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Iraqi Christians flourished long before Muslims
By Steve Gushee

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Friday, January 28, 2005

The kidnapping of a Catholic bishop in Mosul last week is a sad reminder of the once robust but rapidly diminishing Christian community in Iraq.

Insurgents abducted Syrian Catholic Archbishop BasileCasmoussa apparently to frighten Iraqi Christians. They wanted to discourage Christians from voting on Sunday, according to Iraqi bishop, Louis Sako of Kirkuk.

Both bishops are members of a branch of the Roman Catholic Church and one of several small, eclectic church groups in the country.

Christians flourished in Iraq long before anyone, anywhere was Muslim. The advent of Islam in the seventh century began the decline of Christianity in the Middle East. Many are now migrating from the war-torn country. Numbers are hard to verify, but there are significantly fewer than 2 million Christians among the 24 million Iraqis today.

The story of Christianity in and around Iraq is a mixture of history and myth but certainly began in the very early days of the faith.

St. Thaddaeus generally gets credit for bringing the new faith to Assyrians living throughout Mesopotamia, the vast area that is now part of Iraq, Iran and Syria.

Thaddaeus, however, has a murky history. He is also known as the Apostle Jude, the brother of James and author of the New Testament letter of Jude. Thaddaeus is at times linked to a St. Addai who was a missionary to Mesopotamia in the second century. St. Thomas the apostle, Sts. Mari and Aggai are also honored as founders of the faith among the Iraqi people.

In any event, Christianity in Iraq, through what is known as the Assyrian Church of the East, took root very shortly after the faith was born. The language of liturgy there was and, in some cases, remains Aramaic, the tongue Jesus spoke.

By the 16th century, the Assyrian Church, long splintering, began to take its present shape. Some groups remained loyal to the Orthodox tradition, while others, such as the Chaldean Catholic Church, professed loyalty to the Catholic church in the West. Protestants also began to gain a foothold.

The Syrian Catholic Church of which the kidnapped bishop is a member has a significant presence in Iraq. That community traces its roots to the church in Antioch, Syria, where, the Bible says, followers of Christ were first called Christian. It was united with the Roman Catholic Church in 1871.

Christians in Iraq have a rich, ancient and complex history. Sadly, they may not have a future.

 

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