MAALOULA /Syria/, September 2. /TASS/. Workers have gotten down to restoration of the Orthodox Christian church in the name of St George in the Syrian town of Maaloula, located in Rif Damashq Governorate some 55 km to the northeast of Damascus.

Militants robbed and burned down the church during control over the unique town where the half-Christian half-Islamic population still speaks a dialect of the ancient Aramaic language.

"Parishioners and Syrian Christian communities raised the monies for the restoration," said Fadi Shahim, the leader of the restoration workers team. "Unfortunately, international organizations don’t give us any assistance so far."

"We’ve just gotten down to work and haven’t done much yet but we’ve already repaired the staircase leading to the bell-tower," he said. "I think full restoration will take about a year."

Shahim indicated that the people restoring the olden church now have been members of its parish in the past and that is why revival of the shrine is more than just work for them.

"When we saw what the militants had done to the church, we had heartaches," he said. "We went to this church from our green years and it was a second home for us."

He also said the terrorists had looted everything they could be taken away. "They grabbed an ancient bell and outraged on the faces of saints on the icons by scratching them out."

While the church could be restored on the whole, some of the losses were irreparable, Shahim said. "The biggest loss is the ancient icon of St George that overlooked the entrance. The terrorists took it away and nothing is known about its fate," he said.

Aramaic, the native tongue of Jesus Christ, is the liturgical language at the Orthodox churches in Maaloula.

Earlier reports said the services had resumed in the world-famous St Thecla monastery, which was also devastated by the terrorists.

Syrian government forces drove the militants out of Maaloula in April 2014 and restoration efforts in the city began soon after that. Western countries and UNESCO that promised aid abstained from the works somehow.

The terrorist groupings that operated in Syria have dealt an extremely heavy blow to many historical and cultural monuments across the country.

One of their crimes was the destruction of a number of monuments in the antique city Palmyra and about 30% building the buildings in Aleppo that had been placed on the list of world cultural heritage.

The Syrians are restoring the monuments with assistance from Russian experts.