February 2004

Iraq is a country of muslim majority, but is also a land of ancient christianity, reached by the word of God already in 54 A.D. when Saint Thomas, during his journey towards the Far East, preached it in the area still called by then Mesopotamia.

Wars and persecutions have dramatically contributed to reduce the number of the Christians of Iraq to not more than 600 thousand. Christians of Iraq are few and divided. Not considering the confessions of Anglo-Saxon derivation, (protestants, evangelists, adventists) they mostly belong to the Assyrian Church of the East, to the Syriac one, to the Armenian one and, above all, nearly the 70 %, to the Chaldean Catholic Church.

In the post-Saddam Iraq, where the anxiety for freedom has been realized in the birth of a myriad of political parties (it is said that there are already 85 of them) also the christians are looking for their own political visibility. They are, at the moment, represented, in the Iraqi Governing Council, the provisional Iraqi government willed and installed by the USA administration the last July, by Yonadam Kanna, head of the Assyrian Democratic Movement, but his appointment soon created irritation, especially among the members of the Chaldean Church who, strong of their representing the majority, ask for their own representation in the governmental structure. We talked about this subject with Monsignor Jacques Isaac, General Secretary of the synod of the Chaldean bishops and Chancellor of the Papal University of Baghdad.

"The differences between Chaldeans and Assyrians, most of the latter belonging to the Assyrian Church of the East, exist ­ says Monsignor Isaac ­ and the biggest one is that the Chaldean Church wants and recognizes the authority of the roman pope, while the Church of the East refuses it." "As Chaldeans, moreover, we represent the majority of the Christians in Iraq, and although our attitude towards different powers that followed one after other in our country has always been of greater acceptance if compared to the one held by the Assyrians, now is the right time to have a distinct political representation."

This distinct political representation has been officially asked for by 19 bishops out of 20 during the August 2003 synod held in Baghdad to name a new patriarch, when, with reference to it, they issued an official document inspired by Monsignor Sarhad Jammo, bishop of the San Diego Diocese, California.

"I began thinking of the necessity to fix political borders between Assyrians and Chaldeans already 30 years ago ­ Monsignor Jammo says ­ but I had always been stopped in expressing my thoughts by the official position assumed by our previous patriarch, Mar Bedaweed I, who, in the year 2000, declared his being an Assyrian from an ethnic point of view and a Chaldean from the religious one."

"We do not accept who adorn himself with the title of representative of the "Chaldeans-Assyrians" ­ Monsignor Jammo adds ­ because this is an attempt by the Assyrians to englobe the Chaldeans, using it as a point of force. Assyrians in Iraq are few, and they know to count for nothing if not in alliance with Chaldeans. Although, already in the past I recognized the legality of both names, I do not accept the common denomination of Chaldean-Assyrian, and that's why I support the conference of chaldean parties and associations that will be held in Baghdad on 24 February 2004, a conference that at last will see us as protagonists not only of the religious life of the country, but of the political one too."

Assyrians, few in Iraq and many in diaspora, have a deep-rooted habit to political confrontation; Chaldeans, many in Iraq and lesser abroad, only now, after the fall of the regime and the passing of the previous patriarch, are free to express their own claims on the political scene.

These contrasts will surely give life to what promises to be a hard and interesting debate, from which is, however, kept out the Iraqi institution where christians work together: the Babel College, the Papal University affiliated to the Urbaniana University of Rome that enrols chaldeans, assyrian, syriac and armenian students.

Babel College is directed by Monsignor Jacques Isaac who forbade the distribution of leaflets and handbills concerning political issues. He is a well-educated man and, apart from his own political positions, he doesn't want politics to spoil the atmosphere of collaboration and friendship between the students belonging to different churches that have always been a peculiarity of the college.

"There were two students, a Chaldean and an Assyrian, who were giving out leaflets on the political issue, I called them and told them they were free to do so outside the college walls, but not inside. Our duty is to convey the values of christianity but also to offer to our students, most of them secular, the proper cultural means to face the future of the country. Culture must be kept apart from politics, at least for the time being, and we must give to the young people the chance to build up, by studying, a personal opinion. The dialogue can help the country on the path of peace, the dialogue among the different christian confessions and with the muslims: talking to each other is necessary to understand each other.

The Pontifical Babel College of Baghdad, which enrols students belonging to different christian confessions, is, in this sense, a unique institution. For the 2002-2003 academic year the students, boys but also girls, were 280, and most of them are secular.

The courses last 7 years and include different subjects such as philosophy, theology, Syriac, Arabic and English. They were interrupted on 17 March, but the same day Saddam's statue fell in Firdaws Square, the event that has marked the fall of the regime, a first working meeting of the board of directors of the college was held.

During the war, the missile positions Iraqi army had dug along the external walls made the college a target. The damages were huge. The Centre of the Sacred Art, the computer room, many external fixtures and the air conditioning system were all destroyed, but the will to start again was great, and the repair works began as soon as possible following a priority criterion that could favour the resumption of the studies.

Fixtures, conditioning plant and new sanitary fittings had the precedence, but works proceeded also to recover the Centre of the Sacred Art, the computer room that today can host 13 students, and to organize and enlarge the library so as to pass from 12 to 90 seats, and to collect all the books, including those that had been assigned to it due to hereditary bequest, including that of the former Patriarch Mar Bedaweed I.

The St. Ephrem Hall, the 750 seats conference hall, the building of which started some years ago, will have, on the contrary, to wait. In the days following the fall of the regime the looters also hit the Babel College stealing all that could be easily taken away. During the general chaos, Monsignor Isaac asked for the college the American protection that was not provided, but now, some months later, its need is considered as providential. "Now we have only 5 armed guards, 3 muslims and 2 christians, and it's better. If the Americans had accepted to protect us, we would be identified with them. The presence of local guards, on the contrary, has, until now, granted us a sort of immunity because people can distinguish us, the Iraqi christians, from the Americans who represent the occupation force.

That the relationships between this high institution of christian studies and the muslim world are marked by collaboration more then by fight it s clear if we consider that since October 2003, when the courses were resumed, the number of muslim teachers, who teach philosophy, has gone up from 5 to 7, and that there have already been contacts between the Babel College and the faculty of Islamic studies in Baghdad that requested to the college a teacher to explain to muslims students the history of christianity. Babel College is, therefore, an ecumenical and inter-religious faculty that represents a hope and a wish for a country that has to face ethnic and religious divisions.

The plans for the Babel College are many and Monsignor Isaac, even if also busy in editing two magazines: Nagm al mashrik (Star of the East) and Beit Nahrein (Mesopotamia), he is a volcano of ideas and initiatives.

We want the Babel College to become also a faculty of language, because it is not good for our priests to know only the Arabic language. To this end we have already contacted the embassy of France that has committed itself to send us a teacher from Paris, and the embassy of Great Britain. We also hope the Italian language to be taught in the near future.

Besides being a faculty of theology and philosophy, the Babel College houses the Catechetical Christian Institute where, in a three-year course, catechists are trained. The college is situated in an area of the city, difficult to be reached by the students, and therefore it has been decided to move temporarily the courses to the church of Mar Elyia and to create, in the next year, another seat of the institute in Mosul, to spare the students living in the north of the country the twice weekly trip to Baghdad.

Under Monsignor Isaac s guidance many plans and ideas will be realized in order to give, within the walls of the college, now free from missiles, to all the christians and the muslims the chance to learn to live together peacefully. Luigia Storti

[Zinda: Ms. Luigia Storti is a member of the Arab-Italian Cultural Center in Turin, Italy, a humanitarian organization that promotes the welfare of the Iraqi population. Ms. Storti's reports typically focus on the conditions of the Christians of this country. The Arab-Italian Cultural Center was founded in 1997 to help bring 8 Iraqi children seeking medical support to Italy. The organization strongly opposed the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq before the toppling of Saddam Hussein.]