In Iraq, the biggest day for Christian church attendance is Friday, the Muslim day of prayer, because, according to the government calendar, Sunday is a normal workday. Attending Mass at an Eastern Catholic church in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, I heard the Lord’s Prayer spoken in Aramaic, the language of Jesus.
The faith of this community, one of the oldest continuous Christian traditions in the world, was deeply inspiring. Surrounded by Muslims and specifically targeted by Islamist extremists, particularly ISIS, both the Assyrian and Chaldean Christians, the two main historical groups, have managed to preserve their faith, culture, and language for nearly two thousand years.
Christianity was first brought to Iraq, then known as ancient Mesopotamia, in the 1st century AD. It is traditionally attributed to the apostles Thomas, Thaddaeus of Edessa (also known as Addai), and Mari, who according to Oriental traditions evangelized the provinces of Assyria and Babylonia.
St. Thomas the Apostle, remembered in the Gospels as “Doubting Thomas,” was one of Jesus’s twelve apostles. According to tradition, he traveled through Mesopotamia on his way to India, where he founded the Christian community later known as the Saint Thomas Christians.
Every day I spend in Iraq, I know I am walking where the apostles once walked and worshiping in churches they helped establish. The names of people and places here are the same ones I read about in the Bible. The Assyrians and Chaldeans are mentioned throughout the Old Testament, and the tombs of both Job, whose faith God tested through countless afflictions, and Jonah, who was swallowed by a great fish, are found here in Iraq.
If you grew up Italian on Long Island, like I did, or if you are a Roman Catholic or Protestant Christian from anywhere in the world, you may have wondered why the word “Roman” is included before the name of the religion. The answer is that there are actually twenty-four Catholic Churches. The Roman Catholic Church is the largest, encompassing about 98 percent of the world’s Catholics, the remaining twenty-three are Eastern Catholic Churches.
It is important not to confuse the Eastern Catholic Churches and The Assyrian Church of the East with the Eastern Orthodox Church, which is a separate denomination that split from Rome during the Great Schism of 1054. In contrast, all of the twenty-three Eastern Catholic Churches are in full communion with Rome, meaning they recognize His Holiness the Pope.
The twenty-three Eastern Catholic Churches each have their own ancient liturgies, languages, and traditions, completely different from what one would see at a Sunday Mass in New York or Chicago. Over the centuries, Christianity divided several times over theological disputes and political conflicts. Some Iraqi Christian communities, such as the Assyrian Church of the East, maintained their independence, while others reunited with Rome at different points in history while preserving their own traditions.
In Iraq, I spend time with both The Assyrian Church of the East and Chaldean Catholics. The Assyrian Church of the East looks very much like a Catholic church, although it is not in full communion with Rome, but the largest Christian group, the Chaldean Catholic Church, entered into full communion in 1830, meaning they recognize the authority of the Pope.
Both the Assyrian and Chaldean Churches use Aramaic, not Latin, as their liturgical language, and their priests are permitted to marry, unlike priests in the Roman Catholic Church. They also follow the Eastern liturgical calendar and Eastern canon law rather than Western tradition.
Eastern Churches venerate saints who are not widely known or recognized in the Roman Catholic tradition. Thaddaeus of Edessa (also known as Addai) and Mari are honored for their role in founding the Eastern Church. St. Thomas, however, is venerated by both the Church of the East and the Roman Catholic Church because he is a biblical apostle mentioned directly in Scripture.
His feast day is celebrated on July 3 in the Roman calendar, and he is honored in the East as the apostle who brought Christianity to both Mesopotamia and India. Fittingly, the one small Roman Catholic parish in Erbil is named St. Thomas.
Everywhere I have been in Iraqi Kurdistan, people have been incredibly welcoming. They generally like Americans and appreciate that U.S. forces supported the Peshmerga, the Kurdish military forces, against ISIS, and that the United States played a key role in securing autonomy for Iraqi Kurdistan after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Much of my day is spent walking around, taking photos of strangers, both Muslim and Christian. Inevitably, this often leads to being invited in for tea or sweets like baklava. People are very open and eager to talk about Kurdistan and how proud they are of the nation they have built within a state. When speaking with Christians, the conversation frequently turns to ISIS.
The war in Iraq against ISIS began after clashes in December 2013 and escalated into full-scale conflict in June 2014, when ISIS captured Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. The militants advanced to within about 25 miles (30 to 40 kilometers) of Erbil, following a route through the Nineveh Plains, where most of Iraq’s Christians once lived.
As ISIS advanced, Christians in Mosul and the surrounding region faced brutal persecution. The group issued an ultimatum to convert to Islam, pay jizyah (a special tax), or face execution by July 19, 2014. ISIS marked Christian homes, occupied churches, removed crosses, and destroyed more than 1,500 religious documents. Some estimates indicate that 60,000 Christians in Mosul alone were executed, displaced, or trafficked as sex slaves.
The largest Christian city in Iraq, Qaraqosh, fell to ISIS on August 6, 2014. When the city was captured, most of its 60,000 residents fled toward Erbil in Kurdistan. In total, the United Nations estimated that around 200,000 Christians fled the Nineveh Plains during the 2014 offensive. Many sought refuge in Ankawa, Erbil’s Christian neighborhood, where the population surged overnight as up to 120,000 believers arrived seeking safety.
During the ISIS occupation, reports of beheadings, crucifixions, and other atrocities spread across the region. In response to these crimes, on February 3, 2016, the European Parliament unanimously recognized ISIS’s persecution of religious minorities, including Christians, as genocide. The following month, on March 17, 2016, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry officially declared that ISIS had committed genocide and crimes against humanity against Yazidis, Christians, Shia Muslims, and others.
After ISIS was defeated, many Christians emigrated, leaving Ankawa’s current population at around 80,000, with an estimated 60,000 Christians remaining. Some who had fled were able to return to their homes in the Nineveh Plains, but many from Mosul were too afraid to go back. One Christian told me, “Mosul was the ISIS capital, and while not everyone is ISIS, they were fine with living next to ISIS.” For that reason, many Christians still fear returning and living alongside those who tolerated or supported the group.
Iraqi Kurdistan remains a safe haven for minorities, including Christians, Yazidis, and foreigners, but Mosul is still considered dangerous. Before ISIS, Mosul’s Christian population numbered around 50,000; today, fewer than 70 Christian families remain. One priest told me it is estimated that seven to eight Christian families give up entirely and leave Iraq each month. He also noted that birthrates are declining: “I can count on two hands all the Christian families in my parish who have three children. The rest have two or one.” Then, with a sad laugh, he added, “We are no longer at replacement levels.”
The data confirms the priest’s concerns. In 1950, Christians made up an estimated 10 to 12 percent of Iraq’s population. By 1960, that number had fallen to about 3 percent. Today, there may be as few as 140,000 to 400,000 Christians remaining in the entire country, including both Kurdistan and greater Iraq.
The Christians who have chosen to remain, despite a lifetime of hardship, including the ISIS years when so many were killed, are heroes of the faith, preserving an ancient legacy that traces its lineage back to Jesus.
The post Reporting from Kurdistan: Iraq’s Dwindling Christian Population appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.