WASHINGTON — The United States and other foreign powers must stop financing and arming Syria’s myriad groups of fighters if the country has any hope of healing, Syria’s Orthodox Christian leader told Al-Monitor in an exclusive interview.

John X, the patriarch of Antioch and all the East, said the Middle East was going through dark times but expressed hope for a better future if the outside world sets its sights on achieving peace. He said that Christians weren’t going anywhere, and that the surest way to help them is to achieve a political settlement to the crises ripping the region apart rather than singling out any particular group for assistance.

“If you want to help us as Christians, to protect us as Christians, you have to find a peaceful solution for Syria and for the Middle East,” John X told Al-Monitor. “You can’t protect me only, if my neighborhood is not well.”

The Damascus-based patriarch was in the United States for last week’s enthronement of a new leader of the church in North America, Metropolitan Joseph. He used the occasion to meet with officials at the UN as well as the White House and State Department.