Cathedral of Our Lady of Nareg

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The Cathedral of Our Lady of Nareg , also Narek ( Arabic كاتدرائية سيدة ناريك) or Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary (كاتدرائية سيدة الزهور) is a church in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad that was consecrated in 1998. It is the cathedral of the Archeparchy of Baghdad of the Armenian Catholic Church and named after the defunct western Armenian village of Nareg on Lake Van .

Location

The Armenian Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Nareg is located in the Karrada al-Sharqiya (East Karrada) district of Baghdad about 800 m east of the banks of the Tigris at 39 m above sea level, about 200 m west of al-Fatah Square (ساحة الفتح, "Victory Square"), on the southeast side of which is the National Theater, and about 300 m north of the Chaldean Cathedral of St. Joseph and about 40 m southeast of the old Armenian Catholic Sacred Heart Cathedral from 1937 at the intersection of Dakhel streets and Abo Noas. The latter should not be confused with the Chaldean Catholic Herz-Jesu-Kirche, which is located around 1500 m to the east.

history

In 1914 there were about 300 Armenian Catholics in all of what is now Iraq. Due to the genocide of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire , around 25,000 Armenian refugees settled in the area of ​​the British League of Nations mandate Mesopotamia (Iraq) after the First World War . During this time the Armenian Catholic congregation in Baghdad came into being, while there was an Armenian Apostolic congregation here for a long time. On April 3, 1938, when several thousand Armenian Catholics were living in Baghdad, the Armenian Sacred Heart of Jesus Church was consecrated, which served as the first cathedral after the establishment of the Armenian Catholic Archeparch of Baghdad on June 29, 1954. However, its size did not do justice to the growing Armenian Catholic community either. Thus came into being under the eighteenth Patriarch of Cilicia , Hovhannes Bedros XVIII. Kasparian , when Saddam Hussein was President of Iraq, from 1992 to 1998 near the previous Sacred Heart Cathedral in Baghdad, based on plans by an Armenian civil engineer from Egypt, the Armenian Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Nareg, which was opened on October 18, 1998 in the presence of Hovhannes Bedros XVIII. Kasparian was consecrated. At that time there were around 3,000 Armenian Catholics living in Baghdad. After the invasion of the United States and the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the situation for Armenian Catholics and other Christians in Iraq became life-threatening. On August 1, 2004, there was a failed terrorist attack on the Cathedral of Our Lady of Nareg. Many Armenian Catholics left the city, and in 2013 there were still 1,650 Armenian Catholics in Iraq. Nevertheless, services could be held continuously in the cathedral.

architecture

The Armenian Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Narek is a cruciform church with a longer west-east facing main nave and a shorter transept, with the age and apse in the east . Like most Armenian churches it has over the crossing is an inverted pyramid, of a metal Armenian Cross-winning dome and a drum of circular cross section and eight narrow windows. Additional light is let into the building from the tall, narrow windows on the north and south facades. At the entrance on the west side there is a three-story porticus with a bell tower, on whose small pyramid-shaped roof there is also a cross. The massive building of reinforced concrete is entirely with ocher and beige stones blinded .

Diocese and bishop

The Cathedral of St. Joseph is the seat of the Armenian Catholic Archeparchy of Baghdad . In 2016 it comprised around 500 believers in 2 parishes with a priest. In 2007 there were still 2,000 believers in 2 parishes with 2 priests. Emmanuel Dabbaghian , who was born in Aleppo ( Syria ) in 1933 and died in 2018, was the Armenian Catholic Archbishop of Baghdad from September 13, 2006 to October 9, 2017 and then resigned for reasons of age. The seat has been vacant since then . Since then, Nersès Zabbara , who was also born in Aleppo in 1969, has been the Armenian Catholic Apostolic Administrator .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Pascal Meguesyan: The Armenian Catholic cathedral Our Lady of Narek (Our Lady of the Rosary) in Baghdad. Mesopotamia Heritage, March 2018.
  2. ↑ R. Hrair Dekmejian: The Armenian Diaspora , in: Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.): The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times, Volume II: Foreign Dominion to Statehood: The Fifteenth Century to the Twentieth Century. St. Martin's Press, New York 1997. p. 427.
  3. ^ Crushing Iraq's human mosaic. In: BBC News. Retrieved July 13, 2007 .
  4. ↑ Pascal Meguesyan: The Armenian Catholic church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Baghdad. Mesopotamia Heritage, March 2018.
  5. ↑ Cathedral of Our Lady of Nareg - Baghdad, Iraq. Gcatholic.org, May 19, 2020, accessed July 25, 2020.
  6. ^ Entry on the Archeparchy Baghdad of the Armenians on catholic-hierarchy.org ; Retrieved July 22, 2014.
  7. ^ Armenian Archdiocese of Baghdad - Archbishop Emmanuel Dabbaghian. Gcatholic.org, May 12, 2020, accessed July 25, 2020.
  8. ^ Armenian Patriarchal Exarchate of Jerusalem and Amman - Archbishop Emmanuel Dabbaghian. Gcatholic.org, May 12, 2020, accessed July 25, 2020.

Coordinates: 33 ° 18 ′ 16.4 "  N , 44 ° 25 ′ 43.1"  E