The archbishop's grave in Mosul(Photo: © CMS)In the small Iraqi village of Karm Leis, near Mosul – Nineveh in the Bible – I recently met a man whose life seemed to sum up the complexity of his country. He is a former Kurdish Muslim, who is now a Christian.
His conversion was 20 years ago, but he still remembers the one person who helped him through it.
It started with a vision. So he went to see Rahho, the local priest, who responded, “I cannot accept you into this church because we have an agreement with the government and the local authorities but I know of a different denominational church close by and you can go to it and its clergy.”
Rahho had a reputation for being a very helpful person. He always had compassion; he wanted to make a difference in the country – whether humanitarian, developmental or spiritual. He was a brave, godly man, and was loved by everyone.
Now he is missed by many – even by Iraqi ministers of state. That’s because Rahho the priest went on to become Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, leader of the Chaldean Church and a representative of Iraq’s tiny Christian minority. His kidnapping and murder in February was yet another act in the litany of blindly irrational murders which have come to define Iraq today.
The lack of motive for the killing – the archbishop had successfully kept out of party politics – has riven Iraqi Christians with fear and insecurity. Does it signal a new bloody hatred of Christians?, they are asking.
They are scared for their lives. I went to Karm Leis to pay my respects at the archbishop's resting-place, at the suggestion of one of the staff of the International Bible Society office in Arbil.
At the entrance to the village, I saw men armed with Kalashnikovs. I was told they were Syrian Christians. They had to call somebody, then check to see if the local priest was around to receive us. Only then did they let us through.
Later, walking with the priest to the Syrian Orthodox church, we were accompanied by two bodyguards – again, armed with Kalashnikovs.
In the beautiful church, behind the sanctuary, I was surprised to see three graves located in the building itself. The archbishop’s was the big one with all the flowers.
Not long before his death, Rahho had made some comments concerning Sharia and the new Iraqi constitution.
He did not attack Sharia; his comments were about Christian church law in the context of Islamic law’s traditional guarantees of freedom to worship for people of other faiths. However, any such comment can now be used as an excuse for killing.
Yet the Christians I met say that that was not the reason Rahho was killed. They are convinced that it was a matter of hatred towards Christians.
Beside Rahho’s grave was that of a young priest, who’d been killed six months beforehand. The third was of one who had been killed about a year ago.
A few days ago – details are still sketchy – another priest was killed. The killers came to his home and shot him in front of his wife and children outside their home.
In the face of their increasingly acute awareness of their minority status, more and more of Iraq’s Christians are leaving the country. Those that stay are gripped with fear. That’s what I will remember most about my visit.
That, and an injunction to me from the village priest as we sat outside after visiting the church. He asked us to pledge to pray for the Christians there, especially that no more of them would leave. One of his greatest fears is that such an emigration may result in no more Christians in one of the lands of the Bible.
**The identity of the author and other persons connected with this article are withheld for security purposes.