Church of Our Lady (Mosul)

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Church of Our Lady of the Hour
The Church of the Hour
Church of Our Lady of the Hour (1940)

The Church of Our Lady of the Hour ( Arabic كنيسة السيدة الساعة; French Église Notre-Dame de l'Heure ), also known as the Latin Church ( Arabic كنيسة اللاتين الموصل), was a historic Roman Catholic church from the 19th century in the center of the northern Iraqi city ​​of Mosul , which was damaged in the Iraq war and destroyed by the Islamic State (IS) in April 2016 . The church was built in the 1870s by the Dominican Order and was known for its bell tower donated by the French ex-Empress Eugenie von Montijo .

history

After the massacre of Damascus in 1860 in what was then the Ottoman Empire, in which between 4000 and 6000 Christians were killed by angry local Muslims, the French Emperor Napoleon III sent. an expedition unit to the Levant region to help the threatened Eastern Christians . A decade later, French Dominicans founded a convent in Mosul and built the church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. In the 1880s, ex-empress Eugenie donated the clock tower, the first on Iraqi (then Ottoman) soil. A replica of the Lourdes grotto with a statue of the Madonna of Miracles was erected in the courtyard of the church , where the faithful also met.

In 2006, the Church of Our Lady of the Hour was partially affected by fighting in the course of the Third Gulf War from 2003 onwards. In the summer of 2014, the terrorist Islamic State conquered the Nineveh Plain , which is considered to be the center of Christians in Iraq . Most of the 45 churches in the Mosul area were destroyed or turned into mosques and prisons. On April 24, 2016, the 101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide , the Church of Our Lady of the Hour was completely destroyed. Antiques, cultural goods and works of art were looted and pillaged before the historic bell tower was blown up with explosives. The reason given was the church's historical relationship with France.

Web links

Commons : Church of Our Lady of the Hour  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ À Mossoul, Daech a détruit l'Eglise "Notre-Dame de l'Heure". In: La-Croix.com. La Croix, accessed June 1, 2016 (French).
  2. ^ Islamic State blows up Empress Eugenie's Clock Church in Mosul. In: The Telegraph. Retrieved June 1, 2016 .
  3. ^ L'État islamique fait sauter le clocher d'une église de Mossoul offert par la France. In: lefigaro.fr. Le Figaro, accessed June 1, 2016 (French).