It was one evening at the Theotokos monastery of Saidnaya, from the Kalamun Mountain in Syria.
The gates of the monastery had already been closed. An unexpected visitor knocked insistently at the gate. The nun whose duty was to stay at the gate of the monastery opened it, but not before finding out who was there. And it was indeed the president Bashar al Assad. The nuns got stunned by his unexpected and impressive presence. He greeted them respectfully and told them he had come to worship God. He only asked them to leave him alone in the church so as to pray to Theotokos undisturbed. For this reason he persistently asked them to let him be completely alone in the church. Then the nuns felt an unprecedented thrill. They assured him they would take care that his request would be fulfilled.
The president entered the church piously. The door was tightly closed after him. There, in the dim light of the church, he prayed to Theotokos…After a while the president got out of the church. He expressed his full satisfaction but told them that they did not keep their word. ” I asked you let me be alone in the church. Who was then that woman with the baby in her arms, who stayed with me in the church?” The nuns said that no woman entered the church, just as they promised. But that Lady he had seen could not have been anyone else but the Mother of God. The emotion all of them felt was extremely high…This happened during the war from Syria with so many victims.
