DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - Michel Khouri Ziadah came to Syria more than a year ago wanting only to pray and help care for a revered church in return for food and a place to stay.
He'll get much more than that. He has an audience in Damascus with Pope John Paul II, whose four-day visit starting Saturday is the first to Syria by a Roman Catholic pontiff.
``To me the pope is a saint. Despite his old age and illness, he is still struggling for the Christian faith. I love him and respect him and I intend to follow his path,'' said Ziadah, a volunteer caretaker of a church built on the spot where tradition says St. Paul the Apostle was lowered outside the walls of Damascus in the 1st century to escape arrest - and perhaps death - for abandoning his Jewish faith.
John Paul's visit to Syria will take him to a landscape rich in Christian history. St. Paul converted to Christianity after hearing the voice of Christ on the road to Damascus. Pilgrims come to Damascus to pray at a tomb they believe holds the head of St. John the Baptist. Tradition says the mother of the Virgin Mary lived and died here.
Like much of the Middle East, Syria was almost entirely Christian before the Muslim conquests in the seventh century. Although now a minority in a mainly Muslim region, Christians in Syria and neighboring countries have deep roots in the Mideast and play a vibrant role today.
Egypt's Christian Copts, followers of one of the earliest Christian faiths, make up about 10 percent of the country's 60 million people. In Lebanon, Maronite Catholics trace their founding to a fourth century Syrian monk and still say prayers in Aramaic, the language spoken by Christ. In Syria, a half dozen Catholic and Orthodox faiths are active, as well as Protestants.
The Lebanese-born Ziadah, a Maronite, says he left a comfortable life in Buenos Aires nearly five years ago to become a servant of the church. He went from running an export-import business to traveling in Brazil, Greece, Cyprus, Spain and Italy, helping with the upkeep of churches.
He arrived at the Greek Catholic Church of St. Paul on the Wall in Damascus some 15 months ago.
``I am a man who gave up everything to dedicate himself to Jesus Christ. I don't know how long I'll stay here or where I'll go next,'' said the 78-year-old Ziadah.
Icons depicting St. Paul's escape decorate the stone church built against the walls surrounding old Damascus. Some depict the saint blinded after his celebrated encounter on the road to Damascus, where he had been headed to try to stamp out the new faith of Christianity.
Instead, Paul became one of the most energetic Christian proselytizers. Pope John Paul has taken Paul's travels to spread the gospel as a model for his own globe-trotting.
Syria's almost 2 million Christians make up about 13 percent of the population. Christians in Syria and throughout the Middle East are intensely aware of their minority status. Although Islam promises tolerance to ``people of the book'' - Jews and Christians - the promise has not always been kept.
Syria's ruling Baath party, with a monopoly on power since 1963, has adopted staunchly secular policies, with Christians serving in government and prominent in trade. The Baath's founders included Christians who believed their place would be secure in a Middle East defined by Arab heritage, not Islam.
Many Christians like to point to their integral role in the region. Mahat Farah el-Khoury, the Syrian representative of the Middle East Council of Churches, notes she is an Arab first and a Christian second.
One place the pope will visit in Syria is the Golan Heights town of Queneitra, where the Church of St. George sits in ruins. its only cross painted in black on the wall behind where the altar once stood.
There, an hour by road from Damascus, the pope will pray for peace. But Milad Tannous, whose house is in view of the church, makes clear in welcoming John Paul's visit that peace is elusive.
``I am glad he is coming to see what the Jews have done to the church,'' said Tannous, 23, whose family is one of only six living in the town, seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and handed back to Syria in 1974 after another war.
Syria has left Quneitra in ruins as a monument to what is says was Israel's deliberate destruction of the town as its soldiers left. Israel argues the damage was done in the fighting.
In Damascus, a 20-year-old Greek Orthodox woman named Ramia provides a happier note for John Paul's visit. She is a Greek Orthodox - a sect that does not recognize the Roman pope's primacy - but says she'll attend his scheduled meeting with young Syrian Christians.
``Why not?'' she said. ``There is only one God for all of us.''