Last Stronghold of the Language of Jesus
The ancient Christian settlement near Damascus is one of the few places in which Aramaic – the mother tongue of Jesus Christ – is spoken today. Preserved cultural identity and a wealth of religious heritage attract thousands of visitors for whom the pilgrimage to Malula is a journey into the past where biblical stories and historical facts intertwine with each step.
Text & Photo by Svetlana Dingarac
 Abvun dbashmayo, Netkadash sheshšmokh… (Our Father, who art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name…). In the semidarkness of the Church of St. Sergius, a young woman before a group of pilgrims slowly utters the central Christian prayer in the way it was done 2,000 years ago. For lack of understanding, the mysterious words that resemble a mixture of Hebrew and Arabic inexplicably found their way to the hearts of those present, inviting strong emotion. "Many shed tears when they hear the words in which Jesus Himself prayed for the first time", confirmed the local priest Taufik Eik.
 Two millennia ago, Aramaic together with Hebrew constituted the lingua franca throughout the Middle East. In the seventh century, upon the arrival of Arabs to the region, it was suppressed so that it is today spoken in several places only. One of them is Malula, a small Syrian town thought to be one of the oldest Christian settlements in the world. The visit to Malula was part of the accompanying programme to the Silk Road festival, organised over the past several years by the Syrian Tourism Ministry. At the invitation of the Syrian government, some dozen representatives of Serbia’s largest media houses and travel agencies, joined by some 2,000 colleagues from around the world, had the opportunity to get to know the rich cultural and historical heritage of this country. According to many participants, the stay at Malula was the highlight of entire journey.
From Damascus to this little town perched at an altitude of 1,650 metres above sea level on the fringes of the rocky Qalamun Mountains massif took only an hour’s drive. But, this is of late – since a modern road was constructed. For centuries back, owing to its inaccessible position, Malula and its residents were cut off from the rest of the world. As believed, this isolation contributed most to the preservation of the Aramaic language.
 The place itself is captivating with its unusual position and colourful appearance. Simple houses, huddled together, gradually rise upward along the steep cliffs surrounding the green valley from all sides. The domes of a number of churches and several minarets loom over them, as Christians and Moslems, some 4,000 of them, live next to each other and communicate in the same language – Aramaic. An estimated 18,000 Syrians speak Aramaic. Aramaic-speakers are most numerous here in Malula and in two other nearby villages called Bakha and Jubadin. However, the villagers fear that in several decades from now the language they speak will disappear. The ever-present TV in Arabic, which is taught at schools, have resulted in younger generations speaking Aramaic in increasingly fewer numbers despite their parents’ effort for the language to be in continual use in the family.
"I fear that in ten to twenty years, Aramaic will be a dead language", says Elspet, the young woman who works as a tourist guide at the St. Sergius Monastery. "The majority of my peers have moved to Damascus to work or undergo training and are slowly forgetting the language of their ancestors."
 Although many of them return to their native place in the summer, the exodus of young generations to large cities and abroad has assumed worrying proportions. Aware of this problem, the Syrian government recently launched a programme designed to preserve the Aramaic language from dying out. An institute at which this ancient language will be studied from textbooks has been set up at Malula. One of the problems regarding the preservation of Aramaic is the absence of script, which has been forgotten in the course of the centuries, so that the language was passed on from generation to generation only verbally. A contribution in dealing with this problem was offered by a team of German linguists who transcribed the phonetic sounds using Latin script. Apart from that, young married couples are offered housing facilities to remain in Malula, and a programme has been put together under which Aramaic-speaking nuns would raise orphaned children at monasteries. Given this assistance from the government, people say they are yet more determined to keep their language alive. "When we saw foreigners arriving and paying so much attention to our language, we thought the responsibility of learning even more was ours", says Sulayman, a sandwich shop owner. They are all gradually becoming aware that if Aramaic were allowed to die out in the region, not only would Malula lose one of its most attractive characteristics, but a significant portion of the cultural heritage of this country – and even mankind – would irretrievably be lost.
 The stay at Malula was a contact of sorts with the beginnings of Christianity. Religious edifices are everywhere, Orthodox and Catholic, with preserved traces of the distant past. Historical facts mingle with legends, myths and tales. The central character is St. Tekla, a follower of Apostle Paul, whose fate is indelibly rooted into the very foundations of Malula’s history in the early 1st century. She was the daughter of a Roman military commander and brought up in the spirit of paganism. Having heard Apostle Paul’s preaching, she converted to Christianity, contrary to the will of her parents and as such was forced to flee. After much difficulty and running away from the Roman posse, she reached the Qalamun Mountains where her escape was thwarted by a huge rock. She turned to God, the mountain opened and the hunted girl succeeded in eluding her chasers. God answered another of her pleas and provided drinkable water so that she lived for many years preaching the Gospels and healing the sick. St. Tekla was the first woman martyr in Christianity and owing to her miraculous deeds and healings, the rock and the cave where she lived are considered a holy site. A church was built here in the 4th century and the relics of the saint are kept there to this day. Two springs with drinkable water, which the locals residents consider miracle-working and salubrious, are also found here. At one of them, set in a small hollow in the rock, the level of water never changes regardless of how much water one might draw from it. In more recent times, a monasterial complex was built somewhat lower, at the very mouth of the pass through which St. Tekla escaped. The old church and monastery today represent the ultimate goal of pilgrims of both confessions.
 On the hill above Malula is another monastery. It is dedicated to Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, Syrian noblemen who suffered for their faith in Christ at the time of Emperor Maximian. The monastery is believed to date back to the early 4th century because it has a unique semi-circular pagan-type altar such as were banned by a decision of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325. It may be interesting to note that at the monastery souvenir shop we listened to a tape about the history of this place in pure Serbian. Also, only our delegation was allowed to come close and shoot the remains of the first Christian settlements on monastery land, on the very brink of the cliff overhanging Malula.
Finally, while leaving Malula we were confident that the extraordinary beauty of this place, its antiquity and spirituality of the monastery, but above all the self-sacrifice for the faith and preservation of the identity of the local people could scarcely leave anyone indifferent. The Syrian government’s programme to extend backing to the cultural heritage of its population irrespective of religious affiliation is praiseworthy indeed. |
