His Holiness Serbian Patriarch kyr Porfirije sent a letter of condolences to His Beatitude Patriarch John of Antioch and All the East, which reads:

Your Beatitude, Our dear brother and concelebrant in Christ,

With deep pain and sorrow, We have received the news of the horrific terrorist attack on the Church of Saint Elijah in the ancient and glorious city of Damascus, the See of Your sacred Patriarchate, in which as many as twenty innocent people lost their lives.

On behalf of the Pleroma of the Serbian Orthodox Church and in Our own name, We extend to You and to the families of the victims expressions of sincere condolences over yet another merciless attempt by the forces of evil in the heavenly places to dominate this world by using fallen humanity as an instrument of evil and destruction. This inhuman crime, committed during the time of holy worship, in the house of God – a house of prayer and peace – shakes the entire Body of Christ, for if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it (1 Cor. 12:26). At the same time, in the darkness of this world’s evil and madness, we are strengthened by the faith that the innocent victims are not lost, but have been received into the eternal joy of the Kingdom of God as witnesses of faith, as martyrs of Christ.

In this terrifying torrent of grief, we pray for the repose of the souls of God’s innocent children who perished, while our prayerful gaze remains fixed on the faces of their bereaved families. May Christ console and strengthen their grieving hearts, shine the light of His everlasting Kingdom upon the souls of the departed, and grant them eternal rest.