A fragile light; In disputed Kirkuk, Christian presence is often appreciated but sometimes targeted

ICC Note:

29 Christians have been killed in Kirkuk, Iraq since the emergence of the Islamic insurgency

By: Mindy Belz

10/23/2009 Iraq (World Magazine) – Inside the old walled citadel of Kirkuk sits the Red Church, so called because in a.d. 409 a pagan king ordered hundreds of Christians beheaded. It is known throughout Iraq as “the graveyard of the Chaldeans” for the massacre there, but Chaldeans today prefer instead to recount the epilogue: A general named Tahmazgerd, under orders to carry out the murders, watched in particular one young mother killed with her two children. Seeing their “faith, serenity, and the trust of the widow,” the story goes, Tahmazgerd converted to Christianity—and later himself was beheaded.

Last week nearly 1,000 Christians turned out to commemorate the 1,600th anniversary of that event. They attended a courtyard service followed by a Mass on Oct. 16 with a recital of hymns the following day. “The blood of our martyrs is the treasury of faith,” Chaldean archbishop Louis Sako told me by telephone from his office in Kirkuk just before leading the Mass. “It reflects our trust in the resurrection and it is an appeal to persevere and witness our Christian values in a land in which the majority is not Christian.”

Christians have seen a recent spike in apparently targeted attacks in Kirkuk, the disputed oil city about 150 miles north of Baghdad that is at the heart of a debate over its status, which threatens to stall national elections set for Jan. 16, 2010.

Christians are not a footnote to past sufferings or the current political dilemmas, said Sako: “The history of violence and persecution against Christians has continued uninterrupted. Abductions, kidnappings, assassinations, fleeing families are the dramatic testimony of a chain of martyrs.”

Overall, 29 Christians have been killed and 10 kidnapped and released with ransom payments in Kirkuk since the militant Islamic insurgency began in about 2004, according to Sako. Other cities have higher rates of violence, but Sako believes it is on the rise in Kirkuk because many see Christians as a pawn in the political debate over the province’s future.

“People of Kirkuk are open-minded, but their whole situation is bad,” said Sako. Christian presence and works is more often appreciated than not, he added, “even though sometimes it is like a fragile light.”

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