Qaraqosh, Iraq’s largest Christian city, will soon be home to a new Marian shrine dedicated to Mary, Mother of Persecuted Christians, the first of its kind in the Middle East. As Zenit reported, the shrine will be located inside the recently built Church of St. Ephrem, in the very city once emptied of its Christian population by ISIS.
The announcement was made on the 11th anniversary of the night when Qaraqosh’s Syriac Catholic community fled advancing jihadist forces. In 2014, ISIS militants gave Christians in nearby Mosul an ultimatum: convert to Islam, pay the jizya tax, or face death. Qaraqosh knew its fate and was soon left desolate.
For two years, ISIS occupied churches, turning them into firing ranges and bases. The city was liberated in 2016 by the Popular Mobilization Forces, but Christians returned to ruins and a fragile peace. Now, the new shrine seeks to affirm hope amid suffering. Its focal point will be an icon of Mary, Mother of the Persecuted, painted by Syriac Catholic deacon Ibraheem Yaldo, himself displaced from Bartella in 2014. The icon was brought to Iraq this August by Father Benedict Kiely, founder of the U.S.-based charity Nasarean.org.
Archbishop Benedict Younan Hano of the Syriac Catholic Archeparchy of Mosul called the project a sign of resilience. “It is a sign that faith endures, even in the very place where our largest Christian city was taken and desecrated,” he said. The archbishop expressed hope that the shrine will inspire Western Christians to pray for their brothers and sisters in the Middle East.
The Syriac Catholic Church, part of the 23 Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with Rome, continues to celebrate its liturgy in Syriac, the language spoken by Christ and the apostles. Yet its numbers in Iraq have drastically declined: from about 1.5 million Christians in 2003 to perhaps 150,000 today.
According to Zenit, six other shrines to Mary, Mother of Persecuted Christians, already exist in the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Kazakhstan. Qaraqosh will be the seventh worldwide, and the first in a land where Christianity has been tested by fire.
When completed, the shrine will not only memorialize the suffering endured but also proclaim the survival of a community that continues to pray in the language of its ancestors.
Radio Veritas Asia (RVA), a media platform of the Catholic Church, aims to share Christ. RVA started in 1969 as a continental Catholic radio station to serve Asian countries in their respective local language, thus earning the tag “the Voice of Asian Christianity.” Responding to the emerging context, RVA embraced media platforms to connect with the global Asian audience via its 21 language websites and various social media platforms.
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