(OSV News) -- As fighting between Israel and Hezbollah continues and Lebanon's economic crisis deepens, many Christians in the land of cedars no longer believe they have a future in the region. Catholic aid workers warn that entire communities risk disappearing from the Middle East.
Father Jan Zelazny, director of the Polish section of the pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need, met Christian communities as he traveled through Lebanon and Syria at the end of May. The priest said local families are struggling not only to survive the crisis, but "to truly live," feeling trapped in a war they don't identify with and did not want -- suffering its consequences every day.
The priest has spent years working at the intersection of scholarship, pastoral care and humanitarian aid for Middle Eastern Christians. But travelling through Lebanon and Syria he felt for himself violence between Israel and Hezbollah continues to destabilize southern Lebanon and deepen fears among Christian communities. "Yesterday we had drones above us," he said. "Today there were attacks in Lebanon by Israel against Hezbollah."
On May 25, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that military operations -- started as part of the Iran war at the beginning of March -- would intensify, claiming Hezbollah was not respecting the ceasefire.
He said Israel's military was not taking its "foot off the gas. On the contrary, I said to step on ?the gas even more," Reuters reported.
The result, Father Zelazny said, is growing pressure on villages near the southern border. "In some places, only small Christian towns remain," he said. "The Muslims left those areas. There are tunnels where Hezbollah fighters hide. The Christians stay and live in a kind of constant siege." Many refuse to leave, fearing that departure would mean permanent exile. "They say that if they leave, they will never return," Father Zelazny told OSV News.
Church aid reaches some of the isolated villages through Catholic networks coordinated by Caritas and the apostolic nunciature in Beirut. ACN's director mentioned three communities in particular -- Debel, Ain Ebel and Rmeich -- where humanitarian assistance continues despite mounting insecurity.
But the priest said the crisis is measured not only in destroyed buildings, but in ordinary lives abruptly broken apart. He described meeting a family displaced from the region near Cana in southern Lebanon. The father had worked for years in telecommunications before deciding to return to his hometown because of family illnesses. He sold everything, bought a small shop and started over.
"The shop had even begun to make a profit," Father Zelazny told OSV News. "Nine months later, instead of a shop there is one huge ruin." Now two families share an unfurnished apartment with four girls, a small boy and an elderly aunt. "They practically have nothing," he said. "Garden chairs and mattresses on the floor are the main furniture they own."
For many Lebanese Christians, the future has narrowed into questions of survival.
Yet Father Zelazny said the deeper danger is despair -- especially among the young.
"The most painful thing is that when you speak to young people, they ask only about getting a visa," he said. "They do not see a future for themselves in this country."
The summer holiday season has already begun in Lebanon, but for many children and teenagers, ongoing insecurity, airstrikes and economic collapse leave little freedom to enjoy it. Many spend most of their days indoors, with few safe places to go. "What are young people supposed to do?" Father Zelazny asked. "They sit at home, maybe go visit friends. Is it surprising that they think only about leaving?"
Church groups are trying to create alternatives. He pointed to youth projects run by Franciscans and supported by Catholic charities, including recreational centers where children can play sports, swim or simply spend time safely together.
Father Zelazny said Christians in the region need help "not only to stay alive, but to have a life."
They want "a future, a normal life," he told OSV News.
That's why many of ACN's projects in Lebanon focus not on direct handouts, but on helping people earn income with dignity. During his trip, Father Zelazny visited artisans who create devotional items from cedar wood. Because Lebanon's cedar trees are protected, craftsmen use only carefully regulated branches gathered from maintenance pruning.
Traveling through Lebanon's cedar region that gave the country its national symbol, Father Zelazny met a number of Christian artisans supported by ACN.
"Right now we are driving to people who prepare things for us that we later sell, so that we can help Christians who, because there are absolutely no tourists, simply have no way to survive," Father Zelazny told OSV News by phone May 27 from Lebanon. Local Christians producing rosaries, cedar wood carvings and small religious souvenirs were abruptly cut off from this source of income when tourists disappeared from Lebanon as fighting began in March.
In another initiative near a major Lebanese academic hub, Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Syrian students and refugees work with a Syriac Catholic priest who is also an artist. They create mosaics from stones imported from all over the world. "One icon can provide them with dignified support for even a month," Father Zelazny said. "Why simply give money if they can work? They do not want charity. They want independence."
That same logic guided a recent project with Greek Catholic sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, sheltering displaced families in their monastery in Harissa. The convent had originally been designed as a retreat house. Then war arrived.
"The sisters took in 14 families -- 41 people," Father Zelazny told OSV News. "They shared not only a roof, but also their garden and their food." One of the greatest ongoing challenges became electricity.
Lebanon's national power grid functions only intermittently, forcing many residents to rely on expensive fuel-powered generators. "The sisters could not afford the fuel costs anymore," he said. ACN approved funding for expanded solar panels.
"In Lebanon there are almost 300 sunny days a year," Father Zelazny said. "It is better to invest once in solar energy than constantly spend money on fuel." The panels now allow the convent to function despite overcrowding and economic collapse. Even if the displaced families eventually leave, the infrastructure will remain for the local Church.
The priest repeatedly returned to one theme: Christians in Lebanon often feel trapped inside a conflict that is not theirs. "In the war between Israel and Hezbollah, they became like millstones caught in between," he said. "It is not their war, but they are its victims."
"There is fatigue," Father Zelazny told OSV News. "But there is also something deeper. Before our eyes, the world of values has collapsed. International law no longer functions in practice."
He spoke emotionally about watching the slow unraveling of a country he loves. "Lebanon showed to the world that people from different cultures and religions could live together," he said. "And now this is being destroyed."
Yet amid the destruction, he said faith remains strikingly visible. Pilgrims continue to gather at the shrine of St. Charbel Makhlouf and at Lebanon's Marian sanctuary of Our Lady of Lebanon in Harissa, while churches remain full despite the ongoing instability. Father Zelazny said he witnessed the same determination among Christians in Syrian cities of Aleppo and Homs. "Those who remain endure because they believe," Father Zelazny said. "Without faith, this cannot be survived."
Their needs, Father Zelazny said, are often painfully basic. In Debel, residents lack reliable access to water because damaged infrastructure no longer works properly. Local communities also struggle with garbage removal and clearing rubble from destroyed buildings amid ongoing restrictions and insecurity.
"They have very simple dreams," Father Zelazny said. "Dreams for one or two days ahead."
"When aid workers arrived, the first question the children asked was whether they had chocolate," he said. Later, volunteers returned with large quantities of candy. "The joy of the children was enormous," Father Zelazny said.
"I know someone may think this is small," he added. "But our whole reality is built from small things. And the fact that they dream about such small things shows the scale of the humanitarian tragedy there."
