Christianity in Iraq

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The Christians of Iraq are considered to be one of the oldest surviving continuous Christian communities in the world. The vast majority are Eastern Aramaic-speaking ethnic Assyrians, with much smaller numbers of Armenians, Arabs, Kurds and Turcoman extant also.

In Iraq, Christians numbered about 1,500,000 in 2003, representing just over 5% of the population of the country. They numbered over 1.4 million in 1987 or 8% of the population.[1] After the Iraq War, it was estimated that the number of Christians in Iraq had dropped to less than 450,000 by 2013.[2]

Christians live primarily in Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, Arbil and Kirkuk and in Assyrian towns and regions such as the Nineveh Plains in the north.[3]

Christian communities

The ruins of Saint Elijah's Monastery founded in 595 AD south of Mosul by the Assyrian Christian monk Mar Elia
A new epoch began in the 17th century when Emir Afrasiyab of Basra allowed the Portuguese to build a church
Celebration of Corpus Christi in Iraq, 1920, attended by Assyrians and Armenians.

Eastern Rite Assyrian-Chaldean churches

The majority of the Iraqi Christians belong to the Eastern Rite churches whose followers are almost exclusively ethnic Assyrians.

The Churches of the Armenian rite

Followers of these churches are exclusively ethnic Armenians

The other churches and communities

Followers of these churches are an ethnic mix of Assyrians, Arabs, Kurds, Turcomen and Shabaki

  • Orthodox Church (Melkite)
  • Catholic Church (Melkite)
  • Roman Catholic Church (Latin)
  • Protestant churches

History

Christianity was brought to Iraq in the first century AD by the Apostles Thomas and Addai (Thaddaeus) and his pupils Aggagi and Mari. Thomas and Thaddeus belonged to the twelve Apostles.[4] Iraq's Eastern Aramaic speaking Assyrian Christian communities are believed to be among the oldest in the world.

The Assyrians adopted Christianity in the first century AD[3] and Assyria became the centre of Eastern Rite Christianity and Syriac literature from the 1st century AD until the Middle Ages. In the early centuries after the Arab Islamic conquest, native Assyrian (known as Ashuriyun by the Arabs) scholars and doctors played an influential role in Iraq, however, from the late 13th century AD through to the present time, Assyrian Christians have suffered both religious and ethnic persecution, including a number of massacres.[5] Northern Iraq remained predominantly Assyrian, Eastern Aramaic speaking and Christian until the destructions of Tamerlane at the end of the 14th century. The Assyrian Church of the East has its origin in what is now South East Turkey and Assuristan (Sassanid Assyria). By the end of the 13th century there were twelve Nestorian dioceses in a strip from Peking to Samarkand. When the 14th-century Muslim warlord of Turco-Mongol descent, Timur (Tamerlane), conquered Persia, Mesopotamia and Syria, the civilian population was decimated. Timur had 70,000 Assyrian Christians beheaded in Tikrit, and 90,000 more in Baghdad.[6][7] A new epoch began in the 17th century when Emir Afrasiyab of Basra allowed the Portuguese to build a church outside of the city. In the year of Iraq´s formal independence 1932, the Iraqi military carried out large-scale massacres against the Assyrians (Simele massacre) which had supported the British colonial admistration before.[3]

In 1987, the last Iraqi census counted 1.4 million Christians.[8] They were tolerated under the secular regime of Saddam Hussein, who even made one of them, Tariq Aziz his deputy. However persecution by Saddam Hussein continued against the Christians on an ethnic, cultural and racial level, as the vast majority are Mesopotamian Aramaic speaking Ethnic Assyrians (aka Chaldo-Assyrians). The Assyrian -Aramaic language and written script was repressed, the giving of Hebraic/Aramaic Christian names or Akkadian/Assyro-Babylonian names forbidden (Tariq Aziz real name is Michael Youhanna for example), and Saddam exploited religious differences between Assyrian denominations such as Chaldean Catholics, Assyrian Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox and Ancient Church of the East. Many Assyrians were ethnically cleansed from their towns and villages under the al Anfal Campaign in 1988.

Prior to the Gulf War in 1991, Christians numbered one million in Iraq.[3] The Baathist rule under Saddam Hussein kept anti-Christian violence under control but subjected some to "relocation programmes".[3] Under this regime, the predominantly ethnically and linguistically distinct Assyrian Christians were pressured to identify as Arabs. The Christian population fell to an estimated 800,000 during the 2003 Iraq War.[3]

Post-war situation

A church in Baghdad.
A Chaldean Catholic Church in Basra 2014.

As of 21 June 2007, the UNHCR estimated that 2.2 million Iraqis had been displaced to neighbouring countries, and 2 million were displaced internally, with nearly 100,000 Iraqis fleeing to Syria and Jordan each month.[9][10] A 25 May 2007 article notes that in the past seven months only 69 people from Iraq were granted refugee status in the United States.[11]

After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, violence against Christians rose, with reports of abduction, torture, bombings, and killings.[12] Some Christians were pressured to convert to Islam under threat of death or expulsion, and women were ordered to wear Islamic dress.[12]

In August 2004, International Christian Concern protested an attack by Islamists on Iraqi Christian churches that killed 11 people.[13] In 2006, an Orthodox Christian priest, Boulos Iskander, was beheaded and mutilated despite payment of a ransom, and in 2008, the Assyrian clergyman Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of the Chaldean Catholic church in Mosul died after being abducted.[12] In January 2008, bombs exploded outside nine churches.[12]

In 2007, Chaldean Catholic priest Fr. Ragheed Aziz Ganni and subdeacons Basman Yousef Daud, Wahid Hanna Isho, and Gassan Isam Bidawed were killed in the ancient city of Mosul.[14] Ganni was driving with his three deacons when they were stopped and demanded to convert to Islam, when they refused they were shot.[14] Ganni was the pastor of the Chaldean Church of the Holy Spirit in Mosul and a graduate from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum in Rome in 2003 with a licentiate in ecumenical theology. Six months later, the body of Paulos Faraj Rahho, archbishop of Mosul, was found buried near Mosul. He was kidnapped on 29 February 2008 when his bodyguards and driver were killed.[15]

In 2010, reports emerged in Mosul of people being stopped in the streets, asked for their identity cards, and shot if they had a first or last name indicating Assyrian or Christian origin.[5] On 31 October 2010, 58 people, including 41 hostages and priests, were killed after an attack on an Assyrian Catholic church in Baghdad.[16] See October 2010 Baghdad church attack. A group affiliated to Al-Qaeda, Islamic State of Iraq, stated that Iraq's indigenous Christians were a "legitimate target."[17] In November, a series of bombings and mortar attacks targeted Assyrian Christian-majority areas of Baghdad.[17]

Half the Christian population has fled, with an estimated 330,000 to Syria and smaller numbers to Jordan.[12] Some fled to Iraqi Kurdistan in northern Iraq and to neighboring country Iran. Christians who are too poor or unwilling to leave their ancient homeland have fled mainly to Arbil, particularly its Christian suburb of Ainkawa.[5] 10,000 mainly Assyrian Iraqi Christians live in the U.K. led by Archbishop Athanasios Dawood who has called on the government to accept more refugees.[18]

Apart from emigration, the Iraqi Christians are also declining due to lower rates of birth and higher death rates than their Muslim compatriots. Also since the invasion of Iraq, Assyrian and Armenian Christians have been targeted by extreme Islamic organisations and Arab nationalists.[19]

Relations with non-Christians

Former Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz's (real name Michael Youkhanna) death sentence was not signed by the Iraqi president in 2010 because the president "sympathise[d] with Tariq Aziz because he is an Iraqi Christian."[20] This also came after appeals from the Holy See not to carry out the sentence.[21]

See also

References

  1. ↑ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=61897
  2. ↑ "Christian areas hit by Baghdad bombs". BBC News. 25 December 2013. Retrieved 25 December 2013. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 "Iraqi Christians' long history". BBC. 13 March 2008. Retrieved 31 October 2010. 
  4. ↑ Suha Rassam. Christianity in Iraq. Gracewing Publications. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Stourton, Edward (3 April 2010). "Iraqi Christians under fire". The Telegraph. Retrieved 1 November 2010. 
  6. ↑ "14th century annihilation of Iraq". Mertsahinoglu.com. Retrieved 29 June 2011. 
  7. ↑ NUPI – Centre for Russian Studies
  8. ↑ "Christians live in fear of death squads". Irinnews.org. 19 October 2006. Retrieved 29 June 2011. 
  9. ↑ "Iraq refugees chased from home, struggle to cope". Cnn. 20 June 2007. Retrieved 29 June 2011. 
  10. ↑ U.N.: 100,000 Iraq refugees flee monthly. Alexander G. Higgins, Boston Globe, 3 November 2006
  11. ↑ Ann McFeatters: Iraq refugees find no refuge in America. Seattle Post-Intelligencer 25 May 2007
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 Harrison, Frances (13 March 2008). "Christians besieged in Iraq". BBC. Retrieved 31 October 2010. 
  13. ↑ Bill Wilson (2005). Warshod. Retrieved June 10, 2011. 
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 "Fr Ragheed Ganni – The Independent (14 June 2007)". London: News.independent.co.uk. Retrieved 29 June 2011. 
  15. ↑ "Who are the Chaldean Christians?". BBC News. 13 March 2008. Retrieved 22 May 2010. 
  16. ↑ Surk, Barbara; Jakes, Lara (1 November 2010). "Iraqi Christians mourn after church siege kills 58". Associated Press (yahoo.com). Retrieved 2 November 2010. 
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 "Christian areas targeted in Baghdad attacks". BBC. 10 November 2010. Retrieved 10 November 2010. 
  18. ↑ "Church leader urges Iraqi Christians to quit country". BBC News. 7 November 2010. Retrieved 7 November 2010. 
  19. ↑ Barnes, Taylor (November 3, 2010). "Al Qaeda ally in Iraq says all Christians 'legitimate targets'". CSmonitor. 
  20. ↑ Talabani against Aziz execution, Al Jazeera English
  21. ↑ "Iraq president refuses to sign death order for ex-official". The Washington Post. 

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