Introduction: Marc Merhej, a member of the People of God community in Beirut, Lebanon was recently featured in an article in Christianity Today 2025, The Young Lawyer Who United Lebanon’s Christians in Worship, written by Jayson Casper. The article highlights a 10,000-person worship event that he organized in January of last year (2024). It was a very ambitious undertaking, but God really opened doors for Marc in organizing this landmark event.
The event was called Beirut 2024: An Ecumenical Worship and Musical Event, and in it Marc brought together a choir of three hundred Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical Christians from across Lebanon. The event itself showcased the wide array of liturgical traditions of Lebanon, ranging from Byzantine to Armenian to Syriac.
Praying together across denominational lines points to the unity that God’s people will experience in heaven, and worshipping together unites us here on earth. As you’ll read in the article, we have already begun to see the lasting fruit from this event: relationships were built around the event, and these relationships opened up opportunities for more cooperation among Christians in Lebanon. – ed. Sword of the Spirit
A short excerpt from Jason Casper’s article in Christianity Today Magazine, dated February 17, 2025
He created a 300-person Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant choir and orchestra. Then he took a break.
Lebanon has 12 officially registered Christian sects. Jesus prayed the church would be one. Once Mark Merhej did the math, the solution was worship. And in January 2024, the 29-year-old Maronite Catholic layman brought together representative patriarchs, bishops, and pastors from nearly every ecclesial family to pray collectively for the peace of Beirut.
Merhej began planning the event three years before the Israel-Hezbollah war, contemplating how to bring unity to the fractured Lebanese body of Christ. As the two belligerents exchanged missiles over the nation’s southern border, over 10,000 Lebanese Christians joined in worship with Merhej’s 300-person ecumenical choir and orchestra to pour out their hearts in pursuit of God’s presence.
“Worship is the communal experience of God’s lordship and grace,” Merhej said. “The world outside – the war – is irrelevant.”
Organizing an Ecumenical Choir and Orchestra
Eager for evangelical participation in the choir, Merhej sought out Paul Haidostian, who represents evangelicals as one of MECC’s (Middle East Council of Churches) four presidents. The Armenian Evangelical enthusiastically introduced Merhej to other pastors in his theological family.
“His focus on the Holy Spirit impressed me, and his style is close to the evangelical heart,” said Haidostian. “I want that spirit in our churches.”
Merhej won trust with clergy by emphasizing that they were all “shepherds,” appealing to a low-church ecclesiology that did not distinguish between pastor and patriarch. Worshiping together, he explained, would help all church leaders revive their spiritual flocks. His charismatic background opened doors, and by the time bimonthly rehearsals began in April 2023, Merhej had secured participation from two churches on each side of the evangelical ecumenical divide.
Ephesians 1 inspired Merhej’s vision for the event. He wanted participants to grasp Paul’s affirmation that the Christian is “blessed … in the heavenly realms” (v. 3) and experience a glimpse of the unity between “all things in heaven and on earth” (v. 10). The Holy Spirit guarantees this inheritance “to the praise of his glory” (v. 14), which all God’s redeemed – living and dead – can offer together.
Interdenominational engagements in Lebanon usually have each church present its own choir. Merhej’s vision went beyond mutual appreciation. Instead, his ecumenical choir facilitated joint worship through the traditions of all. Evangelicals offered “How Great Thou Art.” Latin Catholics put forward the angelic Gregorian chant “Veni Creator Spiritus.” “Qom Fawlos” drew from ancient Syriac liturgy. Together with “Prokimenon,” familiar to Greek Orthodox, Merhej selected hymns from all four theological families to bid reverent welcome to the Holy Spirit, whom he sought to center at the event.
But Merhej was not content to sing a set list representing the 12 Lebanese sects. He included Rachmaninoff’s Russian Orthodox “Bogoroditse Devo.” The Swahili “Baba Yetu”first confused and then delighted the audience. A Spanish Taizé tune quieted the crowd, while the contemporary French-Arabic “Psaume de la Creation” led the audience to wave their cell phone flashlights in adoration. As conductor, Merhej told CT he aimed to progressively bring the entirety of God’s church into the heavenly realms. Some in the choir, he said, spoke in tongues during the crescendo.
Merhej aimed to bring a higher vision to the troubled Christian community. That January 2024, during the official week of prayer for Christian unity – usually a perfunctory affair – he filled the Beirut Forum with soaring hymnodies of Byzantine chants and intoned hallelujahs. Members of the choir, inspired by their interdenominational harmony, wanted to keep performing. And the bishops, he sensed, resonated with his ecclesial vision.
Throughout the evening, church leaders read different passages of Scripture, and the screen displayed various Bible verses, concluding with Jesus’ John 17 prayer “that they may be one as we are one” (v. 22). But not long after the event, Merhej’s spiritual mentors told him to withdraw from his choir, to stand alone before his Creator. They emphasized Jesus’ words two chapters earlier: “Every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes” (John 15:2).
But after the event, Merhej stepped back.
As Beirut wrestled with the war, Merhej wrestled with God. He came to believe God wanted him to withdraw not only from a vibrant music ministry but also from his budding relationships with senior clergy members. At first, he didn’t understand this directive, and for months he let others take the initiative. But as he grew in his personal faith, planning a scaled-back but similar event one year later helped him discern God’s purpose for his rest.
The full article by Jason Casper is available online at © Christianity Today Magazine, dated February 17, 2025
Link to Full Video of the 2024 Ecumenical Worship Musical and Prayer Event in Beirut
Images credit source 2024 © courtesy of www. CharityRadioTV.org: 10,000 Christians gathered in Beirut for an Ecumenical Worship and Prayer for Peace Event in 2024, image clips captured from video produced by © CharityRadioTV.org.
Jayson and Julie Casper are an American couple living in Cairo, Egypt. Jayson writes for Arab West Report, Christianity Today, Lapido Media, and a few other publications. His writing seeks to be in service of greater understanding between cultures and religions, as the knowledge of deeper contextual issues can prevent escalation of tension and unnecessary rejection of the other. Jayson has a BS in Economics and an MA in Islamic Studies.