A church to be replaced by a mall in ashrafieh

[The Jade]

Any occasion to get on the christian nerve is becoming one of OTV's and FPM's daily job.

Chou khassoun Nayla and Nadim ?
They're both not fit to become MPs, yes, but not because of this !
They have much bigger flaws that FPM should be showing.

Along with Saad Hariri.

We're concentrating on ridiculously religious stuff instead of going to the more substantial part of Hariri's and his allies' inability to run a country.

Again, what about the non-christian FPM supporters, do you think they would care about that ?

This is becoming ridiculous, OTV's news director should get a huge slap in the face and some FPMers should get a bigger one to realize what they're losing their energy on !

Originally Posted by shadow1

wlek tole3 3alseni sha3r ana w2oul to those community leaders in my hometown to convert the huge church they are building now to some sort of a shopping centre before it becomes too holy and loses its real estate value.

They are building a church so massive that all the christian inhabitants of the town in 40 years time would not need more than the first row of pews and the rest of the church will serve as wind tunnel. And if you know the christians in my hometown, they would not pay for the church maintenance ( and it needs a huge amount to maintain) unless God promises to give them something back in return. Their favourite motto is ya rabbi katter khayrak, because a little of it no longer satisfies their ever growing needs.

Wlek since 1990 the town has not once registered an increase in its christian population on a prior year. so what call is there to have such a massive monument for the few people who in all likelihood will not live there to worship in that church?

Vanity and pomp are great but you need someone to eb there to notice.

Iza the worshippers of St Basil church indignant hal2ad, they could use the proceeds and build a brand new church to suit there needs , somewhere away from the hustle and bustle of the city. I reckon it offend the lord's ears to hear the prayers directed at him with those of salacious music emanating from the clubs nearby.

[shadow1]

Originally Posted by The Jade

Any occasion to get on the christian nerve is becoming one of OTV's and FPM's daily job.

!

There will come a day when you will develop a much more appreciation for machiavellism and political opportunism. As yet you are still too idealistic. You'll grow out of it soon enough I hope.

[The Jade]

Originally Posted by shadow1

There will come a day when you will develop a much more appreciation for machiavellism and political opportunism. As yet you are still too idealistic. You'll grow out of it soon enough I hope.

Then stop calling yourself secular if machiavellism and political opportunism for you means getting a priest on your electoral list, WHILE attacking Bkerki for giving its political view on the basis that it's a religious institution and has nothing to do with politics.

This is not called pragmatism, it's called double standards.

I don't have a problem in exposing REAL problems that would touch EACH community, 'cause I believe that in order to get to the ultimate goal there should be a real balance.

But making a big fuss about a church that even the clergy doesn't want is absolut ****.

People should concentrate on more important stuff, they think that all christians in Lebanon really care about that day to day stuff, completely forgetting that the real base of FPM is not the one who thinks that way.

[shadow1]

Originally Posted by taifoon

In the name of Jesus, we will cut the hands and feet and extract the stomach and kidneys of He who dares to sell this holy piece of solid architecture.. for less than 126 billion dollars so we can use them to build a

Why go to this extent. If St basil is really keen on preseving his possession, 3ajeebeh zghayyoura and the worshippers will come from far and wide and the convent will be marked as holy untouchable ground until we are all called to heaven to account for our political opinions.

[elias-aj]

Without considering the religious issue, this project points out another big issues : our policies in the environmental and city plannings fields.

Jounieh used to be one of the most beautiful mediterranean's bay. See what it has become... In Beirut, we're destroying our cultural heritage in order to build towers.

In fact, when you take the coastal highway (north or south), it's like Beirut never ends... concrete, concrete and concrete.

I'm OK with building towers, malls, huge real estate projects. We have indeed to move forward. But we also have to adopt a city planning preserving our architectural heritage. See DT Beirut. It looks very nice but...it lacks something : a soul.

I don't want to see Lebanon becoming a large mall. I want Lebanon to keep its soul. Man, even in New York, they have central park...

Anyway, it's Lebanon and it's a mess. It seems we love living in a mess...

[GMA forever]

The problem here have 3 faces: religious, environmental and political.

Religious, as you all were discussing mainly, it is a convent and the Chrsitians that were always there to do their religious duties just don't want to loose it. 7a2oun!
Environmental, as many of you also said, we don't want Beirut or Achrafieh to loose its heritage and culture. We have enough new buildings, we want to keep some of our traditional houses. I would have protested the same if it was the baladiye building here, or any old beautiful Beirutee house.
Political, what are the Saudis still doing here? Why are they buying more Lebanese lands? They bought enough already, and I am gonna resist them buying even one inch of Lebanese lands from lebanese people regardless if these were priests, or just normal citizens.

So to all those who think that FPM is fighting this issue only from a religious point of view you are totally mistaken. I demand from our candidates in Achrafieh not to leave this thing pass and I support them in shedding the light on this issue and to take all the necessary measures to cancel this deal.

[Pasteur]

The idea of demolishing a place were GOD is worshiped in, to build a Mall, is unacceptable, at least to me.

[hannaalsayssa]

Originally Posted by shadow1
wlek tole3 3alseni sha3r ana w2oul to those community leaders in my hometown to convert the huge church they are building now to some sort of a shopping centre before it becomes too holy and loses its real estate value.

They are building a church so massive that all the christian inhabitants of the town in 40 years time would not need more than the first row of pews and the rest of the church will serve as wind tunnel. And if you know the christians in my hometown, they would not pay for the church maintenance ( and it needs a huge amount to maintain) unless God promises to give them something back in return. Their favourite motto is ya rabbi katter khayrak, because a little of it no longer satisfies their ever growing needs.

Wlek since 1990 the town has not once registered an increase in its christian population on a prior year. so what call is there to have such a massive monument for the few people who in all likelihood will not live there to worship in that church?

Vanity and pomp are great but you need someone to eb there to notice.

Iza the worshippers of St Basil church indignant hal2ad, they could use the proceeds and build a brand new church to suit there needs , somewhere away from the hustle and bustle of the city. I reckon it offend the lord's ears to hear the prayers directed at him with those of salacious music emanating from the clubs nearby

you nailed that issue.
it seems this problem is not afflciting our areas alone LOLLLLLL

our neghbouring village is buildng a cathedral ( over 1400m2) for real, while the current population does not EXCEED 200 AT BEST....

expat have been sending money from all over the world for the past 10 years to build it.
if they had used the money to build a school or set up a school/medical fund they will make sure that the remaining souls will not run away..

but as usual, the priest , moutran will hear none of it.

another sad story, is one of the deirs on our town, has over 1000000 $ USD in its coffers and no one is allowed to touch it...

[Diabolo_7]

Regardless of who is willing to buy the old convent or whether the property is an old convent or a empty lot, did anyone comment on the fact that another mall in Ashrafieh will be a disaster?

During Xmas time, the traffic jam to get into or out of ABC is horrible. It takes you 1-2 hours in order to get into ABC. The cars will be backed up til Hamra... So you can immagine the traffic jams that result in Beirut due to that.

Ashrafieh as it is now, is overpopulated, with a with the addition of ABC and to a lesser extent Spinneys the traffic is unbearable.

Ashrafieh and Beirut in general dont have the infrastructure to support such malls.

In other places of the world, Malls are built on the outskirts of the cities, not in the middle of the most congested areas (as is the case in Ashrafieh).

Look at what the Geant Mall did to the traffic on the highway in that area. Thanks to Michel el Murr, it was built in the worst location ever on the Jounieh Beirut highway, and the traffic jam because of it on both sides of the highway is horrible (well at least during holiday season)...

I think both the proponents and the opponents of such projects should look at it from a different angle, and decide whether such a project would benefit the area...

[LubnanALkawi]

this is great news if it won't create any tensions...

it will bring more job to the Beirutis there are enough churches and mosque in Beirut every 70 meter we got a church and mosque zouwadniha ye3ni :p