THREAD: Iraq boasts a 2,000-yr-old continuous Christian community rooted in its ancient civilization & geography. The apostle St Thomas founded his faith in Iraq, fr where he traveled to convert India, China & Ethiopia along the trading routes for silk & spices #PopeFrancisInIraq 
“We have Christianity in Iraq from the very beginning,” Kirkuk Archbishop Fr. Yousif Toma (Toma references St. Thomas) told me. “Christianity spread very quickly from the first century & we've a long & interesting history. The first churches in the world were founded here.”
In the N. town of Mangesh, a cave can still be seen where St. Thomas taught his disciples that was a place of protection. "St Thomas travelled fr Iraq to the far East & the exact kind of cave has been found in China," says Fr. Toma who has documented Iraq's early Christian sites.
"In the development of Christianity in Asia, people travel by caravan & they come back to Iraq. The ancient Mesopotamian city of Seleucia S. of Baghdad elected all the bishops for the Church of the East & ruled over Christianity in Asia for at least 500 years,” says Fr. Toma.
The pillar of the Christian community was the Syriac language, a dialect of the Aramaic language that Jesus spoke. Many Syriac centres of learning were established in which not only theology & Biblical studies were taught but also languages, history, medicine & other sciences.
They opened the first schools & clinics & the Dominicans had the first printing press. The Dominican Press of #Mosul is credited with the first sustained printing activity in Iraq fr 1856-1914. They played a central role in translation producing Arabic, Syriac & neo-Aramaic books
Dominican fathers arrived in Mosul in 1750, while their counterpart nuns arrived later in 1873. They were socially engaged, founding schools, hospitals, a printing press & orphanage. The Dominican sisters had a motherhouse in Mosul in the 19th C serving the community.
The history of Christians in Iraq is marked by periods of tolerance & intolerance under rulers fr the Zoroastrian Sassanids to the various Muslim Caliphs &Ottoman Turks. Colonialism left Iraq w/o a concept for citizenship based upon shared welfare then replaced by Ba’ath ideology
Acc. to Fr. Toma, who spoke to me back in 2012 fr his library in Baghdad, the community counted more than 1 million before the 2003 U.S. invasion, although emigration has for decades plagued Iraqi Christians, who tend to work in medicine, sciences, universities & infrastructure
The Chaldean Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination in Iraq. Chaldean Catholics are affiliated w/Rome but retain their customs & rites. Baghdad alone has around 50 churches. Nineveh Province w/Mosul as its capital had well over 100 churches & monasteries pre-2014.
Since the 2003 U.S. invasion, Iraqi Christians have suffered repeated attacks. Many priests were killed.
Gangs & militias were especially brutal against Christians, knowing they lack the protection of vast tribal networks, to force them from their homes & take their properties.
Gangs & militias were especially brutal against Christians, knowing they lack the protection of vast tribal networks, to force them from their homes & take their properties.
This was especially common in Baghdad's neighborhoods where many Christians once lived like Doura, which once had one of Iraq’s largest Christian communities with 30,000 families. Notes would be left at the door to convert to Islam within 24 hours, pay taxes or die. Many fled.
The first assault on Christians was Aug 1, 2004 when car bombs exploded within 30 minutes outside four churches in Baghdad & one in Mosul. The worst pre-2014 attack was the siege of Our Lady of Salvation Syriac Catholic Cathedral in Baghdad on Oct 31, 2010
https://twitter.com/aboskovitch/status/1366954579137552388?s=20
A week after the massacre at Our Lady of Salvation during Mass, the cathedral reopened to hold Sunday Mass at the same time the terrorists struck. But the outlook is bleak. Christians are massively over-represented in the Iraqi refugee population & they cont. to flee.
"Leaving the country means wiping out our identity & the end of our presence here where Christians are a symbol of peace,"Fr. Toma says."But political rule in Iraq today is based upon ethnicity §arianism where power is designated by group that essentially divides the country"
Despite this, the life of the Iraqi Christian community is integral to the whole. Christian institutions provide education, health &social services to all Iraqis. "We are trying to develop the whole person,"says Dominican Sister Aman at the Baghdad Academy for Human Sciences #END
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