"A generation ago, there were more than a million Christians living in Iraq, a country of 35 million. A year ago there were 400,000...A decade ago, 35,000 Christians lived in the city; last year there were 3,000; the day Isil took over all were either killed or fled"
Christians driven from the ruins of Nineveh
The ruins of Nineveh, once the biggest city in the world, lie beside the river Tigris. On the other side of the river stands Mosul, a city of a million, the largest place still under the rule of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil). A decade ago, 35,000 Christians lived in the city; last year there were 3,000; the day Isil took over all were either killed or fled.
I will not give a catalogue of the horrors in Iraq and Syria, but it is worth realising what is being lost with the death and exile of Christians there and the destruction of their churches and libraries.
When the prophet Jonah was sent to preach to the people of Nineveh, they repented and God did not visit on them the destruction that Jonah had announced. This “displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry”. Then slowly he learnt his lesson of forgiveness.
At his reputed tomb, a Christian church was built, later turned into a mosque. Pilgrims went there. One of Isil’s first acts was to destroy it. Given Isil’s beliefs, it is not surprising that they smash up tombs and images. God forgive them, it was not the worst thing they did.
The Christians of Iraq and Syria are no interlopers. They have been there from the beginning. They use Syriac in their worship, a language resembling the Aramaic that Jesus spoke.
They taught us. Before and after the Muslim conquest of their lands, Syriac-speaking Christians translated Greek works into their own language. When the West rediscovered Aristotle, it was largely thanks to Syriac scholars that copies of his works had been preserved. In the late eighth century, for example, when the Nestorian Patriarch Timothy wanted to study Aristotle, he borrowed manuscripts of the Organon and Topics from the Orthodox (Antiochian) monastery of Mar Mattai near Mosul, which was already over 400 years old. Mar Mattai monastery was taken by Isil last year and its monks expelled; some manuscripts are said to have been saved.
It’s the people that one feels sorry for. A generation ago, there were more than a million Christians living in Iraq, a country of 35 million. A year ago there were 400,000. About two thirds are Chaldean Catholic. Tens of thousands took refuge in the city of Erbil, which is under Kurdish protection.
From the Telegraph April 18 by Christopher Howes
The ruins of Nineveh, once the biggest city in the world, lie beside the river Tigris. On the other side of the river stands Mosul, a city of a million, the largest place still under the rule of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil). A decade ago, 35,000 Christians lived in the city; last year there were 3,000; the day Isil took over all were either killed or fled.
I will not give a catalogue of the horrors in Iraq and Syria, but it is worth realising what is being lost with the death and exile of Christians there and the destruction of their churches and libraries.
When the prophet Jonah was sent to preach to the people of Nineveh, they repented and God did not visit on them the destruction that Jonah had announced. This “displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry”. Then slowly he learnt his lesson of forgiveness.
At his reputed tomb, a Christian church was built, later turned into a mosque. Pilgrims went there. One of Isil’s first acts was to destroy it. Given Isil’s beliefs, it is not surprising that they smash up tombs and images. God forgive them, it was not the worst thing they did.
The Christians of Iraq and Syria are no interlopers. They have been there from the beginning. They use Syriac in their worship, a language resembling the Aramaic that Jesus spoke.
They taught us. Before and after the Muslim conquest of their lands, Syriac-speaking Christians translated Greek works into their own language. When the West rediscovered Aristotle, it was largely thanks to Syriac scholars that copies of his works had been preserved. In the late eighth century, for example, when the Nestorian Patriarch Timothy wanted to study Aristotle, he borrowed manuscripts of the Organon and Topics from the Orthodox (Antiochian) monastery of Mar Mattai near Mosul, which was already over 400 years old. Mar Mattai monastery was taken by Isil last year and its monks expelled; some manuscripts are said to have been saved.
It’s the people that one feels sorry for. A generation ago, there were more than a million Christians living in Iraq, a country of 35 million. A year ago there were 400,000. About two thirds are Chaldean Catholic. Tens of thousands took refuge in the city of Erbil, which is under Kurdish protection.
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