when did the first syrian refugees come to canada
Syrian Canadians Syrians started immigrating to the Americas in the early part of the 1880s, the vast majority made South America their permanent home, a small percentage made their way to US, and an even smaller percentage settled in Canada. The overwhelming majority of Syrians who settled in Canada from the 1880s until the 1960s were of the Christian faith. The so-called Shepard of the lost flock, Saint Raphael Hawaweeny of Brooklyn, New York, came to Montreal in 1896 to help establish a Christian association called the Syrian Benevolent Society and then later on an Orthodox church in Montreal for the newly arrived Syrian faithful.[2]