Rebuilding Families Key to Rebuilding Qaraqosh, Says Priest
ICC Note: Equally important to rebuilding infrastructure in Qaraqosh is reconstructing the community, says the local Syriac Church. ISIS devastated Qaraqosh’s infrastructure beyond repair, and the resulting displacement of Christians had a hugely negative impact on the family unit. Each individual has experienced trauma, and many family members have been physically separated. The church says that unless this relationship is repaired, Qaraqosh will never fully recover.
05/07/2018 Iraq (Aleteia) – A three-day long gathering was held in Qaraqosh in an effort to empower and lend spiritual support to the Christian women of Iraq. The event, which drew around 4,500 people, was inspired by the newly instituted Marian feast day, the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, which was recently added to the Church calendar by Pope Francis.
The meeting was organized by Fr. Roni Momika, who was ordained a priest while living in a refugee camp after fleeing Qaraqosh in 2014. Fr. Momika is the pastor at St. Ephraim church in Qaraqosh, where he runs a women’s support group, which draws nearly 800 women weekly. He explained to CNA that, “This meeting is to empower women.” He added that the goal was to “rebuild women in the spiritual side, in the biblical side and in the psychological side.”
It is a long road to rebuilding the Iraqi infrastructure, much of which was burned beyond repair. One obstacle they face is the sheer magnitude of the destruction, while another is a gross lack of funding. According to Fr. Momika, this lack of funding is of little consequence, since their reconstruction needs to begin with Iraq’s women:
“Everything is difficult here and we want to rebuild the woman before we rebuild the houses,” he said.
“If you rebuild the woman, you can rebuild the children, and when you rebuild the children, you can rebuild the family, and after that we can rebuild the community here in Qaraqosh,”
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