In it, the Patriarch says: "If the Lord were French, I would have stopped worshiping Him." The Patriarch famously called on all Armenian recruits in the French-created Army of the Levant to defect after the French bombardment of Damascus in 1945. In reward, President Shukri al-Quwatli awarded him the Order of Merit of the Syrian Republic, Excellence Class, after the French evacuation in 1946.