Assyrians refer to the killing of their people in as a genocide, which took place about the same time as the massacre of Armenians. There are 21 Assyrian churches in Iraq, 17 of them in Baghdad. About 3 per cent of Iraqi Christians are Armenian. After the genocide in by the Ottoman Empire, many of them fled to Iraq.
They speak Armenian. There are 19 Armenian churches in Iraq, Orthodox and Catholic. Arab Christians make up about 2 per cent of the Iraqi Christian population. There are also three Greek Orthodox and four Coptic Orthodox churches in Baghdad, and 57 Roman Catholic churches across the country, as well as a small number of Protestants. Rather than deal with the issues, some spouses take the easy way out, convert to Islam, and get an immediate divorce. What about the mother?
What if one of the children is not willing? No, no, no, we are told, Islam is the honorable religion. It also means you cannot evangelize. For anyone coming to the church asking about Christianity now, we are there.
We communicate, provide literature. Of course, I leave the decision to them. But my duty is to inform them and give them a reason for the hope that is in us. Has the rest of the Christian community in Iraq realized the contract is broken? Can they act accordingly? It depends on where they are. In Baghdad and Basra, it is a different story. What about you? But their lives and challenges are different.
They live amid political disputes between parties. It leads to a certain chaos with security, and some act out against the weaker party. There was some direct violence against churches and priests because they were Christians, but in recent years it is more about criminality. We welcomed you. This helps history avoid being repeated. They would dig deep in their Islamic history books to discover where it speaks about the dignity of the human being, simply because he is created by God.
And then it would change the way they speak. They would use the Quran to demonstrate mutual respect. They would then realize [Christians] are not there to dance and drink wine.
I asked the head of the choir to choose Muslim musicians. There were 10 of them. Listen to me. Watch me. Our young people prepared the stadium, working 16 hours a day for three weeks.
When the event was over, the media showed pictures of the stadium and that it was clean. This was not part of our responsibility; trash collection belonged to the government. As you try to live out the fact that the social contract is broken and to spread this idea among other Christians, will there be consequences?
I go to meet with extremist Muslims, people who would not expect me at the gates of their homes. Are you willing to accept me? What are you doing to prepare the Christians in your bishopric to live in this new reality? Our region receives displaced Christians because it is safe. This has helped me practice my faith freely, and Kurdistan is quite supportive. However, there are some reasons for hope. Qaraqosh, a city that had 50, Christians before Daesh, has recovered more than half of its inhabitants today.
However, while some refugee families from abroad have returned to the Nineveh Plain, it is unlikely that the movement will become widespread.
The country is still thought to have , Catholic faithful united with Rome and a little more than , non-Catholic faithful. The ratio of Catholics per inhabitants thus amounts to 1. The Catholic Churches of Iraq have only 19 bishops, diocesan priests, 40 religious priests and 20 deacons.
Lastly, 32 seminarians are awaiting ordination. Although the number of Catholics is relatively small, Msgr. Pascal Gollnisch nevertheless underlines how great their cultural influence is in the country. Many institutions depend on the Catholic Church, which runs no less than 55 primary and nursery schools, 4 secondary schools and 9 universities. The calls for reconciliation and fellowship on the part of current leaders of the churches in Iraq are edifying when one knows the suffering they have had to endure, especially over the past two decades.
After the fall of Saddam Hussein in , a great wave of insecurity shook the country. If you do not leave your home, your blood will be spilled. You and your family will be killed. A young Christian man, whose name was withheld for his own protection, told Pelley that following the U. His family began going to Mass in shifts, so that in the event the church was bombed, only some family members would be killed or maimed. Eventually, the church was bombed.
The boy is in danger of being kidnapped. A photo essay entitled "Iraq stories: Christian refugees seek help," posted on the blog "Happening Here" in June , is about St.
After attending a service at St. One, an artist from Basra who had sold some of his artwork to British soldiers, was branded as a "collaborator" with the occupation and threatened with execution for being a traitor. Another man told them that a neighbor was killed by radical Islamists for wearing shorts. All of the Iraqis said that, while back in Iraq, they feared to send their daughters out alone, and certainly not without veils.
The Iraqi Christians related that until the s "different religious communities got along, neighbors of different faiths knew each other, and congratulated each other on their various religious holidays. According to one Iraqi attending the Damascus church: "We are Iraqis and we oppose the occupation, but the Christians will never be able to go back.
The new Iraqi government is imposing Iranian law; it is giving citizenship to Iranians. Then and Now No one can dispute that the regime of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was brutal and extremely authoritarian. Nevertheless, Hussein, who was a secularized Sunni Muslim, had no set agenda against members of religions other than his own.
Even under the repressive secular government of Saddam Hussein, Christians in Iraq enjoyed a fair degree of religious freedom.
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