FAITH
East Oregonian
Page 8A
Friday, January 22, 2016
ISIS razes 1,400-year-old Iraq monastery
Associated Press
IRBIL, Iraq — The
Obama Administration and
the Vatican condemned
the Islamic State group
Wednesday for razing Iraq’s
oldest Christian monastery, a
1,400-year-old structure that
survived assaults by nature
and man for centuries before
it was deliberately destroyed
by extremists.
At the United Nations,
UNESCO Director General
Irina Bokova said reducing
St. Elijah’s monastery in
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malicious and misguided.
The
Associated
Press
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exclusive satellite images
published early Wednesday.
“Despite their relentless
crimes, extremists will never
be able to erase history,”
said Bokova, who called the
demolition a war crime. “It
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by history the extremists are,
because understanding the
past undermines the pretexts
they use to justify these
crimes and exposes them as
expressions of pure hatred
and ignorance.”
St. Elijah’s monastery on
the outskirts of Mosul was a
place of worship recently for
U.S. troops, who worked to
restore it. In earlier centuries,
generations of monks tucked
candles in the niches and
prayed in the cool chapel.
The Greek letters chi and
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letters of Christ’s name, were
carved near the entrance.
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Washington on Wednesday,
State Department spokesman
Mark Toner said the Obama
Administration condemned
the destruction by IS. “They
continue to carry out these
kinds of depraved acts,
and it really symbolizes or
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ideology,” he said.
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Irbil, Iraq, the Rev. Paul
Thabit Habib, 39, stared
quietly at before- and
after-images of the monas-
tery that once perched on a
hillside above his hometown
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back to his own photos for
comparison.
“I can’t describe my
sadness,” he said in Arabic.
“Our Christian history in
Mosul is being barbarically
leveled. We see it as an
attempt to expel us from Iraq,
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existence in this land.”
The Islamic State group,
DigitalGlobe via AP
This combination of two satellite images provided by
DigitalGlobe, taken on March 31, 2011, top, and Sept.
28, 2014, shows the site of the 1,400-year-old Christian
monastery known as St. Elijah’s, or Dair Mar Elia, on
the outskirts of Mosul, Iraq.
Otrakji family collection on mideastimage.com via AP
This photo taken in the 1920s shows a ceremony at the
Mar Matai monastery in Mosul, Iraq, where a Christian
community thrived for centuries.
which broke from al-Qaida and historic sites, including
and now controls large mosques, tombs, shrines and
parts of Iraq and Syria, has churches in Syria and Iraq.
killed thousands of civilians
and forced out hundreds
of thousands of Christians,
threatening a religion that
has endured in the region for
2,000 years. Along the way,
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buildings and ruined histor-
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structures they consider
contrary to their interpreta-
tion of Islam.
Those who knew the
monastery wondered about
its fate after the extremists
swept through in June 2014
and largely cut communica-
tions to the area.
Now, St. Elijah’s has
joined a growing list of more
than 100 demolished religious
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The extremists have defaced
or ruined ancient monuments
in Nineveh, Palmyra and
Hatra. Museums and libraries
have been looted, books
burned, artwork crushed —
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“A big part of tangible
history has been destroyed,”
said Rev. Manuel Yousif
Boji. A Chaldean Catholic
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igan, he remembers attending
Mass at St. Elijah’s almost 60
years ago while a seminarian
in Mosul.
“These persecutions have
happened to our church more
than once, but we believe in
the power of truth, the power
of God,” said Boji. He is part
of the Detroit area’s Chaldean
community, which became
the largest outside Iraq after
the sectarian bloodshed that
followed the U.S. invasion in
2003. Iraq’s Christian popu-
lation has dropped from 1.3
million then to 300,000 now,
church authorities say.
At the Vatican, spokesman
Rev. Federico Lombardi
noted that since the monas-
tery dates back to the time
Christians were united, the
place would be a special one
for many. He said it was the
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destruction.
“Unfortunately, there is
this systemic destruction
of precious sites, not only
cultural, but also religious
and spiritual. It’s very sad and
dramatic,” Lombardi said.
The loss of the monastery
is a blow for U.S. troops
and advisers who served in
Iraq and had tried to protect
and honor the site, a hopeful
endeavor in a violent place
and time.
Suzanne Bott, who spent
more than two years restoring
St. Elijah’s Monastery as
a U.S. State Department
cultural adviser in Iraq, teared
up when the AP showed her
the images.
“Oh no way. It’s just
razed completely,” said Bott.
“What we lose is a very
tangible reminder of the roots
of a religion. Now it’s gone.”
Army reserve Col. Mary
Prophit remembered a sunrise
service in St. Elijah where, as
a Catholic lay minister, she
served communion.
“I let that moment sink
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rays of sunshine. We were
worshipping in a place where
people had been worshipping
God for 1,400 years,” said
Prophit, who was deployed
there in 2004 and again in
2009.
“I would imagine that
many people are feeling like,
‘What were the last 10 years
for if these guys can go in and
destroy everything?”’ said
Prophit, a library manager in
Glenoma, Washington.
This month, at the request
RI$3VDWHOOLWHLPDJHU\¿UP
DigitalGlobe pulled a series
of images of the same spot
from their archive of pictures
taken globally every day.
Imagery analyst Stephen
Wood, CEO of Allsource
Analysis, reviewed the
pictures for AP and identi-
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between Aug. 27 and Sept.
28, 2014. Before it was razed,
images show a partially
restored, 27,000-square-foot
religious building. Although
the roof was largely missing,
it had 26 distinctive rooms
including a sanctuary and
chapel. One month later, “the
stone walls have been liter-
ally pulverized,” said Wood.
“Bulldozers,
heavy
equipment, sledgehammers,
possibly explosives turned
those stone walls into this
¿HOG RI JUD\ZKLWH GXVW´
he said. “There’s nothing to
rebuild.”
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HERMISTON — The
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Nazarene is collecting
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Sportsman’s Dinner.
People can drop
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The dinner, which is
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For more information,
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Pastor James Becker
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712 SW 27 TH ST.
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