Iraq’s Christians cling to hope, despite decades of sanctions, violence and persecution, says Tom Westcott.
After two decades of political instability and religious sectarianism, Iraq’s diminished Christian minority still faces challenges, with the two-year anniversary of the Pope’s visit marred by an arson attack and a new law banning alcohol sales.
Iraq has one of the oldest continuous Christian communities in the world, but the 2003 US-led invasion and overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein ushered in a period of instab-ility and sectarian violence which saw the country’s former 1.5 million Christians dwindle to local estimates of just 200,000.
“The gulf between 1.5 million and 200,000 wasn’t only because of the 2003 war; the first step was in 1990, with the sanctions against the Iraqi regime and the Iraqi people in general,” Fr Nadheer Dako, parish priest at St Jos-eph’s Cathedral in Baghdad, told the Catholic Herald. “This is when the problems for Iraqi Christians started and we have been suffering ever since.”
Although 13 years of sanctions had already opened the gates of emigration from Iraq, especially for the country’s minorities, this became more pronounced after 2003.
“Everyone tried to create his own regime through new political parties,” Fr Dako explained. “There was a rise in political Islamic ideology which turned Muslims against Christians, and then enemies of Iraq started attacking the country from the inside and divided our society, leading to sectarian violence.”
Christians became a primary target of rising extremist political Islamic ideologies, with a wave of apparently co-ordinated car-bombs in 2004 killing 11 Christians and injuring some 50 more across Baghdad and in the northern city of Mosul. More violence was to come. In 2007, a priest and three deacons were shot dead in Mosul and, a year later, 65-year-old Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho was kidnapped and his body later found in a shallow grave. In 2010, jihadis targeted a Catholic Church in Baghdad killing 58 people, including two priests and more than 40 members of the congregation.
As extremist sentiment coalesced into the formation of the Islamic State in 2014, Christian communities in and around Mosul – initially threatened with fines or conversion to Islam – were then forced to flee. Most found safety in Iraqi Kurdistan, from where hundreds of families sought asylum abroad.
Although Christians had been partially Arabised under Saddam’s rule, with their neo-Aramaic language repressed and Christian names outlawed, in general the minority – known for its excellence in business – occupied a secure position. Chaldean Catholic Tariq Aziz was a senior political figure under Saddam, serving as his deputy prime minister for 24 years and visiting the Vatican in the run-up to the invasion, apparently to discuss disarmament. But security evaporated overnight in the new Iraq and two decades have seen little improvement.
“We now have religious leaders, political leaders and mafia leaders and each has his authority and power in Iraq today but we, as Christians, have the authority of nothing,” said Fr Dako. He explained that Christian political representatives – they have five seats allocated in parliament and Evan Yakoob is the current female minister of migration – often reached their positions through affiliation to larger Shia, Sunni or Kurdish political parties, which left them largely unable to work on behalf of ordinary Iraqi Christians.
Fr Dako proudly led a tour around St Jos-eph’s – opened in 1956 – with its beautiful interior featuring diverse artworks and an illuminated cross built into the wooden ceiling, but admitted the pews were no longer full. Ironically, the parish’s 200 families are fewer than the 800 Iraqi families across the UK that he supported during several years based in London.
It was here that, two years ago, His Holiness Pope Francis held the first ever Papal Mass in Baghdad, wearing Chaldean vestments, as part of his historic visit entitled “We are all brothers”. Encompassing Baghdad, Ur, Najaf, Mosul and Erbil, the four-day visit was a significant highlight for the beleaguered minority after the grim preceding decades.
There were high hopes that the visit could be a turning point for Iraq’s Christians, garnering greater support from the central government, encouraging internally displaced people to return to northern Iraqi hometowns emptied by the Islamic State, and potentially inspiring some of the country’s Christian diaspora to consider returning to their homeland.
“He came with this message of brotherhood but it wasn’t enough, it was just ink on paper,” said Fr Dako. “Yes, we are free to worship in faith but still there is no real freedom for ordinary Iraqis.”
Not only had the situation for Iraqi Christians not improved since the visit, Fr Dako said it had actually worsened. The two-year anniversary of Pope Francis’s visit was marred by an arson attack setting ablaze the wooden door of a church in Baghdad’s Dora district which, he said: “We view as a religiously-motivated attack, because we can see no other reason for it.”
This followed the passing of a new law, in early March, outlawing the brewing, importing or selling of alcohol. Extant legislation forbids Muslims from working with alcohol so the trade has long been dominated by non-Muslim minorities, especially Christians and Yazidis, but the ban presents a serious new economic threat.
“There are around 40,000-50,000 minorities working in the alcohol trade, some 20,000 of whom are Christians,” Fr Dako explained, adding that the industry had made the fortunes of Iraq’s wealthiest Christians.
“The government would not have done this to us if they were really treating us like brothers because they know Christians and Yazidis are the primary financial beneficiaries of this trade, and yet they are stopping our businesses,” he said.
“Families will lose their livelihoods, which is not right, but the government is not looking at the human rights side of this.” A Christian political bloc is taking legal action to overturn the law but there are fears that the capital’s alcohol shops, now closed out of respect for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, will not be allowed to reopen.
As bleak as the situation may sound to the outside world, Iraqis are a resilient and determined people and the country’s Christians are no exception.
“There is still hope among Iraq’s Christians but this is not because of Pope Francis’ visit, it is because we have to live, and no one can live without hope,” Fr Dako explained.
He said Iraq needed half a century to “awaken from the darkness of ill-education that 2003 brought with it”, noting that this was less about the removal of Saddam but rather the subsequent complete destruction of the fabric of Iraqi society, by both foreign influences and Iraqis who have since held power. “They destroyed all the systems, so it was like starting again from zero and, 20 years later, we are still trying to see how to fix Iraq.”
Locking the doors of St Joseph’s – which maintains armed security at its entrance – to a dramatic backdrop of thunderclaps and driving rain, Fr Dako said: “I am not against the US, but now I am a foreign person in my own country because Iraqis now look at Christians as minorities. To where can we look for support, if our own country does not support us?”
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
Areas of Catholic Herald business are still recovering post-pandemic.
However, we are reaching out to the Catholic community and readership, that has been so loyal to the Catholic Herald. Please join us on our 135 year mission by supporting us.
We are raising £250,000 to safeguard the Herald as a world-leading voice in Catholic journalism and teaching.
We have been a bold and influential voice in the church since 1888, standing up for traditional Catholic culture and values. Please consider donating.