Ecumenical News International / 10 December 2007
Iraq church has ‘new martyrs’, says Baghdad archbishop
By Stephen Brown
Geneva, 10 December (ENI)–Christians are fleeing Iraq and
Christianity risks disappearing from the country, says a senior Baghdad
archbishop, reiterating appeals made recently to Western churches to
intercede with their governments about the plight of the Iraqis.
"We do have the courage of faith, the outpouring of love, but because
of the war, you see death and destruction, the manifestation of evil.
Our people are lacking hope, and so they are leaving," said Archbishop
Avak V. Asadourian of the Armenian Church of Iraq in an interview
with Ecumenical News International on 10 December.
He was interviewed in Geneva following a service at the headquarters
of the World Council of Churches, at which he said the four years since
the US-led invasion had been "the most difficult by far" of his 28-year
ministry in Iraq. Asadourian was attending a WCC meeting centred on
accompanying churches in conflict situations.
Young people "are faced each day with death and destruction, they are
faced each day with being kidnapped or facing the agony of having a
loved one who is kidnapped", the prelate told worshippers at the
service.
Despite the hardships, Asadourian, who leads the Council of the Heads
of the Churches in Baghdad, said the faith of the Christians in Iraq,
who are estimated to account for less than 3 per cent of the country’s
27.5 million people, has not wavered, although many reports have said
their numbers have dwindled.
"On the contrary, we have been steadfast in our faith," said the
archbishop. He recounted how a Syrian Orthodox priest had been
decapitated in the northern Iraq city of Mosul, apparently for refusing
to "adopt another religion". In the same city, a Chaldean priest and his
three assistants were shot dead in June this year a few metres from
their church.
"We have new martyrs in the church in Iraq," said Asadourian. "I know
of no one incident in the last four years where priests have converted to
another religion because they have been threatened," the archbishop
stated, adding the same was true for lay people. "So in Iraq the faith of
your brothers and sisters in Christ is strong enough to face martyrdom."
Nevertheless, "we are faced with the problem of the lack of hope," the
archbishop said in his sermon. "Unless the churches in Iraq can open
small windows if hope then I am afraid that Christianity will face a
slow demise not only in Iraq but in the entire region where Jesus Christ
lived and worked," he said
"I pray that the churches in the West will be strong enough to have a
say in the corridors of power to remind those in power what they
promised for Iraq and that it is high time that the promise is fulfilled,"
the archbishop told ENI. "We ask for peace, not only for Christians,
but for the entire Iraqi people, be they Muslim, Christian or adherents
of other religions."
In his interview, Asadourian noted that the churches in Iraq had faced a
conflict situation since 1980, with the outbreak of the war between Iran
and Iraq, in which many young Christian men enlisted in the army had
been killed. "After that came the Kuwait war – and what ensued after
that was the 13 year long embargo, which in itself was a war," said
Asadourian. "Then we had the 2003 war – and after the cessation of
hostilities, we have this, the war against terrorism taking place in the
entire country."