Gebran Tueni Remembered

The Greek Orthodox Bishop for Beirut Elias Aoudeh commemorated the second anniversary of MP Gebran Tueni”s assassination by criticizing those who kill the nation so they can live.

 

“Someone sacrifices his life and dies for his homeland, and someone kills his homeland so he can live,” Aoudeh said in a memorial sermon at Beirut”s Saint Demetrius Church.

 

“Gebran and all the martyrs who fell before him and after him died so that Lebanon can survive,” he noted.

However, “we kill them daily, over and over, not only because we are not faithful to our homeland, its dignity, pride and independence, but also because … because we place the ego, ambitions and all that is related to us, and to others probably, on top of the homeland and its interests,” Aoudeh stressed.

 

“Don”t you hear Gebran”s soul asking and rebuking: what have you done to the homeland that I had loved to death? Why do you sacrifice the youth who had been the hope of my life? … why don”t you resist this disintegration and this split though I had taught you to safeguard, together, the one homeland?,” Aoudeh asked.

 

He recalled a famous oath made by The slain Tueni during a March 14 massive rally in downtown Beirut pledging to “remain united in defense of the great Lebanon.”

 

“Gebran”s soul continues to call upon you as his voice had echoed,” The outspoken clergy said.