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Over 450 boys and girls received their first holy Communion during liturgies held over the past month in various churches of the town of Qaraqosh, Iraq. Credit: Syriac Catholic Archdiocese of Mosul, Iraq
By Georgena Habbaba, ACI MENA, (CNA), Aug. 9, 2025
Georgena Habbaba is an Iraqi journalist and writer for ACI MENA as well as former Arabic-language supervisor at St. Peter Seminary for the Chaldean Patriarchate in Erbil, Iraq.
This story was first published by ACI MENA, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner. It has been translated for and adapted by CNA.
ACI MENA, Aug 9, 2025 / 06:00 am – Eleven years have passed since ISIS seized Mosul and the Nineveh towns and with every anniversary commemorated each year, the same question arises: How many Iraqi Christians remain?
Despite tensions and renewed challenges from regional conflict, Iraqi churches remain full. Just weeks ago, Christians there celebrated joyfully as 1,000 young boys and girls received their first Communion.
In Iraq’s capital, Chaldean parishes celebrated first Communion for 50 children, while 32 others received the sacrament at the Syriac Catholic parish.
Most significantly, 11 children took their first Communion at the Syriac Catholic Church of Our Lady of Deliverance — the same church that witnessed a horrific massacre in 2010, when dozens of worshippers and two priests were killed and hundreds wounded. …
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