The Christians in Kurdistan region of Iraq

The Christians in Kurdistan region of Iraq
Kurdistan region of Iraq is a home for different Christian denominations, some of them are very ancient groups, goes back to the second century of the Christian era, called the Assyrian church of the east, with the Chaldean catholic church, as a branch of the church of the east, which was affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church in 1552 AD, with Syriac Orthodox, Syriac Catholics, and some other denominations as Evangelical´-or-Protestant churches.
While the number of the Christians in the Arabic speaking regions in Iraq was dropping, due to ethnic, religious persecution and political turmoil, the number of the Christian community in Kurdistan region was growing, and most of the migration, usually came to the northern part of the country, from cities like Baghdad, Basra and Mosel.
In reality, it was not easy for the Christians to leave everything behind and to reestablish their life again in Kurdistan. It was obvious that they would suffer very tremendously in the beginning due to financial issues and to the high slandered of living in the north, comparing to the rest of the country-;- but it did not take them more than 5 years to improve almost in every field of life, and the result of their dedication and hard working they got what they deserved in tangible ways almost every single day.
Most of the Christians worked very hard in different field of life in Kurdistan-;- some of them owned their own business and most of them owned their own houses in a very short period of time. I personally visited some families when they moved to the north and couldn’t even live in Erbil, but chose to live in the surrounding villages instead, gradually they moved to Erbil – ankawa and improved in every field of life.
After all, it must be emphasized that the Christians in Iraq who lived in Baghdad and other cities in the southern part of the country they were originated from Kurdistan in the first place and in reality they are coming back to their original roots in my view. In fact all the Christians in Iraq are originally from Kurdistan. As a matter of fact, Christianity vanished in Baghdad and the southern part of Iraq, when the Mongols concord Baghdad in 1258 AD, sacked the city and killed the last Abbasid Caliph. Kurdistan was the only spot for the Christians to live, to work and to practice their faith and rituals, back then. You might be shocked about this statement, but this is the case as the history of the church claimed, because during the Mongol occupation of Baghdad the whole Christian population fled to the northern part of Mesopotamia “Kurdistan”. So today’s Christian population in Baghdad and Basra they are really originated from different cities and towns of northern Iraq and they left Kurdistan in the beginning of the 20 TH to work in Bagdad and Basra when the whole region of Kurdistan was abandoned and neglected by different governments in Bagdad.
Interestingly the great Kurdistan has always been a safe haven for the Christians, except for some times in the history when the Assyrians were used by the British empire during the first world one and the Kurds in the other side were used by the Ottoman empire to revenge against the Assyrians in southern part of today’s turkey, with some other minor incident could happen anywhere in the world.
It must be noted that the Christian town “Ankaw” as an example, which is located 5 km northern Erbil, always been surrounded by the Kurdish villages and always been protected by the Kurdish tribes as “Gardi” and “Dezaye” as the local church history claimed and also as the Ankawa elders still talk about these two tribes, as good neighbors and good protectors for the local Christians threw the history. The elders and the church history shows that, if it was not for the effort of these two tribes mentioned above, and the effort of a Muslim clerk called “mullah effendi”, Ankawa would not be able to survive´-or-to exist until today, especially during the struggle of the Ottoman Empire with the Assyrians and the Armenians in southern turkey.
Sabri magdaci

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