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Gallery|Religion

In Pictures: Pope Francis’s historic visit to Iraq

Francis defies security fears and pandemic to visit one of the world’s oldest and most persecuted Christian communities.

Pope Francis arrives to pray for war victims at 'Hosh al-Bieaa', Church Square, in Mosul's old city. [Yara Nardi/Reuters]
Published On 7 Mar 20217 Mar 2021
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Pope Francis began an historic visit to Iraq on Friday, the first by a pontiff to the birthplace of the Eastern churches from where more than a million Christians have fled over the past 20 years.

The pope’s visit has a highly symbolic value given the importance of Iraqi Christians in the history of the faith and their cultural and linguistic legacy dating back to the time of ancient Babylon, nearly 4,000 years ago.

The systematic persecution of Iraqi Christians at the hands of al-Qaeda and then ISIL (ISIS) in more recent years has pushed tens of thousands to leave and is threatening the community’s survival.

Francis met the dwindling Christian communities of Baghdad, Mosul and Qaraqosh, Iraq’s largest Christian city in the Nineveh Plains, where, in 2014, the ISIL armed group wiped out the remnants of the Christian presence that had survived al-Qaeda’s violent campaigns, causing tens of thousands to flee and find refuge in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

In Erbil, the pope met the Kurdish authorities and some of the 150,000 Christian refugees from central Iraq.

Pope Francis prayed for “victims of war” outside a ruined church in Iraq’s Mosul, where ISIL ravaged one of the world’s oldest Christian communities until its defeat three years ago.

With the partially collapsed walls of the centuries-old Al-Tahera (Immaculate Conception) Church behind him, Pope Francis made a plea for Christians in Iraq and the Middle East to stay in their homelands.

The pope, who in 2019 inaugurated a new phase of interfaith dialogue between the Roman Church and Islam, also visited Najaf to meet Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the highest Shia authority in Iraq where Shia Muslims represent about 70 percent of the total population.

Pope Francis walks alongside Iraq's Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhem upon his arrival in Baghdad. [Vincenzo Pinto/AFP]
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The pope landed in war-battered Iraq on the first-ever papal visit, defying security fears and the pandemic to visit one of the world's oldest and most persecuted Christian communities. [Ayman Henna/AFP]
Pope Francis waves as he arrives to hold his first mass in Iraq, at Our Lady of Deliverance Church in Baghdad. [Murtaja Lateef/EPA]
The pope leaves Mar Youssef Church in Baghdad. [Khalid Mohammed/AP]
Iraq's Shia Muslim leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, meets the pope in Najaf. [Handout/Vatican Media via AP]
Pope Francis speaks to Iraqi religious figures during an interfaith service in the ancient city of Ur in southern Iraq's Dhi Qar province, Nasiriya. [Handout/Vatican Media via EPA]
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Upon his arrival in Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region, Pope Francis is flanked by regional President Nechirvan Barzani, right, and Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, left. [Handout/Vatican Media via AFP]
The pope holds a minute of silence at the destroyed cathedral in Mosul's old city. [Yara Nardi/Reuters]
Accompanied by the Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Mosul, Najib Mikhael Moussa, left, Pope Francis looks over a square near the ruins of the Syriac Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception (al-Tahira-l-Kubra), in Mosul. [Vincenzo Pinto/AFP]
Pope Francis arrives to hold a mass at the Grand Immaculate Church in Qaraqosh, Iraq’s largest Christian city in the Nineveh Plains. [Handout/Vatican Media via Reuters]
Pope Francis performs mass at Qaraqosh's Grand Immaculate Church. [Handout/Vatican Media via Reuters]
People wait for the start of a mass led by Pope Francis at the Franso Hariri Stadium in Erbil. [Azad Lashkari/Reuters]
Nuns await the arrival of Pope Francis at the Franso Hariri Stadium in Erbil. The mass, held in Italian, comprises hymns held in Arabic and Syriac, the languages of the local Christian population, played by an orchestra of about 80 musicians. [Safin Hamed/AFP]
Pope Francis blessing people as he arrives in the popemobile vehicle at the Franso Hariri Stadium [Azad Lashkari/Reuters]
Pope Francis leads a mass at the Hariri Stadium in Erbil [Azad Lashkari/Reuters]
Pope Francis meets Abdullah Kurdi, father of Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old boy whose dead body was found washed up on a Turkish beach in 2015, in Erbil [Vatican Media/Reuters]


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