A valuable manuscript was found among debris, discarded papers and books in the ruins of an Orthodox church in Mosul.
This is a unique copy of the Gospel which was written by hand in Greek and then translated into Aramaic and Assyrian. The valuable find dates back to 1860.
“It is a further confirmation of Christianity in Iraq and serves as a symbol of the fact that Christians want to return to their homes in Mosul,” said Father Tautilius Masoud, and urged all those who have found religious books in the city to communicate personally with him. “Our goal is to keep this inheritance.”
According to official figures, Christians account for about 3% of Iraq’s 38 million inhabitants. After the war in 2003 and the prevalence of radical Islamists, tens of thousands of Christians fled from Iraq, hundreds were executed or forced to convert to Islam, keeping however their faith in Jesus Christ hidden in their hearts, as a publication in kathimerini.gr stresses.
Until 2014, when Mosul was captured by ISIS terrorists, the city was considered as the historic center of Nestorian Christianity.
In Mosul, several prophets, mentioned in the Old Testament, are buried. In the three years that the city was under the control of terrorists, many Christian monuments and places of worship were destroyed.