Baghdad: The bell of a new church built near the ancient Iraqi city of Ur rang for the first time last week as part of a campaign to attract pilgrims to a country that is home to one of the oldest Christian communities in the world.
The church is part of a complex that rises from a desert plain in the shadow of the pyramid-shaped Ziggurat of Ur, a city traditionally considered the birthplace of the prophet Abraham which was visited by Pope Francis three years ago.
Construction of the church is expected to be completed this month. Last week, the large bell was fixed in its bell tower, which is made of traditional Iraqi yellowish mud brick. Workers polished the large, brightly colored stained glass windows.
During his historic visit to Iraq in March 2021, Pope Francis held an interfaith prayer at a site in Ur believed to have been the home of Abraham, the father of Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
His visit was a moment of hope for a Christian community that once numbered about 1.5 million but dwindled to a few hundred thousand in the two decades after the 2003 U.S. invasion that sparked years of sectarian bloodshed.
“The pope’s visit to Iraq, especially to Dhi Qar governorate and the ancient city of Ur, is of historical significance,” said Shamil al-Rumaid, director of antiquities of Dhi Qar province.
“This church was built…near the archaeological sites of the ancient city of Ur so that a large number of our Christian brothers from all countries of the world could come and visit it,” he said .
Iraq’s diverse Christian community was decimated first by the rise of al-Qaeda in the early 2000s and then by the Islamic State, the extremist group that has brutally persecuted Christians and other faiths and sects minorities from 2014 to 2017.
The community has struggled to recover since the defeat of the Islamic State in Iraq in 2017, plagued by high unemployment and difficulty returning to historic Christian areas, some of which remain controlled by armed groups.
(Published March 10, 2024, 7:35 a.m. STI)
