A Black Christmas for Iraqi Christians

A few weeks ago I found myself at the gates of Saint Elias Church, one of many in the traditional Christian quarter of Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region. But there was nothing at all traditional about the scene that greeted me there. The churchyard was jammed with plastic tents in United Nations sky blue and white, tents that were now the only homes of people who have been chased from the towns and cities their families inhabited for generations until just a few months before. A few kids, who had no schools to attend, listlessly kicked a soccer ball around in the mud. Adults spent their time queuing up for aid or forlornly chasing after nonexistent jobs in the surrounding city. Amid the squalor stood a statue of the Virgin Mary, a forlorn symbol of their faith. (That’s her photo above.) All of the camp’s inhabitants are Chaldean Catholics, members of a distinct and ancient branch of the Catholic Church. It is precisely for this reason that they are now refugees.