The Fear Of Christians In Iraq.

The New York Times on Oct. 16 pointed the blackened carcasses of five cars still sitting in front of the Church of the Virgin Mary in Baghdad, "stark reminders of a bomb blast" which killed two people after a recent Sunday Mass. The paper also noted that, in the northern city of Mosul, a priest from the Syriac Orthodox Church was recently kidnapped. "His church complied with his captors' demands and put up posters denouncing recent comments made by the pope about Islam, but he was killed anyway". The police found his beheaded body on Oct, 13.

Muslim fury over Pope Benedict XVI's public reflections on Islam in Germany in September has subsided elsewhere, but repercussions continue to reverberate in Iraq, bringing a new level of threat to an already shrinking Christian population. Several extremist groups threatened to kill all Christians unless the pope apologised. Sunni and Shi'ite clerics united in the condemnation, calling the comments an insult to Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. In Baghdad, many churches cancelled services after receiving threats. Some have not met since.

The New York Times on Oct. 16 quoted the Reverend Zayya Edward Khossaba, the pastor of the Church of the Virgin Mary in Baghdad, as saying: "After the pope's statement, people began to fear much more than before. The actions by fanatics have increased against Christians".

Christianity took root in Baghdad near the dawn of the faith 2,000 years ago, making Iraq home to one of the world's oldest Christian communities. The country is rich in biblical significance: scholars believe the Garden of Eden described in Genesis was in Iraq; Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees, thought by many to be in Iraq. Both Chaldean Catholics and Assyrian Christians, the country's largest Christian sects, still pray in Aramaic, the language of Jesus. They have long been a tiny minority amid a sea of Islamic faith. But under the secular Ba'thist dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, Iraq's million or so Christians for the most part co-existed peacefully with Muslims, both the dominant Sunnis and the majority Shi'ites. But since his downfall in April 2003, their status in Iraq has become increasingly uncertain, first because many Muslim Iraqis framed the US-led invasion as a modern crusade against Islam, and second because Christians traditionally run the country's liquor stores, anathema to many religious Muslims.

Over the past three and a half years, Christians have been subjected to a steady stream of church bombings, assassinations, kidnappings and threatening letters slipped under doors. Estimates of the resulting Christian exodus vary from the tens of thousands to over 100,000, with most heading for Syria, Jordan and Turkey. Over all, Iraqi officials say almost 900,000 Iraqis have left for Iran, Syria and Jordan since the war began. The number of Christians who remain is also uncertain. The last Iraqi census, in 1987, counted 1.4 million Christians, but many left during the 1990s when sanctions squeezed the country. Yonadam Kanna, the lone Christian MP, estimates the current Christian community at roughly 800,000, or about 3% of the population.

A Chaldean Catholic auxiliary bishop, Andreos Abouna, told a British charity over the summer that there were just 600,000 left, according to the Catholic News Service. At the Church of the Virgin Mary, The NYT added, Father Khossaba showed a visitor the baptism forms for parishioners leaving the country who need proof of their religious affiliation for visas. Some weeks he has filled out more than 50 of the forms. He said attendance on Sundays had dwindled to four dozen or so; it used to be more than 500 on average, and on Easter Sundays, before the collapse of the Saddam government, more than 1,500. Not all the missing members have left; some simply pray at home on Sundays because of fears for their safety.

The Reverend Yusuf Sabri, a priest at St. Joseph's Chaldean Catholic Church in Kurdish city of Erbil in the north, said many Christians had taken refuge in Ain Kawa, a small town outside Erbil, which has become an oasis for Christians. The NYT said a Christian man with Baghdad licence plates on his car had just arrived in Ain Kawa to inquire about moving there. A leaflet had been left at his home demanding he leave in three days. It bore the signature of Muhammad's Army, a Sunni insurgent group. He said: "They regarded me as an agent for the crusaders".

Mosul, near the historic heart of Christianity in Iraq, has become increasingly dangerous. The recently murdered priest, the Reverend Boulos Iskandar Behnam, is the latest member of the Christian community to be kidnapped or killed there.

Conditions have been especially bleak for Christians in Basra, the southern city which is dominated by radical Shi'ite militias. Christian women there often wear Muslim head scarves to avoid harassment from religious zealots trying to impose a strict Islamic dress code.

After the pope's statement, an angry crowd burned an effigy of him. Dora, a neighbourhood in southern Baghdad which was once heavily populated by Christians and has been plagued by Sunni-Shi'ite violence, has now been mostly emptied of them. Christians were singled out there by insurgents who accused them of being friendly with the occupying Americans. The NYT quoted one "holdout, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Suzan", as saying: "They are Christian, we are Christian. They think most likely we know each other well".

Two priests were kidnapped over the summer in Dora, although both were released, one after nearly a month. Oddly, before the pope's comments, as sectarian violence has escalated in Baghdad in the past year, some said the situation might have actually improved for Christians as Muslim militants turned their attention on one another.