of the main centres for the Greek Orthodox community in Damascus.
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The incident has drawn widespread condemnation. The co-chair of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party, Tülay Hatimoğulları, said: “We strongly condemn the attack on Mar Elias Church in Damascus. The perpetrators must be identified, and we must all recognise the danger posed by authoritarian and sectarian policies that encourage such violence.”
In Kurdish-led North and East Syria, 33 political parties and organisations released a joint statement accusing the Damascus government of endangering the nation’s security. “This cowardly attack violates the sanctity of religious sites and all principles of peaceful coexistence,” the statement read. “It is a resumption of the atrocities committed against civilians in Syria’s coastal regions in March 2025.”
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) also issued a statement vowing to intensify their efforts against extremist violence, calling the bombing “a threat to the shared future of Syria’s diverse communities”.
Our Syrian Democratic Forces Condemn Terrorist Attack in Damascus
The General Command of our Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) strongly condemns the cowardly terrorist attack that targeted worshippers at St. Elias Church in the Dweila neighborhood of Damascus. We extend our deepest… https://t.co/u41JCqwGbv
— Syrian Democratic Forces (@SDF_Syria) June 22, 2025
The Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria described the assault as an attempt to incite fear and division. In its statement, it urged Syrian and international actors to “assume responsibility in the fight against terror and to build a pluralistic and just Syria.”
Concerns were also raised by international observers over possible interference with the crime scene. Some activists claimed that security forces linked to the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group arrived at the church shortly after the explosion, calling for an independent investigation supported by international human rights organisations.
The attack on Mar Elias Church is part of a broader pattern of violence that has increasingly targeted religious and ethnic minorities in Syria, raising fears of renewed sectarian tensions.
