Assyrian, Ancient Church of the East Hierarchs Concelebrate Funeral in Baghdad

Hierarchs of the Assyrian and Ancient Churches of the East have concelebrated the funeral of a newly reposed parish priest, Fr. Oraham Dinkha, who had served the Church of St. Zaia in Baghdad. The Baghdad-based Ancient Church of the East was formed in opposition to the switch of the Chicago-based Assyrian Church of the East to the Gregorian calendar and the hereditary passing of the patriarchate from uncle to nephew, but has entered into dialogue with the Assyrian Church of the East (whose patriarchate is no longer hereditary) and recently adopted the Gregorian calendar. More here.

"Christ...Has Drawn Us Closer to Him"

Three parishes of the Assyrian Church of the East in Baghdad have gathered to celebrate the Divine Liturgy together and encourage one another as Iraqi Christians continue to live daily with the threats of Islamists seeking to purge the country of its non-Muslim minorities. More here.

Assyrian Center in Baghdad Attacked

The Ashurbanipal Cultural Association in Baghdad was recently raided by armed gunmen who told its staff that they were criminals and did not belong in Iraq. The incident is the latest in a string of attacks, generally ending in murder, against Iraqi Christians. Christianity predates Islam in the region by centuries, but Islamists either unaware of this or insecure because of it are continuing to demand that the region's Christians leave. The Assyrians predate Christianity itself in Iraq and once ruled a great empire dominating most of Mesopotamia and the Levant. More on the attack and the Association here.

Christian Exodus from Iraq Continues

Officials in Iraqi Kurdistan report that over 1,000 Iraqi Christian families have taken refuge in the region as violence in Baghdad, a large center of Christianity in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, has worsened. The United Nations also reports that the number of Iraqi Christian refugees being registered in neighboring Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon is also significantly up. More here.

Iraqi Kurdistan Offers Christians in Central Iraq Assylum

President Barzani of Kurdistan, one of the federal regions in US-occupied Iraq, has invited the Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics, and Assyrians suffering persecution in the rest of the country to relocate to Kurdistan. Northeastern Mesopotamia, modern day Iraqi Kurdistan and far southeastern Turkey, was previously the center of the region's Syriac Orthodox, Assyrian Christian, and Chaldean Catholic populations, with the patriarchs of the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church living in the region until the early twentieth century when the Kurds, with Turkish support, undertook the Assyrian and Armenian Genocides and either massacred most of the area's Christians or drove them south into present day central Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.

Baghdad has been the site of most of the recent anti-Christian violence, but Mosul, the main city in Iraqi Kurdistan, has been the site of several kidnappings and murders of Assyrians and Chaldean Catholics. The seriousness of the Kurdistani government's offer, how Iraq's Christians will respond, and whether the life of Kurdistan's existing Christian minorities will improve remains to be seen. CNN's story on President Barzani's offer can be found here.

Pictured is Dayro d'Mar Mattai, one of the oldest surviving monasteries in Mesopotamia near ancient Nineveh and modern-day Mosul, Iraq. For many centuries it was the seat of the Syriac Orthodox Church's Maphrians of the East, among them St. Gregory of Ebroyo, whose relics remain there to this day.