Its history (1)
Habib was born in Damascus in 1894. He is the firstborn in a family of eight children. His father is the martyr among the priests, Nicolas Khasha.
Habib received his primary and secondary education at the Lebanese Aintoura School. In 1914, he obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Arts from the American University of Beirut. Then he moved with his family to Mersin, shortly before World War I, where his father served the Orthodox parish and spent his life bearing witness to Christ.
After that, the family fled to Port Said. There, Habib married Wadi’a Touma, one of the daughters of Syrian immigrant families, in 1922.
Habib worked in Port Said as an accountant and translator for the “Warfer Oil and Export Company”. This was between the years 1922 and 1924. From there he moved to the company’s branch in Beirut.
Habib continued to be an employee until 1931, when he submitted his resignation with the intention of accepting the priesthood. On that day, he moved from Beirut to Damascus. But he encountered his wife's opposition to him, so he waited a whole year to agree to her position, then he was ordained a priest in 1932 in the Marian Cathedral.
Father Habib served the Mariamite parish in Damascus until 1935, after which he moved between Port Said, Damascus, and Cairo until 1943, when he settled permanently in the Syrian capital.
Father Habib was interested in ancient antiquities and devoted himself to studying them, especially those related to religions. He had begun writing a book about it.
On July 16, 1948, while he was in seclusion in the village of Arnah (Jabal al-Sheikh), he went out early to a beautiful location near it, contemplating prayerful horoscopes, when a number of smugglers met him, seized him, and tortured him severely, because he was a priest, and then killed him.
His family (2)
Father Habib had five children: Juliet, Marcel, Fadwa, Nicola and Salim. Salim, the youngest, was born during the first year of his father’s priesthood. Two or three years later, Nicola died at the age of five. At that time, Father Habib was in Port Said and the family was in Damascus. The first time he met his wife, he said to her: “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”
She was a meek wife, a pious and virtuous woman, a generous soul, and a lover of goodness. In her free time, she was rarely found sitting with the Bible or the Book of Prayers in her hand. Father Habib originally chose it with insight, after he saw in it an echo of the longing for the Spirit of the Lord in him. She was the partner of his life, his worries, and the bearer of his secrets. He informs her about his conditions and problems and gives her an opinion about his difficulties. Even his prayer affairs he would reveal aspects of. However, she objected when he expressed his desire to become a priest. The reason was her concern for the family’s living situation, especially since Habib was successful in his job, loved, and respected, and the priests of that time, in general, were destitute. Habib did not want to impose his opinion on his wife because he was gentle with her and was careful in his dealings with her, so he surrendered her to his Lord and waited. He waited a whole year and saw a dream at the end of which she changed her mind. She saw a soldier coming towards her, and she trembled. He looked at her, then pointed to a tap from which water was flowing, then to a tap from which water was dripping in drops, and said: After today, you must be content with a little! When she woke up, her heart dried up and she said: The soldier is an angel from the Lord! Since then, she has been satisfied with God’s command, has kept pace with her husband, and has accepted, with satisfaction and acceptance, whatever comes to her and her family.
Father Habib was happy in his home life. He reconciles his family obligations and his care obligations well. His diaries were generally characterized by order. He eats with the family regularly except when necessary, sits with them like any head of a family, takes them out for a walk and jokes with everyone. He never sought to impose fasts and prayers on anyone, but he used to ask inquisitively.
As for the family’s living situation, after Habib’s ordination as a priest, it became somewhat difficult, not because he neglected his household responsibilities, but because his income was modest, just below the family’s needs. That's why Joseph, one of his brothers, regularly provided the family with some money.
His priesthood
Father Habib joined the priesthood by vocation. He was interested in following in his father's footsteps until martyrdom.
We do not know many details about his service as a priest. But we know that he loved his subjects and was zealous for them with the zeal of Christ, and he used to miss them carefully and frequently. He became famous there for three things: his prayers, his sermons, and his care for the poor.
As for his prayer, people have memorized that it was the priest’s, the beloved of his manifestations during the divine service. One of these manifestations is that he sometimes rises above the ground. His wife, Wadi'a, after his martyrdom, revealed that he had told her this repeatedly.
As for his sermons, they were brief, but they came from his entire being.
His care for the poor was great. The poor were his friends in every sense of the word, and the wealthy were beloved of the Lord. They gave to him so that he could give to the needy. They were confident that their aid went where it should. All this caused Father Habib a lot of trouble from the priests who envied him and tried to throw thorns in his path. “People pay him more than they pay us!” He would reply, “If people give to me, what is my fault?!”
One of the Egyptians who knew him once answered a question about him spontaneously: “He’s crazy, he gives all his money to the poor!”
His family told him that a woman in need knocked on his door once, asking for food for herself and her family. He turned around automatically and headed towards the kitchen. He looked and saw a bowl of stuffed cabbage ready to cook. He picked it up, went out with it and gave it to the woman.
Father Habib's most charitable acts were hidden. This is self-evident for a man like him. Only some news about him was known here and there. One of these news is the story of the robe.
The story of the cloak is that Youssef, the brother of Father Habib, once sent him a new cloak. He put it on and went to the Patriarchate. There, His Beatitude the Patriarch met him and asked him: “What is this elegant cloak?” He replied: “My brother Youssef sent it to me from Egypt.” “What did you do with your old cloak?” “I left it at home.” “Okay, I will send to you Father Hawran and give it to him.” “As you wish, my Lord.” When Father Hawran came to him, he gave him the cloak, but not his old cloak, but the new one!
In addition, it was rumored that Father Habib was borrowing a lot of money in exchange for payment bonds for a relative in order to prepare for an Orthodox daughter or one who was separated from her family, especially if a Muslim surrounded her, and then he would marry her to an Orthodox young man.
Other testimonies stated that after his martyrdom, his family members found an account book indicating “debts” owed by Father Habib, along with the names of the debtors. When they wanted to pay what he owed, it turned out that these sums were given to Father Habib to help the poor. To him, they were debts!
His qualities and virtues
Father Habib was pure, honest, upright, and devoted to God with all sincerity. He does not think badly of his companions. Its greatest characteristic is transparency, free of impurities and ambiguity. People read as if they were each an open book.
His eyes were sunken in a thin, radiant face. His body is thin, made of bone and skin. His soul carries his body, like a burden, in his longing for heaven. He is always in amazement. Love and tenderness are depicted on his face and fingertips. When he went around the people of God and the poor of the earth, there was blessing in his hand, comfort on his tongue, and faith and reverence in his prayer.
Delicacy made him too weak to refuse a beggar who came to him in need. The Lord Jesus was the fullness of his life and aspects.
He fought the bitter struggle against all faults and loved the life of the hermits and their news, so his transparency came as a result of toil in the Holy Spirit.
He lived wounded by the love of the Lord Jesus and died as well.
Before martyrdom
Before Father Habib left on his journey to Mount Hermon, where he was martyred, an unusual thing happened to him. He told his wife about it, and she later told him. He said to her: Today while I was praying, I felt like I was higher off the ground than usual. His wife's heart sank and she begged him not to go, especially since he was supposed to be with others and they apologized, but he did not agree. She closed the door in his face, and he started laughing, saying to her: What is the matter with you today, as usual, preventing me from going, even though this is not the first time I have gone to Mount Hermon? For half an hour, I tried to distract him from going, in front of the rest of his family members, but he did not want to. So I left him to his inspiration. So he left and was martyred.
His testimony
Throughout his life, Father Habib yearned to glorify God through the death of martyrdom, so God granted him the death of his heart on July 16, 1948. That day, he fell into the hands of smugglers who beat him for four consecutive hours because he was a priest. They did not leave a bone of his without breaking it. Then, after they had finished torturing him, they threw him from a height on Mount Hermon, and he was killed as a martyr for Christ.
When the perpetrators were arrested (3) They claimed they thought he was a Jewish spy. But the facts of their trial indicated their slander and lies. One of them, Ahmed Ali Hassan Abi Al-Hassan, was sentenced to death by hanging, and the sentence was executed at dawn on Saturday, September 25, 1948.
The body of Father Habib Al-Turab was buried in the Saint George cemetery, east of the Damascus Wall.
(On the Forgotten Saints in the Antiochian Heritage by Archimandrite Thomas Bitar)
(1) We took this biography from three sources:
- A- Jabbour, Espero. “From Our Heritage, Father Habib Khasha.” From Women in the View of the Church. Latakia: 1994, pp. 19-25.
- B- Zaytoun, Joseph. “The Martyr Priest Habib Khasha.” A handwritten article written by the Patriarchal Records Secretary, which later appeared in the Patriarchal Bulletin, July 1994 issue, pp. 33-45, amended and expanded.
- C- A conversation with Fadwa Asaid, the martyr’s daughter, dated 11/15/1994.
(2) After Fadwa Asaid read what Deacon Aspiro Jabour and Joseph Zaytoun wrote about Father Habib, she objected, knowing that we were in the process of translating Father Habib, to some of the issues they mentioned. She said it was inaccurate or untrue. So:
- A- Giving the impression that Father Habib was neglecting his family responsibilities. Rather, the martyr cared for his family as well as his flock and the poor. He gives each of his responsibilities its due. He was tidy in this field and organized his affairs well.
- B- Giving the impression of Father Habib’s wife and his family that she was complaining to him about his excessive concern for the poor until she secretly called his brother Youssef in Egypt and he began providing the family with some assistance. this is not true. Father Habib's wife was a pious woman who was happy with her husband's work. Youssef was sending help to the family, but this was not at all the result of Father Habib neglecting to provide the family’s bread or the family complaining about him out of need.
- C- Some of the details mentioned here and there are inaccurate, such as the news about the jubbah.
We have taken Fadwa's observations and supplemented them with some of what was stated in the above two sources.
(3) We were told that a copy of the file on the trial of the perpetrators was in the Patriarchal Library. When we inquired, it became clear to us that what was found was nothing but news about the trial that appeared in some local newspapers.