Iraq urges exiled Christians to return as new cathedral opens in Baghdad, but lawmaker warns of militias
Baghdad officials call Iraq safe for those who fled Islamic State violence, but a Christian MP says militia control must come first.
The Coptic Orthodox Church opened a new house of worship in the New Baghdad district this week. The Cathedral of the Virgin Mary, St. Paul the Anchorite and St. Anthony the Great is the first Egyptian Coptic Orthodox cathedral in Iraq and will serve Egyptian Copts living in the country alongside believers from other traditions.
During the opening ceremony, Iraqi government representatives used the public broadcast network to send a message to believers who fled the country over the past two decades. Iraqi Media Network head Karim Hammadi told the state news agency that the Baghdad government urged Christians in the diaspora to return, stating that Iraq is safe and needs them.
The appeal comes after two decades of intense violence targeting religious minorities across the nation. Hammadi recalled that the 2010 assault by the Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaeda affiliate, on the attack on the Our Lady of Salvation Church killed over 50 people in Baghdad. Four years later, in 2014, the Islamic State terror group drove nearly the entire Christian population out of Mosul and the Nineveh Plains.
