Inside the newly renovated Church of St George in the Northern Iraqi town of Teleskof, Hayat Chamoun Daoud led children dressed as Santa Claus in singing Jingle Bells in Aramaic.
Like every other resident of Teleskof, this was Daoud’s first Christmas back home in three years, since Islamic State (IS) group militants overran her town and forcibly displaced its Chaldean Christian community of 12,000.
“It’s so special to be back in my church, the church where I got married, the church I raised my children in,” the school headmistress said, tears in her eyes.
Photo: Reuters
Faced with a choice to convert, pay a tax or die, Daoud, like many other Christians in the Nineveh Plains, chose to flee. Most sought refuge in nearby towns and cities, but many sought permanent asylum abroad.
Although the militants were only in Teleskof for a few days, residents only began returning home earlier this year.
On Sunday, they celebrated their first Christmas together again at the town’s main church, which was overflowing. Hundreds of congregants, dressed in their finest, poured in to pray and receive communion from Father Salar Bodagh, who later lit the traditional bonfire in the church’s courtyard in a symbol of renewal.
Despite the obvious joys of being able to celebrate openly once again, it was a bittersweet Christmas for most across the Nineveh Plains, the epicenter of Iraq’s ancient Christian communities, which can trace their history in the nation back two millennia.
Although Iraq declared full victory over the militants just two weeks ago after a brutal three-year war, the damage done to Christian enclaves was extensive and left many wondering whether they could overcome their recent history.
IS ravaged Christian areas, looting and burning down homes and churches, stripping them of all valuable artifacts and smashing relics.
The damage in Qaraqosh, a town 15km west of Mosul also known as Hamdaniya, was extensive, particularly to the town’s ancient churches.
At the Syrian Catholic Church of the Immaculate, congregants gathered on Sunday for midnight Mass surrounded by scorched and blackened walls, still tagged with IS graffiti. They sat on donated plastic chairs — the church has not yet been able to replace the wooden pews the militants used to fuel the massive fire that engulfed the church.
Most families will require tens of thousands of US dollars to repair their homes and replace their stolen goods, but most say they can overcome the material damage, unlike the forced separation of their families.
Before the militant onslaught, Qaraqosh was the largest Christian settlement in Iraq, with a population of more than 50,000, but today only a few hundred families have returned. Entire congregations have moved overseas, such as the Syriac Orthodox congregation of the Church of Mart Shmony.
On Saturday afternoon, Father Butros Kappa, head of Qaraqosh’s Church of the Immaculate, was trying hard to summon any sense of hope to deliver his congregation during Christmas Mass.
“We’ll have a Christmas Mass like in previous years, but this year, ours will be a joy soaked in tears, because all of our people have left Iraq,” Kappa said.
Holding Mass in the singed and upturned ruins of his church was therefore important “to remind everyone that despite the tragedies that have befallen us, we’re still here,” he said.
In Teleskof, 30km north of Mosul and one of the oldest continuing Christian communities in the world, some families were skipping Mass altogether, upset at their forced dispersal.
“We usually celebrate with our entire family, but how can we be happy this year? Our brothers and sisters, even my own daughter, her husband and child I’ve never met have all moved away,” Umm Rita said as she prepared the traditional Christmas Day dish of pacha, or slowly boiled sheep’s head, trotters and stomach.
Community leaders estimate that more than 7,000 of Teleskof’s residents are scattered across Iraq and its semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region, the US, Australia, Germany, Lebanon and Jordan.
Amid ongoing tensions after a referendum on Kurdish independence was held in September, Teleskof’s residents fear violence once again.
“We just want to live in peace,” Umm Rita said. “We are more anxious now than when Islamic State was in our homes.”
“Our community has been gutted,” Firas Abdelwahid, a 76-year-old former state oil employee, said of the thousands who have sought permanent shelter overseas. “But what do we expect? The past is tragic, the present is desperate and well, there is no future for us Christians in Iraq.”
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