Church in Iraq
The situation in Iraq has been worsening for the Christian community recently. Churches have been bombed, clergy kidnapped and believers intimidated and even killed. This section is dedicated to bring you some of the news highlight regarding persecution, trauma and abuse against our people.
We ask you however to pray for ALL Iraqis, including Christians and their Churches. You can also email us directly your prayer requests, which will be forwarded to clergy or uploaded on the site to share with others. God bless.
Click here to email prayer points
Remarks by His Grace Bishop Mar Bawai Soro in Support of Iraqi Christians in Chicago
We, the American-Iraqi Christians, live in a state of dichotomy. We are gathered here today to inform the American public and media about the case of our brothers and sisters in Iraq. We are also gathered to communicate to the US Government officials our thoughts and demands.
On the one hand, we are joyous that our new country, the United States of America - the greatest country in the world - has liberated our old country, Iraq, from the grip of a brutal dictatorship.
But, on the other, we are highly disturbed because Iraqis in general, and Christians in particular, are worst off today than they were four years ago.
Iraqi Christians are the Assyrian Chaldean Syriac People. They are amongst the first people who accepted Christianity in the world. They are also the last concentrated-pocket of the Aramaic-speaking people in the world.
Their extinction will be seen as the direct failure of the U.S. government’s policy in Iraq - indeed a tragic outcome for which thousands of American men and women have sacrificed their lives!
Unlike the Sunni, Shiite, and Kurds, the Christian minority has no militia to defend itself. Christians are and have always been people of peace.
While Islamic fundamentalists have destroyed twenty Christian churches, killed and tortured numerous priests and deacons, literally publicly crucified Christians, kidnapped and murdered hundreds of innocent ChaldoAssyrians, the Iraqi and U.S. forces are standing by in silence. The only options offered by these Islamic fundamentalists to Iraqi Christians is to convert, leave or die.
Click on the image above to view more pictures from the Chicago rally event!
Christians - the indigenous people of Iraq - have become victims and refugees in their own homeland. Even the peace-loving, God-fearing Iraqi Muslims are helpless in the face of this calamitous reality. That is why Iraqi Christians must have a added protection – a US policy to address their deteriorating condition. They must receive full and equal support from the Iraqi government, as well as the U.S. administration.
Just as the US Government protected the Muslims in Kosovo so too it can and must protect the Christians of Iraq. We offer our sincere gratitude to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI for urging President Bush to remedy the situation of Iraqi Christians. As American citizens, we too call upon our President and Government to save these helpless Christians of Iraq. They have become the unknown-martyrs of the Iraqi war. Even worst, they are stereotyped and linked by the terrorists as being with the Americans, the infidels, and the forces that have invaded Iraq.
Today, we are gathered here to urge President Bush and the US Government, to take the following steps:
1) Iraqi Christians must receive support so that they can literally survive. This support must be constitutional, political and financial both in Iraq and in surrounding countries. We urge the US Administration to make equal the constitutional rights of the Christians, as an indigenous Iraqi minority, to the rights of Iraqi Sunni, Shiite, and Kurds. In such a context the ChaldoAssyrian Syriac of Iraq must be granted a self-governing constitutional right to guarantee the survival of their religion and culture in Iraq.
2) With rising security concerns in the North of Iraq, specifically in the Mosul and the Nineveh Plain area, we are demanding special allocation of funds towards building and maintaining security forces for the Assyrian Chaldean Syriac People. Their villages and towns are unprotected or at best safeguard by KDP Peshmerghas (Kurdish Militia) who sometimes in the past have used brutal force to victimize and ethnically cleanse their areas.
3) The condition of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians who have fled to Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and other surrounding countries must be improved. These poor people live in extreme inhumane conditions. The UNHCR and the U.S. Administration must pay special attention to their plight. We demand expedited processing of those who are most vulnerable, particularly the victims and families of kidnapping, beheading, rape, torture, and threat.
The continued presence of Christianity and other smaller minorities in Iraq is an important and necessary balance for insuring that democracy is fostered and ultimately survive in Iraq.
We thank you for coming here this afternoon. May God bless you and bless our beloved country America so that it may continue to be humanity’s beacon for hope, freedom and justice.
Message from Congresswomen Anna Eshoo regarding Iraqi Christians
Dear Colleague,
I’m writing to ask you to join me in sending the attached letter to President Bush urging him to take seriously the deep concerns expressed by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI for Iraq’s indigenous Christian Population. As a proud Assyrian-American, I trace my heritage to this population which includes Chaldeans, Jacobites, Armenians, Assyrians and Greek Orthodox Christians. Iraq’s indigenous Christian population represents the oldest surviving Christian population in the world and one that, without help during this time of great insecurity, could be on the brink of extinction.
While Christians comprise 5% of Iraq’s population, they have accounted for nearly 40% of the refugees fleeing Iraq in recent years, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. A recent CRS report estimates there are as many as 2 million refugees who have fled Iraq to Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Egypt and the West since 2003, many of whom encounter unwelcoming governments. It is a tragic situation that has brought significant media attention and must be addressed.
Despite the well-documented reports of persecution facing this population, Iraqi Christians continue to be targeted for kidnappings, bombings, assassinations and other acts of violence largely due to their religious practices and beliefs. Pope Benedict highlighted the worsening conditions in his discussions with President Bush, warning that an Iraq is emerging that does not tolerate the Christian religion.
I urge you to join me in writing to President Bush to encourage him to heed Pope Benedict’s counsel and work with our allies to protect the welfare of the endangered Iraqi Christian population. For more information, or to sign on, you can contact Tim Carey of my office at 225-8104 or tim.carey@mail.house.gov.
Gratefully,
Anna G. Eshoo
Member of Congress
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE OFFICIAL DOCUMENT IN PDF FORMAT
Ragheed, a “costly sacrifice” so that Iraq may see the dawn of reconciliation, says Pope Benedict XVI
AsiaNews [Vatican City] “Deeply saddened” by yesterday’s “senseless killing of Father Ragheed Aziz Ganni and the subdeacons” in Mosul, the Pope expressed “his heartfelt condolences” in a telegram to the city’s bishop, Mgr Rahho, and the families of the deceased. In the message that was released today, Benedict XVI “joins the Christian community in Mosul in commending their souls to the infinite mercy of God our loving Father and in giving thanks for their selfless witness to the Gospel.” The Pontiff said he would pray for the “costly sacrifice [which] will inspire in the hearts of all men and women of good will a renewed resolve to reject the ways of hatred and violence [. . .] and to cooperate in hastening the dawn of reconciliation, justice and peace in Iraq.”
AsiaNews joins his Holiness in expressing condolences and publishes an article in memory of Father Ragheed.
“Without Sunday, without the Eucharist the Christians in Iraq cannot survive”: that was how Fr Ragheed spoke of his community’s hope, a community that was used to facing death on a daily basis, that same death that yesterday afternoon faced him, on his way home from saying mass. After having fed his faithful with the Body and Blood of Christ, he gave his own blood, his own life for Iraq, for the future of his Church. This young priest had willingly, knowingly chosen to remain by the side of his parishioners from Holy Spirit parish in Mosul, judged the most dangerous, after Baghdad. His reasoning was simple: without him, without its pastor, his flock would have been lost. In the barbarity of suicide attacks and bombings, one thing at least was clear, and gave him the strength to resist: “Christ – Ragheed would say – challenger evil with his infinite love, he keeps us united and through the Eucharist he gifts us life, which the terrorists are trying to take away”.
He died yesterday, massacred by blind violence. Killed on his way home from Church, where his people, despite their decreasing numbers, bowed by fear and desperation, continued to come: “the young people – Ragheed told us just days ago – organized surveillance after the recent attacks against the parish, the kidnappings, the threats to religious; priests celebrate mass amidst the bombed out ruins; mothers worry as they see their children challenge danger to attend catechism with enthusiasm; the elderly come to entrust their fleeing families to God’s protection, they alone remain in their country where they have their roots and built their homes, refusing to flee. Exile for them is unimaginable”. Ragheed was one of them, a strong father figure who wanted to protect his children: “It is our duty not to give in to despair: God will listen to our prayers for peace in Iraq”:
In 2003 on finishing his studies in Rome, he decided to return to his country “that is where I belong, that is my place”. He also returned to help in the rebuilding of his nation, the rebuilding of a “free society”. He spoke of an Iraq full of hope with a captivating smile: “Saddam has fallen, we have elected a government, we have voted for a Constitution!” He organized theology courses for the lay faithful of Mosul; he worked with the young; he consoled disadvantaged families; this month he was in the grips of helping a small child with serious eye problems undergo surgery in Rome.
His testimony is of an enthusiastic faith. The target of a series of threats stretching back to 2004, he witnessed the pain of relatives and the loss of friends, and yet he carried on to the very end remembering that there was a sense to be found in that suffering, that carnage, that anarchy of violence: it was to be offered up. After an attack on his parish, on Palm Sunday last April 1st he said: “We empathise with Christ who entered Jerusalem in full knowledge that the consequence of His love for mankind was the cross. Thus while bullets smashed our Church windows, we offered up our sufferance as a sign of love for Christ”. “Each day we wait for the decisive attack – he said just weeks ago – but we will not stop celebrating mass; we will do it underground, where we are safer. I am encouraged in this decision by the strength of my parishioners. This is war, real war, but we hope to carry our cross to the very end with the help of Divine Grace”. And in the midst of the daily difficulties he himself marvelled at a growing awareness of “the great value of Sunday, the day we met the Risen Lord, the day of unity and of love between his community, of support and help”.
Then the bombings multiplied; the kidnappings of priests in Baghdad and Mosul became more frequent; Sunnis began to demand taxes from Christians to remain in their homes, or face their requisition by militants. Water and electricity grow scarce, telephones and communicating becomes difficult. Ragheed begins to grow tired, his enthusiasm weakens, to the point where in his last e-mail to AsiaNews, May 28 last, he admits: “We are on the verge of collapse”- And he tells of a bomb exploding in the Holy Spirit Church, on the feast of Pentecost May 27; of the “war” which broke out a week before, 7 car bombings, 10 explosions in swift succession, the three day curfew, “prisoners in our own home”, of not being able to celebrate the feast of the Ascension (May 20).
He pondered the path his country had taken: “In a sectarian and confessional Iraq, will there be any space for Christians? We have no support, no group who fights for our cause; we are abandoned in the midst of this disaster. Iraq has already been divided; it will never be the same. What is the future of our Church? Today it can barely be traced”.
But then the strength of his faith endures, a tired but solid faith: “I may be wrong, but I am certain about one thing, one single fact that is always true: that the Holy Spirit will enlighten people so that they may work for the good of humanity, in this world so full of evil”.
Dearest Ragheed, with a heart which cries in pain, you leave us your hope and your certainty. By taking you they aimed to wipe out the hope of Iraq’s Christians. Instead your martyrdom nourishes and gives new life to your community, to the Iraqi Church and the Church throughout the world. Thank you, grazie Ragheed.
