Christianity in Iraq

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The articles Christianity in Iraq and Assyrians (present) #The present overlap thematically. Help me to better differentiate or merge the articles (→  instructions ) . To do this, take part in the relevant redundancy discussion . Please remove this module only after the redundancy has been completely processed and do not forget to include the relevant entry on the redundancy discussion page{{ Done | 1 = ~~~~}}to mark. House1630 ( discussion ) 11:05 am , Dec 30, 2015 (CEST)


The Christians in Iraq are a small religious minority among the religious communities in Iraq .

Before the conquest of Islam in the 7th century, they formed the majority population in what is now Iraq . The Islamic expansion made them a minority. In terms of church history, the Christians in Iraq come mainly from Syrian, and above all from Armenian Christianity. The Christians in Iraq, like the Christians in Egypt ( Copts ), are in a double minority role: On the one hand they form a religious minority, on the other hand they are also identical to an indigenous ethnic minority of the Syrian-Aramaic speaking population. In the course of Islamization, Aramaic was more and more replaced by Arabic, so that in many cases it has only survived as a church language.

Iraq's King Faisal with Chaldean Bishops and the Patriarch Joseph Emmanuel II Toma

Historical aspects

In the early 17th century, Emir Afrasiyab allowed Catholic Portuguese to build a church in front of Basra

The area of ​​what is now Iraq was mentioned in the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament . The paradise of the story of creation and the deluge were in a part of Mesopotamia located. The clan of Abraham is said to come from the area of Ur - the former Sumerian Chaldea . Before the turn of the century, this name was also used for astrologers of Persian or Zoroastrian origin (see also Star of the Wise ). In early Christianity, Christianity spread over the whole of the Middle East and also resulted in a large number of parishes under the direction of bishops in the Roman, Byzantine and Sasanid empires . The highest bishop was the Catholicos , who resided in the capital, under the Sasanids in Seleukeia-Ctesiphon , in Islamic times in Baghdad or in or near Mosul . Internal church disputes in late antiquity, population movements and modern Western efforts to unite led to the formation of competing church communities that help shape the image of Christianity in Iraq today.

The churches in Iraq

Chaldean Catholic Cathedral Mar Yousif in Erbil, Kurdistan

The most important church organizations today are:

There are also several diaspora communities in Iraq, including Latin Catholics and various Protestant groups.

number

Church in Baghdad

In Iraq - the heartland of the former Mesopotamia - the Christians made up an increasing proportion of the population since the 1st century, which only declined significantly after the advance of Islam in the 7th century. Numerous Iraqi Christians fled for economic and political reasons. In 2003 the proportion of Christians in Iraq was given as eight percent, in 2007 with two percent of the total population (approx. 29 million), which corresponds to a decrease from two million to 580,000 people. Around 1.5 million fled to Syria or Jordan within ten years .

For 2009 the number of Iraqi Catholic Christians was put at just under 294,000, who in turn make up 80% of the Christian community in Iraq. This would mean that the number of Christians in Iraq would have fallen below the 1 percent mark. According to estimates by the CIA World Fact Book, the proportion of Christians was only 0.8% in mid-2015. Many Iraqi Christians are therefore concerned about the future existence of their churches as the exodus continues.

Settlement areas

After the Mongol invasions in the 12th century, the Christians of present-day Iraq retreated to the north, the Hakkari Mountains, residence of the semi-autonomous Assyrian tribes , and the plains of Mosul and Urmia (Iran). In the wake of the First World War , the mountains and the area around Urmia were largely depopulated by Christians. The survivors fled z. Sometimes abroad (Syria, USSR, USA etc.). In the second half of the 20th century, the Christians of Iraq increasingly moved to the seemingly safe cities, including the capital Baghdad , which became an important Christian center in which the church leaders also settled. In the wake of the recent Iraq wars, in addition to flight or emigration to foreign countries, a renewed retreat to the northern part of the country can be observed. There, the Christians in the Nineveh Plain represent the majority of the population.

Present situation

Under the regime of Saddam Hussein , religious freedom of Christians was not bad. His government also included Christian ministers such as the Chaldean Tariq Aziz ; the government promoted the maintenance of the Assyrian language since 1972. Other politicians from Christian families like Michel Aflaq or Elias Farah were honored as Ba'ath ideologues.

The increasing fighting between Shiites and Sunnis since 2005 and Islamist terrorism in Iraq make the situation of Christians there ever more threatening, according to the Chaldean Catholic bishops. Most of them fled to the neighboring countries Syria and Jordan , Turkey, Lebanon , Europe or the USA.

Archbishop Louis Sako von Kirkuk announced in 2006 that the situation was only bearable in the Kurdish region . "There are cities there in which the number of Christians has doubled within three years." Since May 2007, the German Interior Ministry has no longer viewed northern Iraq as a domestic alternative for Christians to flee from Iraq. Other observers such as the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP), on the other hand, painted an even more negative picture of the situation of Iraqi Christians and expected an end to the almost 2000-year history of Christians in what is now Iraq.

Chronology of the worst attacks against Christians since 2003

  • August 1, 2004: Six car bombs explode within minutes in front of five Christian churches, four in Baghdad and one in Mosul . 18 dead and around 60 injured are to be mourned.
  • January 29, 2006: A series of coordinated explosions in the vicinity of churches and Christian buildings in Kirkuk and Baghdad kills three people and injures nine.
  • October 9, 2006: The Syrian Orthodox priest Paulos Iskandar is kidnapped in Mosul. Two days later he is found beheaded.
  • November 26, 2006: Monther Saqa, pastor of an evangelical church in Mosul, is kidnapped and found dead one day later.
  • June 3, 2007: Pastor Ragheed Aziz Ghanni is attacked in Mosul and his car is stopped by armed men. The priest and three accompanying sub-deacons are murdered.
  • January 6, 2008: The Chaldean Church of St. Paul in Mosul is almost destroyed by an explosion; a Nestorian church and the Dominican convent of Jadida are also hit. Three days later, a car bomb exploded against the Chaldean Holy Cross Cathedral and the Saint Epräm Church of the Syrian Orthodox.
  • February 29, 2008: The Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul, Mons. Paulos Faraj Rahho, is kidnapped; his three companions are murdered on the spot. The archbishop's body is found on March 13th. Thousands of Christian families will flee in the following months, mainly to Lebanon or Syria .
  • April 5, 2008: In Baghdad, the Syrian Orthodox priest Youssef Adel is killed by firearms.
  • October 31, 2010: 52 dead after being held hostage in the Sayidat al-Nejat Cathedral in Baghdad

Exodus

In March 2007, the UN refugee agency UNHCR reported that Christians in Iraq were no longer safe of their lives: religiously motivated acts of violence continued to increase in the country. Therefore, every month Christians try to leave the country to avoid the various persecutions of Christians . According to Roland Schönbauer (UNHCR Austria), violence against Christians and their churches in Iraq has increased explosively since the beginning of the year, which has resulted in a veritable exodus of oriental Christians. According to a report by Le Monde in March 2008, of the approximately 700,000 Iraqi Christians who lived in Iraq before the war, around half had left their homes and almost 180,000 fled to neighboring countries. Furthermore, the authors of the quoted article in the French daily fear that as far as the exodus continues or the reasons for the exodus continue, the Christian communities of Iraq, one of the oldest Christian religious communities, which have existed since the 1st century, will soon disappear forever could. In July 2014 the last Christians left Mosul.

Contingent admission in Germany

Since the beginning of 2008, there has been increasing discussion in Germany about admitting refugees from Iraq who belong to a religious minority. The model was the admission of the Vietnamese "boat people" in the 1970s. In particular, the human rights commissioner of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group Steinbach and Federal Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble had made positive comments in the run-up to the spring interior ministers' conference, as did the Bavarian interior minister Joachim Herrmann . In November 2008, Germany reached an agreement with the EU and took in 2500 Iraqi Christians.

See also

literature

  • Hatune Dogan: It's about survival. My commitment to the Christians in Iraq. Herder, Freiburg 2010.
  • Kenan Engin: "Civil War in Iraq: Are the Christians Still There?", In: NG / Frankfurter Hefte, 09/2014
  • Thomas Schirrmacher (Ed.): The admission of persecuted Christians from Iraq in Germany. The history of an unusual decision in the press. Publishing house for culture and science, Bonn 2009.
  • Thomas Prieto Peral, Horst Oberkampf: Home or Exile. On the situation of Christians in Iraq. Neuendettelsau 2013.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Otmar Oehring: On the current situation of Christians in the Middle East. KAS international information, 4/2010
  2. ↑ a b Entry on Iraq in the CIA World Factbook
  3. ↑ the daily newspaper : Christians in Iraq: The days are numbered
  4. ↑ Christ in the Present 58, 2006, 370
  5. ↑ Luca Geronico, Avvenire , March 8, 2009
  6. ^ Warren Mass, Beirut Times, Jan. 2, 2009
  7. ↑ Sabah Arar: Deadly End of a Service. Zeit online November 1, 2010, accessed November 25, 2011 .
  8. ^ Marc Stenger (Bishop of Troyes), Ghaleb Bencheikh, Jean-Claude Petit, Laurent Larcher: La tragédie des chrétiens d'Irak. Le Monde.fr, March 24, 2008. (French)
  9. ↑ http://www.frankfurter-hefte.de/Aktuelle-Ausgabe/Zwischenruf/
  10. ↑ Alissa J. Rubin: ISIS Forces Last Iraqi Christians to Flee Mosul. New York Times, July 18, 2014
  11. ↑ Press release 139/08 of April 11, 2008
  12. ^ Die Netzeitung: Europe agrees to accept 10,000: Germany accepts 2500 Iraqis. ( Memento from July 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) November 27, 2008.