'Council of Christians' to Be Established in Iraq

Feb. 19, 2008

By John Pontifex

A leading archbishop from Iraq has received backing from the country's president to set up a 'Council of Christians' to address key challenges threatening the Church's survival in their ancient homeland.

Determined to shore up confidence among Christians after January's wave of attacks on church buildings across the country, Archbishop Louis Sako is putting the finishing touches to a 30-member committee tasked with helping the faithful to secure their place in Iraq's future.

Speaking from Iraq in an interview with the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, Archbishop Sako said that as the council's acting president, he had received express support for the plan from Iraq's President Jalal Talabani.

With a remit covering Kirkuk, the northern city where Mgr Sako is Archbishop, the council breaks new ecumenical ground, bringing together representatives from five key Christian denominations -- Chaldeans, Armenians, the Assyrians as well as Syrian Orthodox and Catholics.

Broken up into committees tackling key issues, the council will examine social, cultural and inter-faith relations, backed up by a press office to promote awareness of its activity and involvement from outside groups.

Archbishop Sako told ACN: "For too long, the Christians have struggled to get their views heard in the main debates of the day because so often they don't speak with one voice."

The Chaldean cleric, who discussed the plan with President Talabani during his visit to Kirkuk two weeks ago added: "The main purpose is that Christians should have a united front.

"If we have demands, we should present them together. We should not be separated and thereby enfeebled."

The Archbishop said that a lack of unity compounded the problem of Christians living as a minority of just 12,000 in a city of one million.

But numbers of Christians in the region are being bolstered by new arrivals escaping poverty and persecution elsewhere in the country.

Archbishop Sako, an outspoken critic of a scheme to create a so-called 'safe haven' for Iraq Christians in the Nineveh Plains outside Mosul, said the Council would address topical issues in a way that complements the work of Catholics and Orthodox across the party divide.

Archbishop Sako, who said his council presidency was strictly temporary, went on: "The risk is that the political parties will not accept the council. They think we may try to replace them. This is not our goal at all."

He went on: "The problem is that the Christians do not feel part of the political process -- that their views are not being represented as well as they could be.

"They are tired. They feel hopeless and disappointed because they do not know how long it will take for the situation to be stabilised."

Successive co-ordinated attacks on Church communities -- the most recent in early January, when a dozen or more churches were targeted -- have weakened the country's Christian presence beyond recognition, with reports that at least half the population have fled abroad, leaving fewer than 600,000 behind.

Archbishop Sako said having a stake in the country's future was key to the faithful rebuilding confidence.

He added: "We have good relations with so many groups of people in Kirkuk. They appreciate what we do. We need to realise that our presence is not about how many there are of us but how we are behaving and what we are saying."

The archbishop said that he hoped the scheme would prove successful enough to be adopted across the country, leading to the creation of a national council of Christians.

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webmaster's note:

Western Writers often define the Assyrian identity as a Christian denomination but in reality it is a national and ethnic identity which members of the Church of the East, the Chaldean Church and the Syrian Orthodox Church share. Undermining the Assyrian identity of the Christians of Iraq trivializes not only their history, also their rights as non-Arab, non-Kurd inhabitant of Iraq who have had their own unique heritage, language, and culture predating Christianity, and Islam,