Simon Zakerian – MOR | 12.03.2025

The Middle East Salesian Institute, named after “Jesus the Adolescent” (MOR), was canonically erected on 20 January 1902, following a request to the Holy See by the Rector Major, Blessed Michael Rua. Barely ten years had passed since the arrival of the first Salesians in the Holy Land: in fact, they arrived there in three stages in 1891: 15 June, 8 September and 29 December. The soil, however, had been well prepared by Fr Antonio Belloni, founder of the Orphanage in Bethlehem and of the Congregation of the Holy Family. Already in 1893, Canon Belloni himself and about half of his confreres entered the Salesian congregation professing their vows and its rules. When he became a Salesian, in addition to the house in Bethlehem, Fr Belloni brought the Agricultural School in Betgemal with him “as a dowry”, as well as the novitiate in Cremisan and the large property on which the house in Nazareth would later be built. Subsequently, the Province developed in other countries of the Middle East and Africa: in Egypt in 1896, in Iran in 1937, in Syria in 1948, in Lebanon in 1952.

Currently the Province includes 13 presences distributed as follows: 2 in Palestine, 3 in Israel, 3 in Egypt, 3 in Syria, 3 in Lebanon. These presences are animated by 11 religious communities. The activity in Iran has been suspended since 2018.

The 64 confreres are divided as follows: 53 priests, 5 brothers, 1 postnovice, 3 practical trainees, 2 theology students. There are 60 perpetually professed and 4 temporary professed (another 10 confreres are outside the province for various reasons).

The works include: 4 schools, 12 oratories, 4 VTCs, 1 parish, 5 public churches, 7 hospitality centres, 7 refugee centres, 4 PDO offices, 7 Cooperator centres, 3 past pupil centres, 2 Canção Nova centres.

The Province is distinguished by its contact with other Christian rites and with Islam and by the effort of inculturation that makes it possible to offer the gift of the Salesian charism by making it available to this interconfessional and interreligious reality.

All this combined with its unique and challenging geo-political reality make it a Province where the spirit of faith and hope, flexibility and creativity forge its pastoral charity and its Oratorian heart.

Operating in a frontier situation, we believe that all our works, large or small, are relevant to the socio-political and economic environment in which they are located, to the service they provide and to the challenges to which they are constantly called on to respond to. As we know, all the countries in which the Province is present are involved in one way or another in serious and dramatic issues of war, migratory movements and difficult economic issues. Our works carry out their mission at the service of these situations and the people who find themselves there, making them significant. On the other hand, the service addressed to many young people and poor and needy people without distinction is carried out with respect and love, an effort of inculturation and rich and deep missionary spirit where Don Bosco is not only respected but above all loved.

In all this precariousness, the most important thing is the attitude of faith that becomes trust in God and not in our programming that often remains unfulfilled, making everything always very difficult and complicated: obedience, activities, gatherings. To tell the truth, we learn this attitude of faith from young people and their families (both Christians and Muslims) who have to carry heavy crosses and face so much suffering on a daily basis. We cannot rely only on our programming and planning, intelligence and reason. It takes so much faith in God that it always opens a path even if different from the one we planned.

We find these characteristics of faith and hope, of flexibility and adaptation, in the young people themselves with their ability to experience these impossible situations joyfully and cheerfully, continuing to engage in school and oratory. This attitude surprises and amazes us, always! It touches our hearts! And it enriches us as people and as consecrated persons. Young people thus become our masters, our teachers in human, Christian and Salesian life.

Faced with these challenges, our presence tells these young people and their families that they are deeply loved by God who is a good Father and that we are all his sons and daughters. This is the mission we seek to carry out. The young people themselves say it: “We know that God loves us because you are present with us even though you often have no alternative solutions and cannot change things. Your presence, however, speaks of the mercy and tenderness of God”, and this is what we as Salesians in the Middle East try to be and do.  So ... simply...!