By Bob Michael
LAPD Police Detective Capt. (Ret)

How unlikely is it for a bronze statue of Jesus to be made in Armenia, be sent to Lebanon, and then travel into Syria and past Damascus to a mount called Saidnaya, all during the Syrian war? For man it would be nearly impossible; for God it is no problem.

Mount Saidnaya at sunset.

I found an article in the Boise, Idaho Statesman newspaper (the first time I have read my state’s largest newspaper). With all that has been presented in the secular media and on Walid’s site about the atrocities and fighting in Syria, I found this story powerful and uplifting:

In the midst of a conflict rife with sectarianism, a giant bronze statue of Jesus has gone up on a Syrian mountain, apparently under cover of a truce among three factions in the country’s civil war.

Jesus stands, arms outstretched, on the Cherubim mountain, overlooking a route pilgrims took from Constantinople to Jerusalem in ancient times. The statue is 12.3 meters (40 feet) tall and stands on a base that brings its height to 32 meters (105 feet), organizers of the project estimate.

That the statue made it to Syria and went up without incident on Oct. 14 is remarkable. The project took eight years and was set back by the civil war that followed the March 2011 uprising against President Bashar Assad.

Christians and other minorities are all targets in the conflict, and the statue’s safety is by no means guaranteed. It stands among villages where some fighters, linked to al-Qaida, have little sympathy for Christians.

This mount, also known as Mount Cherubim, is an ancient Christian site. This new statue addition to the remaining sanctuaries and covenants of early times, is 40 feet high but rises to approximately 105 feet when placed upon its base.

And who was most prominent in pushing the project? Those damned Russians (I am being facetious).

Here is an article which expands on Saidnaya and the Syrian war, and who the players are. Stories of this region tie in with an earlier story of Maaloula; also an ancient village with Aramaic speakers still living there and having suffered attack by Muslims.