Christians pray for loved ones lost in Iraqi exodus

By Jeremy Reynalds

Correspondent for ASSIST News Service

Sorrow haunted the face of the Iraqi mother as she led her two small sons into a heavily guarded Baghdad church for Christmas Mass.

Making the sign of the cross, Times Online reported that Maida Moshy, 32, slipped into an empty pew to listen to the service, held during the afternoon of Christmas Eve, because midnight is considered too dangerous.

“I feel sad when I remember what Christmas used to be like with my large family,” Times Online reported Moshy said with a sigh.

Years of violence since the war prompted six of her ten siblings to leave Iraq or move to the safer Kurdish north, while four of her husband’s five brothers and his sister have also fled.

“I want my relatives to return because I hate being alone at Christmas,” Times Online reported Moshy said. “Without them I feel like a Christmas tree with no decorations.”

At the Virgin Mary Church that she attended in central Baghdad, Times Online said that a twinkling Christmas tree by the altar offered some festivity. However, the Times Online report continued, it failed to dispel the overwhelming sense of emptiness as the holiday season reminded Christians across Iraq about the tens of thousands of loved ones who will not be with them this year.

Times Online reported that services once attracting thousands of worshipers to celebrate into the early hours of Christmas Day, now struggle to attract enough people to fill half the pews, and barely last 60 minutes.

A drop in the violence over the past six months has failed to boost attendance, with Christians saying that there are fewer people visiting the scattering of churches in Baghdad this Christmas than in 2006. That’s because of the continuing fear of violence and because so many families have moved abroad.

After a week of relative calm, 34 people were killed and dozens more wounded in two separate suicide attacks yesterday. One hit a residential complex of a state-run oil company in Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, the other a funeral procession in Baquba, 35 miles northeast of the capital.

Times Online reported that in Baghdad several churches remain closed after being bombed by Islamist extremists, while a heavy police presence outside those open on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day eased the sense of nervousness only slightly.

“I do not feel an improvement in the security,” said one priest, who, along with two others interviewed by The Times Online, did not want his name to be published for fear of reprisals.

Times Online said he added, “When I see the church full of people; when I can go to visit members of my congregation at night and return safely to my house then I will say that the country is better.”

The priest, summing up his mood this Christmas, added, “I am not sad, but I am not enjoying the occasion. Even if I put up a Christmas tree or prepare my church choir, I do not have the same pleasure and joy of the day.”

Times Online reported that a mixed choir of robed men and women at the Virgin Mary Church tried to inject some spirit into a small assortment of Christmas songs, including Silent Night and Jingle Bells, between the prayers and sermon given by the spiritual leader of Iraq’s Catholics.

“I love you, and I love all Iraqis without exception,” said Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, head of the ancient Chaldean Church and Iraq’s first cardinal.

Speaking to Times Online after the service, he urged Christians to come home. “I am asking all families in exile to come back to Iraq, and work together with the other Iraqis as one for the prosperity of the country after the improvement in the security situation,” said the Cardinal.

Extremists targeted Iraq’s minority Christians in the chaos that flared after the 2003 war, which also claimed the lives of thousands of Muslims.

Many families were forced to leave their homes, and many who could afford it left the country altogether.

“The situation is dangerous for all Iraqis, and being Christian adds an extra threat,” Philip Douglas, 52, a chef, who misses his two sons deeply at this time of year. Times Online reported he smuggled them to Canada before the war, suspecting that it would be dangerous to remain in Iraq.

Times Online reported Douglas said, “Christmas used to be special and happy but now it is just another sad, depressing day. He was at a service yesterday at St Joseph’s Latin (Roman Catholic) Cathedral in Baghdad.

Remembering Christmases gone by, Times Online reported Moshy said that she used to gather with her brothers and sisters at their parents’ house for food, drink and dance.

“Now we cannot do anything like that . . . I feel sad when they call me to wish me Happy Christmas because we are not together,” she said at her small apartment in Baghdad where she lives with her husband, Samir Aziz, and their boys, Wassim, 5, and Andre, 6. Instead they spent the day at the house of one of her sisters in Baghdad, but there were no presents for the two boys, who will have to wait until a second, annual party at the end of the year because their parents cannot afford to buy two rounds of gifts.

Despite the low-key celebrations, Times Online reported the family had a better Christmas this year than the previous two, when security fears prevented them from even going to church.

Asked what her Christmas wish was, Moshy said, “Peace and security for everyone.”

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[01/03/2008]

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