Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rahi stressed on Sunday that "war and weapons only generate destruction, killing innocent victims, displacing a safe people, creating wounded and disabled people, destroying achievements, impoverishing citizens, sowing terror in the hearts of children, widening the area of hunger, and destroying the harvest of life."

"With what authority do warlords who command it from their thrones while they are safe from its scourge?", Patriarch Rahi asked.

Rahi, whose fresh words came in a sermon today in Bkerke, indicated that “we pray that the war stops, as a mercy to the innocent, an end to destruction, killing and displacement, and a cooling of anger and hatred, and for the two sides to sit down to resolve the conflict between them peacefully.”

Rahi denounced what is happening in Ukraine, stressing that “the concept of neutrality, especially in the human dimension that we are defending, is not devoid of heart, feeling and conscience, and does not conflict with human rights or the right of peoples to self-determination, and does not contradict international laws.”