Roman Catholic Church in Iraq

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The Roman Catholic Church in Iraq consists of churches of both Latin and other rites .

The main group - three quarters of all Iraqi Christians - is the Chaldean Catholic Church . This church uses a liturgical language similar to Aramaic , which was spoken in Palestine at the time of Jesus Christ . There are also Syrian Catholic, Armenian Catholic, Greek Catholic and Latin communities. There are currently sixty churches in Baghdad , with the exception of monasteries, each of which has its own. About half of the churches are Catholic.

Today there are more than 300,000 Catholics in Iraq , which is around 1% of the population.

history

In the early 17th century, Emir Afrasiyab allowed Catholic Portuguese to build a church in front of Basra
Corpus Christi celebration in Baghdad in 1920

prehistory

The history of Catholic Christianity in Iraq has a very long tradition. The presence of Christians in Iraq traces its origins back to the preaching of Saint Thomas who, according to tradition, arrived in Mesopotamia in the year 37 .

The Ba'ath regime encouraged the cultivation of the Assyrian language, but curtailed the freedom of Christians by nationalizing their schools. President Saddam Hussein had a Christian, Mikhail Yuhanna, in his government, but he was not very religious and therefore took the Arabic name Tariq Aziz .

Since the Iraq war

After the end of the dictatorship in 2003 and the return of democracy, the ban on printing non-Islamic religious works fell. It is true that Christian books can be printed again in Iraq, but at the same time Islamic radicalism has increased throughout the country and with it religious intolerance. This also affected the Catholic Church. The initially isolated attacks have turned into a pursuit. Regular outlaw lists have been drawn up. In just five years (2003–2008) Iraq's Catholic population fell from 800,000 to less than 300,000. According to Archbishop Louis Sako, it still made up 0.9 percent of the total population in 2010 (compared to 2.9 percent before the invasion of the Allied troops).

In Iraq today, cars cannot park or drive past churches. Louis Sako , Archbishop of Kirkuk, has confirmed that since fundamentalism rose in 2003, 710 Christian martyrs have been counted across the country.

Dioceses

There are currently 15 active dioceses and eparchies in Iraq.

Latin Church
Chaldean Catholic Church
Armenian Catholic Church
Syrian Catholic Church
Melkite Greek Catholic Church

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Avvenire , March 8, 2009.
  2. ↑ Avvenire , February 22, 2009
  3. ^ Avvenire , March 13, 2009
  4. ^ Warren Mass, Beirut Times, Jan. 2, 2009
  5. ↑ Ibidem
  6. ^ Preussische Allgemeine Zeitung, episode 45-10 of November 13, 2010
  7. ↑ Luca Geronico, Avvenire , March 22, 2009