In a Baghdad neighbourhood famous for a Shia Muslim pilgrimage, there stands a tiny whitewashed Catholic church, lovingly brought back to life from dereliction by a lone Iraqi Christian committed to preserving faith and history, as Tom Westcott reports for the Catholic Herald.
Illuminated by fairy lights along its walls, visitors often come in the evenings. One night, a knock on the outer gate reveals two young Sunni Muslim women. “I love Mother Mary, and I love this place,” one of them says.
Other female relatives slip through the gate until there are five. Church custodian Tony Hana, 33, fetches candles for them to light before the courtyard statue of the Virgin Mary. He talks quietly to the ladies, who drift between the statue and the church’s quaint, simple interior.
“This is why I love keeping the church open, because people want to visit,” Hana told the Catholic Herald, from inside the modest adjacent annexe where he lives. “One of these young ladies is divorced and very upset because divorce is a disaster here. Her sister lives nearby and suggested visiting the church and the Virgin Mary. They believe in her, and the young lady feels an affinity with Mary because she had a small child alone, and now this girl is alone with a little baby.”
In the light of the flickering candles, the young divorcee weeps silently before the statue. Beside the altar, Hana prepares a silver incense burner and the women sprinkle frankincense on hot coals, filling the church building with fragrant smoke. They linger on until their tears are dried.
This is the British-built church of St Ephrem, dating back to 1920, after the British had helped overthrow centuries of Ottoman rule during the First World War and were establishing the nascent State of Iraq. It was constructed by British and Indian soldiers alongside railway workers as a place of worship opposite a train workshop and siding still in use today. Exposed metal joists above the altar imprinted with “Frodingham Iron & Steel Co. England” hint at its historic origins.
Hana has lovingly restored this forgotten piece of British history from the state of dereliction into which it fell during the sectarian chaos that followed the 2003 US-led invasion. As thousands of Christians fled Iraq, the church fell into disuse and became a place of ill-repute. When property developers started eyeing the land on which it stands in 2016, a local priest intervened and asked Hana to become the church’s live-in custodian.
“It was in a terrible state, with things destroyed and dirty and not even a cross. It didn’t look like a church at all,” Hana recalls. “I dreamed of bringing it back to life and, with so many Baghdad churches closed after 2003, I thought this could be a small win for Christianity, so I began renovations.”
With no financial support from the parish or his family (Hana was orphaned as a baby) and receiving only a modest income as a government employee, he initially dedicated his time and passion to clearing out debris and making repairs, eventually saving enough money to repaint the premises and redecorate the interior to revive it as a place of worship.
While restoring the building, Hana spoke with many locals to glean a residual oral history of the church before such memories slipped into oblivion, as the church’s humble origins meant little was officially recorded. An elderly Iraqi, who has since passed away, told Hana that the church was originally dedicated to St George and was built up from a single room that railway workers of the British Empire had set aside for prayers beside their work-related accommodation.
In the early 1940s, after the Iraqi government became independent, the church was transferred to Baghdad’s Chaldean Catholic diocese, which modernised and modified the building to be more suitable for Eastern worship. It is thought that this was the period during which the dedication was changed to St Ephrem, a popular 4th-century Middle Eastern saint famous for being an early hymnographer and the only Syriac Christian recognised as a Doctor of the Church.
For the next five decades, the church served the local parish at a time when Iraq’s Christians – one of the world’s oldest continuous Christian communities – numbered some 1.4 million.
Behind the simple wooden pews, Hana has collated documents and photographs relating to the church and the early 20th-century British presence in Baghdad and which are neatly framed. This little exhibition space also displays items found during Hana’s restorations. Amongst church silverware, priestly attire and Bibles with English inscriptions, one of his most unique finds was a handmade crucifix. Hana’s quiet hope is that the UK’s ambassador to Iraq will one day visit, so St Ephrem’s shared British-Iraqi heritage might become more widely known.
An elegantly-penned sign in English and Arabic now stands outside and outlines the church’s history, situating it in the wider context of the Shia shrine of Musa al-Khazim, after whom Baghdad’s Kadhimiya district is named. “Its presence [the church] represents a cultural symbol of peaceful coexistence in the region and a distinctive addition to the sanctity of Kadhimiya,” reads the final line of the sign, a sentiment echoed by pooled wax on the pavement below, from candles lit by out-of-hours visitors.
“Every day someone comes here – mostly Muslims – and they all ask me to keep the church open. It was my Muslim neighbours who suggested I made the sign,” said Hana. “They urge me to keep the lights on, telling me they always want to see the cross illuminated and describing St Ephrem’s as ‘the spirit here between the houses’.”
Never turning anyone away, Hana’s most crucial role remains his gentle welcoming presence. “When people come here, they want to find someone with a smile and kindness who will listen to them,” he said. “They want to talk about their problems and here they get heard.”
Yet the church remains under threat. St Ephrem’s is the neighbourhood’s only functioning church and, with Hana among just a handful of Christians still living in the area, its congregation has almost vanished; he has had to implore the diocese to uphold its annual 18 June service.
Over the last two decades, Iraq’s Christian community has diminished to around 200,000, leaving a number of the country’s churches closed, and Hana fears the same fate may await St Ephrem’s. Located in an increasingly popular residential district, new buildings have sprung up adjacent to the church’s outer walls, and the land upon which it stands remains in high demand.
If the land were sold, Hana believes this would be a great loss for both Christianity and history.
“It saddens me how we’re losing history day by day, with so much new construction,” he said. “The British and Iraqis shared so much and this church is an important part of that shared history. Built before the State of Iraq even existed, it should be preserved both for worship and the next generation.”
Hana’s nine-year transformation of St Ephrem’s has been a slow but rewarding journey to the more hopeful situation today, whereby the church flourishes as a compact place of tranquility, refuge and prayer.
Whatever may await the little church and the land upon which it stands in the future, softly-spoken Hana draws confidence from his deep faith, saying: “I believe God will stand with me.”
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