Franciscan schools in two villages of Idlib are welcoming children again, with plans to expand education to Muslim as well as Christian families.
Two Franciscan schools in northwestern Syria have reopened after decades, bringing classrooms, teachers and children back to the Christian villages of Quniyah and Al-Yacoubiyah in Idlib province.
The Terra Santa schools were formally inaugurated on September 20 in the presence of families, teachers, Franciscan friars, Syrian officials and representatives of the Catholic Church. Their reopening is being presented not simply as the restoration of two buildings, but as an investment in education, community life and coexistence in a region where families are beginning to return and rebuild.
For the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, which operates schools throughout the region, the project also revives a long educational tradition. One of the schools was originally opened by the friars in 1958 and ceased operating in its original form in 1972. Decades later, its classrooms have once again become places where children can study.
A school becomes a sign of normal life
The significance of the reopening is easy to understand through the numbers. The schools currently have around 80 children and 25 teachers, according to accounts published by Vatican News and L’Osservatore Romano.
Once restoration is fully completed, the schools are expected to be capable of receiving close to 300 pupils. The educational programme across the two sites is intended to serve children and teenagers through different stages of their schooling.
The return of teachers is itself part of the story. Father Khukaz Mesrob, parish priest of Quniyah and one of the Franciscans overseeing the project, explained that the teaching staff includes young graduates from the surrounding villages. Subjects range from English and mathematics to chemistry and biology.
For families considering whether they can establish a future in the area, the availability of a functioning school can be decisive. A village may have houses, roads and electricity, but without somewhere for children to learn, long-term community life is difficult to sustain.
That makes education part of reconstruction in a much broader sense.
Christian identity with doors open to everyone
Although the schools are unmistakably Christian and Franciscan in identity, their organisers say they are intended to serve the wider population.
Father Mesrob said the expanded schools are expected eventually to welcome Muslim families living in and around the villages as well. That continues a tradition found in many Terra Santa schools, where Christian institutions provide education to pupils from different religious communities.
He offered a particularly striking example. After returning to Syria, the priest met a local Muslim sheikh who told him that he himself had attended the Franciscan school before its earlier closure — and that Father Mesrob’s own father had taught him English.
Several decades later, that memory has become a small illustration of how religious institutions can shape relationships extending far beyond their own communities.
The Franciscan described the schools as places capable of encouraging respect for others, charity and care for one’s neighbour. The goal, in this understanding, is not to erase religious identities but to create a space in which strong identities can coexist.
That approach has deep roots within the wider Terra Santa educational network. The Custody describes education for tolerance, peace and respect for faith as part of the mission of its schools, which operate in several countries and serve thousands of students.
Christians and Muslims at the same inauguration
The reopening ceremony itself reflected that wider social ambition. Civil authorities joined Catholic leaders, local residents and representatives of different religious communities for the inauguration.
Those attending included Vatican Ambassador to Syria Archbishop Luigi Roberto Cona, Apostolic Vicar of Aleppo of the Latins Archbishop Hanna Jallouf, representatives of the Custody of the Holy Land, Syrian Social Affairs and Labour Minister Hind Kabawat, Emergency and Disaster Management Minister Raed al-Saleh and Idlib Governor Mohammad Abdul Rahman.
According to the Syrian Arab News Agency, Kabawat connected the restoration of the schools with strengthening social cohesion and rebuilding trust, while emphasising the importance of restoring education and other basic services as families return to their communities.
Father Mesrob described the gathering in more explicitly religious terms, comparing the assembled Christians and Muslims, government officials, religious leaders and diplomats to pieces of a mosaic: different in colour and position, yet each necessary to complete the picture.
It is an image particularly suited to Syria, a country whose religious landscape has for centuries included Muslims, Christians of numerous traditions and other religious communities.
Rebuilding created work as well as classrooms
The reconstruction produced benefits even before the first lessons began. Around 100 people were employed during the renovation, according to the Franciscans, including electricians, carpenters, artisans and construction workers.
That meant income for families as well as the restoration of educational infrastructure. In places trying to encourage residents to return and remain, employment and education reinforce one another: schools require communities, and communities need both work and schools.
Local authorities say the pattern extends beyond the two Franciscan institutions. Across Idlib province, approximately 1,900 schools are operating, with 100 schools newly created or rehabilitated during the current academic year. Syrian education officials say 650 schools have been restored and returned to service, serving more than 540,000 pupils.
Quniyah, Al-Yacoubiyah and the nearby villages of Al-Jadida and Al-Ghassaniyah have also experienced substantial population returns, according to Idlib authorities.
The Terra Santa schools therefore form part of something larger: the gradual reappearance of ordinary institutions around which communities organise their lives.
Teaching what peace looks like
Archbishop Hanna Jallouf placed education at the centre of that process. A school, he explained, is among the first building blocks needed to reconstruct a country because young people require more than physical security: they need the knowledge and social experience necessary to build a future together.
The reopening also fits a broader Franciscan understanding of education as an encounter across religious boundaries. In other Terra Santa schools, Christian and Muslim pupils have studied together for generations, while the institutions retain their Catholic and Franciscan character.
This may ultimately be the most interesting part of the story in Quniyah and Al-Yacoubiyah. A Christian institution is returning to life not by closing itself inward, but by preparing to expand outward.
The children entering these classrooms will learn mathematics, languages, science and other ordinary school subjects. At the same time, simply studying alongside neighbours of different backgrounds can teach something that does not appear on an examination paper: that religious difference and shared community life do not have to be opposites.
Nearly 60 years after the original schools disappeared from everyday village life, desks are being filled again and teachers are returning to the classroom. For the Franciscans, the buildings represent continuity with their religious mission. For families, they offer something even simpler and perhaps more immediate: a place where children can learn, make friends and imagine what they might become.
In that sense, the reopening of two relatively small schools tells a much larger story. Religious institutions can preserve traditions, but they can also create spaces for the future — and sometimes the most visible sign of renewal is simply a classroom with children in it.