Sister Beninia Hermes Shoukwana, a Catholic nun, is headmistress of a public school in Baghdad. The student body is
mostly Muslim. (Photo by Delphine Minoui)

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Each school year, Sister Beninia Hermes Shoukwana, a Christian nun and headmistress of the public school near Palestine Street, is peppered with the same innocent questions from her mostly Muslim students.

"`Madame Headmistress,' they ask me, `why don't you dress like mommy? Why do you always wear the same white dress?"' But this year, some remarks from students -- and parents -- have become cutting, even vicious.

"I've been accused of trying to convert little Muslims into Christianity," says Sister Beninia, 64, as creases of worry spread across her forehead and her eyes turn downward."Leaflets have been distributed asking the parents to withdraw their kids from my school."

After decades of living in relative harmony with the country's Muslim majority, Iraq's Christian minority says it is under threat as never before, with increasing violence directed at its places of worship and a building exodus of its 800,000 or so members.

Already an estimated one of every 10 Iraqi Christians has fled the country, most of them to neighboring Syria.

Sister Beninia has been running the white brick Hebtikar School for more than 30 years. These days, she says, are the worst of times, and she's unable to hide her distress overthe fate of her country and fellow Christians, most of them Chaldeans, members of the Nestorian sect who converted to Catholicism in the 16th century.

"For years Christians and Muslims lived like brothers and sisters," she says. "Today the extremists are trying to separate us."

Five Baghdad churches were attacked in October. In August, similar attacks killed at least10 and wounded nearly 50 Iraqi Christians.

"The people are terrified, actually, about what is happening," says Father Saad Hanna, a priest at Mary Jacob Church in the Dora section of Baghdad.

Recently a bomb blackened the side of the small church. Its parishioners number a third of what they did before the war.

"The people no longer come to church," Hanna says. "The truth is, we are in trouble, and we don't know how to overcome this."

Sister Beninia says she has no plans to leave, vowing to continue her efforts to educate Iraqi children and build bridges between different faiths.

She's had plenty of experience facing down troubles, beginning with the Baath Party's 1974 decision to nationalize all schools, including Hebtikar, which was originally run by her convent.

"They wanted to force me to join the Baath Party, but I always refused," she says.

Despite her refusal to join Saddam Hussein's political machinery, she kept her job because of her organizational skills and popularity with students and parents. Another challenge
came during Iraq's war with Iran in the 1980s. Because of fuel shortages, Sister Beninia walked three hours to and from her school.

In the chaos following the 2003 fall of Saddam's regime, she spent the entire spring and summer holed up at Hebtikar, protecting it from would-be looters. "I wasn't armed, and I was
vulnerable," she says, speaking exceptionally good English. "But I confronted the thieves, and they went away."

Sister Beninia would not say who is distributing the leaflets urging parents to pull their children out of school. But she says that despite the threats, the number of parents who want to enroll their children at Hebtikar continues to grow. With a student body of 3,000 in primary and secondary grades, some classrooms are stuffed with as many as 60 students. The school is building an annex.

"Of course I'm afraid that the fanatics will consider this school a target," said Khaled Hamed Rachid, whose three daughters attend Hebtikar. "Even so, I will never take my daughters out of the school because its level of discipline is unique."

Sister Beninia says she heard the Lord's call early, joining the Convent of Chaldean Sisters at 11. But she also felt drawn to the world of classrooms and books. She has run schools in Iraqi Kurdistan and in the southern Shiite city of Basra.

She worked at schools in Kuwait and Dubai before returning to Iraq in 1971 to become headmistress of Hebtikar, then called the St. John School.

Every day at 7:30 a.m., Sister Beninia leaves the Convent of Immaculate Conception, a humble four-story building with a portrait of the Virgin Mary in its sitting room. She boards a Hyundai minibus -- without escorts or bodyguards -- and heads to work, where she's bombarded with the daily minutiae of running a big school: substitute teachers, tardy students, worried parents.

Despite her administrative duties, Sister Beninia maintains a hands-on approach with students. At recess, she hollers through a megaphone, demanding order from a crowd of uniformed children pouring into the school yard. "Stay in line," Sister Beninia commands. "Don't run around." The children obey.

When classes end abruptly because of nearby fighting or explosions, she often remains at school until dawn, waiting to hear that students and teachers have arrived home safely.

Sixteen students, mostly Christians, recently left the country. Every day desperate parents visit her office, saying that they are frightened and considering abandoning Iraq. She urges them to stay.

"I try to explain to them that wherever they go they'll always be immigrants," she says. "Iraq is like our house. It's our duty to try to clean up our house."

Nov. 29, 2004