The first Syrian nationalist is considered to be Butrus al-Bustani, a Mount Lebanon-born convert from the Maronite Church to Protestantism, who started one of the region's first newspapers, "Nafir Suria" in Beirut in the aftermath of the Mount Lebanon civil war of 1860 and the massacre of Christians in Damascus in the same year. Bustani, who was deeply opposed to all forms of sectarianism, said "Ḥubb al-Waṭan min al-Īmān" (, "Love of the Homeland is a matter of Faith").