Rai wraps Turkey trip

Lebanese Patriarch Bechara Rai concluded his Turkey trip on Saturday with a visit to the Monastery of Saint Simeon the Stylite in Antioch where Rai and a number of believers held prayers.         

He was accompanied by Father Domingo Bertogli, a priest in the Catholic Church of Antioch and later taken to St Paul’s Port.          

Commenting on the visit, Father Bertogli said that it was both necessary and pleasant as it introduced the Maronite Patriarch to Christian origins in Turkey.

Upon arriving to Beirut, Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai stressed that institutional departments and roads are public properties that should not be subject to seizure by any group.

“It is not normal to allow road blocks to continue seemingly since the perpetrators undermine the state and military authorities,” he stressed.

Rai called for the return to Charter 43 which stipulates the state’s intolerance to political deviation.   
              
Rai’s tour lasted 3 days, and he visited various cities such as Adana, Iskenderun, Mersin, Perseus and Antioch. Days earlier he headed a celebratory mass in Antioch at the Grotto of Saints Peter and Paul. He also raised stances against war and called instead for constructive dialogue between nations and religions.