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Dar Al-Nahar Publishing House organized a symposium on the book “My Sun shall not fade – A Journey in the Romaïan Legacy” on Thursday 30th of November at the Beirut Arab Book International Fair, which took place from November 23 to December 3, 2023. This symposium was moderated by the former Governor of Beirut, Engineer Nicolas Saba, and included Professors Antoine Messarra and Souad Slim, and Mr. Toufic Shouman, in addition to the author Professor Negib Geahchan. This symposium was attended by a large group of university professors, writers, and individuals interested in the history of the Romaïans, their legacy, and their role in ancient and modern civilizations. The presence of Archimandrite Jack (Khalil), Dean of the Saint John of Damascus Institute of Theology at the University of Balamand was particularly noted.
The lecturers unanimously agreed to consider the book “My Sun shall not fade” as a broad referential dictionary that includes valuable information about several aspects of the Romaïan civilization, and they congratulated Dr. Negib Geahchan for his great zeal in collecting this large amount of data about a civilization that lacks serious and solid references in the Arabic language. In his speech, Dr. Antoine Messara focused on the heritage of religions in Lebanon and stressed the necessity of establishing a new version of history for the sake of intercommunication and national integration. He called for the publication of cultural educational brochures, destined for the new generations, and concerning the pioneers and fathers of the Romaïan culture and faith. He praised the writer’s position on the dangers of nationalism and religious ethnicity, dangers which contradict the pluralism that characterizes the present Lebanon and which rejects all trends of fanaticism in the region.
Dr. Souad Aboulrousse Slim, Professor of History at the University of Balamand, largely explained some of the components of the great Romaïan heritage, especially the architecture of churches, recalling its beginnings in the Levantine Church of Qalb Lawzeh and its double form of square and rectangular shapes that spread throughout the entire Romaïan world. She pointed to the great role that icons, murals, and church music played in the Romaïan civilization, and, finally, mentioned the dangers of emigration and displacement that afflicted contemporary Romaïan societies, as thousands of young people moved to the new world in the hope of wealth and success. However, this enrichment did happen to only a small number of them.
As for the researcher and critic Toufic Shouman, he gave an advanced objective analysis of the book, where he pointed to many subjects in which he meets Dr. Geahchan and to other topics in which he differs from him, including the role of nationalism in building states, role on which emphasizes the Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin. Mr. Shouman pointed also the prominent roles of the legacies of Eastern peoples, such as the Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Persians in the development of Roman civilization. In his speech, Shouman admitted that Dr Geahchan’s book revealed to him matters that he was unaware of, such as the influence of the Germanic West on the crises to which the Romaïans were exposed, and the multiculturalism in the Romaïan society.
The symposium ended with a speech by Dr. Negib Geahchan, in which he thanked Dar Al-Nahar, the Chairman of its Board of Directors Judge Ziad Chebib, the lecturers, and engineer Nicolas Saba. He devoted his speech to describing what is new in his book, and that can be summarized in the following:
• The book describes and analyzes the environment in which Orthodox Christianity grew and developed.
• It reveals the continuity and the close relationship between the ancient Romaïans and those who inherited their culture after the conquest of Constantinople in the year 1453.
• It clearly highlights the close relationship between the Christian Church and the Romaïan civilization.
• It unambiguously reveals the close relationship between the Romaïan civilization and the subsequent Renaissance in the Western world.
• It reveals the central role of Christian values in ancient and contemporary Romaïan society.
• It attempts to highlight the existential crises that occurred in the Romaïan civilization in the past and that are ravaging the Romaïan world and the Romaïan Orthodox Church in our contemporary era. The symposium ended with a speech by the symposium moderator, Engineer Nicholas Saba, in which he stated that this book is a global and comprehensive dictionary that represents an urgent need in the Arabic library. It answers many questions, corrects some erroneous expressions and beliefs, and emphasizes the universalism of the Romaïan civilization, the close relationship between the state and the church, between the spiritual and the temporal and between the ruler and the people. This relationship is called symphonia, which means harmony, and it still exists in most contemporary Romaïan countries.
