Once evacuated to Cyprus, church regional office returning to original country
The Seventh-day Adventist Church’s headquarters in the Middle East is moving from the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus back to its original headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon.
Office contents were shipped July 26 to a new facility on Sabtieh Hill, Beirut and operations from the new location are expected to begin September 1.
“This move will increase [the church’s] credibility among the people we are serving,” said Kjell Aune, president of the Adventist Church’s Middle East region. “Our staff will better understand the culture, mindset, customs, tensions and issues in our constituency.”
The church’s headquarters in the region was “functionally paralyzed” amid violence during the Lebanese Civil War of 1975 to 1990, said church spokesman Alex Elmadjian.
Leadership was forced to evacuate in 1984 and moved the local headquarters to the city of Nicosia, Cyprus.
Despite the relative safety of their Cyprus location, church leaders soon worried geopolitical isolation from the Middle East would interfere with the church’s ability to minister to citizens of the region, including the nearly 15,400 Adventists living there.
Although church leaders approved the move back to Lebanon in 2005, the plan was delayed after tensions erupted between Israeli and Hezbollah military forces in July of 2006.
Given the region’s volatility, some have questioned the church’s current move. Several recent political assassinations, governmental deadlock and ongoing clashes with so-called Al-Qaeda militants have exacerbated such concerns, Elmadjian said.
While the political situation in Lebanon remains “unpredictable,” many people in the region—barring some extremists—are “tired of war,” Aune said. He suspects current squabbles will remind the Lebanese of their civil war and thus deter another full-blown conflict.
“Nobody can guarantee the future of Lebanon or any other country in the region ... but some of us believe that the office personnel have to be prepared to live side-by-side with [the people of the Middle East],” Aune said.