FIRST SERVICE AFTER OCCUPATION BY ISIS CELEBRATED IN QARAQOSH, IRAQ

Pravoslavie.ru – 11/11/16

On October 30, 2016, several Christians gathered inside a church in the town of Qaraqosh in northern Iraq. The church walls are now blackened from fire. The first service was celebrated here after the events of 2014 when the “Islamic State” terrorist group occupied the town. In the large-scale operation to liberate Mosul the Iraqi government forces and the Kurdish volunteer corps freed Qaraqosh. As they were retreating, the ISIS militants set the church on fire, reports the Barnabas Foundation.

Qaraqosh, also known as Al-Hamdaniya in Arabic and Baghdeda in Aramaic, was still the largest Christian town in Iraq in 2014, with ninety-five percent of its population (approximately 50,000 people) identifying themselves as followers of Christ. When the ISIS militants entered the town, Christians fled in great numbers. Some of them walked a very great distance to find refuge in Erbil (Arbil). During the occupation the ISIS terrorists destroyed several churches in Qaraqosh, converted some into mosques and used others as prisons or command posts.

Churches of many towns and villages of the Nineveh Plains (where historically the Christian community of Iraq lived) shared the destiny of the abovementioned churches of Qaraqosh. In the south-east of Mosul (Karemlash) one church building was even used as a workshop for producing bombs. The gunmen destroyed the 1000-year-old historic ornament by covering the walls with graffiti containing quotations from the Hadith (a collection of traditions associated with the life and sayings of the Muslim prophet Muhammad).

The history of Christianity in Iraq is 2000 years old. Over the twenty centuries of their history the Iraqi towns of Bartella, Karlais, Qaraqosh and others were famous literally as Christian towns. The Christian population of Iraq dramatically decreased after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and the constant conflicts and wars that followed as a result of the American invasion.

The Iraqi Christians who left their towns and villages two years ago are still hesitating to return to their homes. The faithful are anxious because even when they come back home they will be faced with discrimination and possible further attacks by the Muslim majority. Now the Iraqi government and Kurdish troops are advancing on the city of Mosul where some 1.5 million civilians live.

Khalid Ramzi, a member of the congregation of a church in Erbil (the Iraqi Kurdistan), says that he is afraid to return to Mosul. “We don’t want to fall into the same pit twice. We don’t want our children to grow up amid violence and terror. We can come back to Mosul only in our dreams,” he said.

Father Zakarea, a priest of a parish church in Erbil, says that for him the return would mean “remembering all the pain, all the threats, all the murders, all the letters with bullets inside. We will remember those glares in the streets.”