Christians in Syria took to the streets to show their defiance against the Islamists who have overrun Syria, after the terrorists destroyed a Christmas tree and there was a shooting outside of a church. The Christians cry out: “We are your soldiers, Jesus!” “With blood and soul, we sacrifice for Jesus!” and “two solutions, our cross and the rifle.” As we read in Reuters:

Syrian Christians attended Christmas Eve services on Tuesday for the first time since the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad in early December, in an early test of the new Islamist rulers’ pledges to protect the rights of the country’s religious minorities.

The service was held amid tight security due to concerns of violence against Christian sites, with several pickup cars belonging to the now ruling Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) parked around the church.
The pews of Lady of Damascus Church in Syria’s capital filled with a mixed congregation of young and old, holding candles as hymns filled the air and echoed through the church.

Hours before the service, hundreds of protesters in Damascus had gathered to denounce an incident in which a Christmas tree was burned in the northern countryside of Hama governorate in western-central Syria.
Carrying wooden crosses, they chanted “We are your soldiers, Jesus”, “With blood and soul, we sacrifice for Jesus,” and “The Syrian people are one.”

And as we read in the Washington Post:

On Dec. 18, shots were fired at a church in Hama by unidentified gunman, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights. These, along with other unconfirmed reports of violence, are only increasing anxiety. On Monday, a Christmas tree was burned down in Hama. In a video, a local HTS official standing next to clergymen vowed to punish the perpetrators, whom he said were not Syrian, and that the tree would be replaced.

But this did little to quell anger in Damascus, as hundreds of demonstrators carrying a large wooden crosses descended onto the streets to express their outrage, chanting “we are not a minority, we are the original people” and calling on church leaders to “wake up.”

The march, which lasted hours, concluded after church leaders agreed to meet with protesters inside the historic Greek Orthodox Mariamite Cathedral. There, a heated exchange took place with Bishop Romanos al-Hannat, as parishioners shared the distressing news they’ve been hearing from different parts of Syria. Many shouted that they would leave the country if the government didn’t guarantee their safety.

Aphrem, the Syriac patriarch, said that a committee of churches had met with the transitional government and had been given assurances. But he said that more action was needed to ensure no more violations take place and that the rights of the community “should be enshrined in the new constitution.”

On Christmas Eve, under heavy police presence, a similar protest took place, with demonstrators going from church to church demanding that bells be rung and shouting more incendiary chants, one saying “two solutions, our cross and the rifle.”

The organizer of both marches, Daniel, who spoke on the condition that only his first name be used for security reasons, said protesters were calling for the protection of all Syrians. “We’re tired. It’s been almost 15 years. We’re going to protest every day until they give us protection,” he said, adding that the group was joined by many Muslims.