Palm Sunday begins Holy Week, the most sacred week of the church calendar for Christians.

But in Egypt this morning, a bomb exploded outside St. Mark’s Coptic Church in Alexandria. Another went off in St. George’s Church in Tanta, 50 miles north of Cairo. The current death toll appears to be around 30 people, including three police officers. And who has claimed responsibility? Why, ISIS of course.

Following is a video of raw footage as one of the bombs went off:

Just a few months ago Egyptian president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, who is Muslim, attended a Christmas service at the St. Peter and St. Paul Coptic Orthodox Church in Cairo, where explosions killed 27 worshippers in December. Sisi is working to tamp down anti-Christian violence in his nation. Unfortunately it still continues.

Which leads me back to President Trump’s bombing of Syria.

There is no doubt that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is a monster. Yet there are some in Syria who regard him as a protector, and those are the Syrian Christians. They view him as a lesser of evils amongst the Islamist wolves who would annihilate them. Because of Assad, Christians have been able to return their towns once ravaged by ISIS.

Chicago Tribune writer John Kass, who is Greek Orthodox, supports Trump’s actions in Syria. Yet he also reminds us that while the U.S. wants to see Assad ousted, we should be careful of what we wish for:

If Assad is removed, what will happen to the remaining religious minorities, namely Christians, who’ve been slaughtered and driven out and hounded by many of the same Syrian rebels who would scream for joy if Assad was gone?

It is Holy Week, after all, isn’t it? And the Middle East is where Christianity was born.

As an Orthodox Christian, I’ve always wondered why the West doesn’t seem to be worried about the Christians of the East.

Is it because there is no blue-eyed Jesus to be found on the road to Damascus?

The Palm Sunday explosions in Egypt remind us of the fragility of existence among Middle East Christians. And they are a stark warning that whenever a Middle East dictator is removed, a Christian minority is often marked for slaughter by the Muslim majority. Assad is dreadful, to be sure, but will any vacuum he leaves behind be filled by someone or something worse? ISIS, perhaps? Or the Muslim Brotherhood? There are no good answers, are there.

UPDATE: Egyptian president al-Sisi has declared a three-month state of emergency in Egypt. The death toll in the church bombings has now climbed to 45.