Two historic churches in Mosul, Iraq, have officially reopened after years of restoration, nearly a decade after their destruction in the course of the Islamic State’s occupation. The reconsecration ceremonies marked a rare moment of revival for the region’s dwindling Christian population.
On Wednesday, local residents, clergy and international officials gathered to inaugurate the Church of Saint Thomas, a Syriac Orthodox site dating to the seventh century, and the Chaldean Catholic Church of Al-Tahira, also generally known as “The Immaculate.”
Fadi, a 27-year-old Christian from Mosul who trained for 3 years to assist the restoration project, told Vatican News that the reopenings are “an indication of hope” for displaced Christians.
“It shows the Christians living abroad that things are higher here now, that they will move back home,” he said.
Both churches are situated within the Old City of Mosul, where IS forces had once established control between 2014 and 2017. During that period, the Church of Saint Thomas was converted right into a prison, and Al-Tahira was bombed and left in ruins.
The churches’ restoration began in 2022 as a part of a wider initiative to revive cultural landmarks in post-conflict zones. The Aliph Foundation, a world organization focused on heritage protection, led the project in collaboration with Iraq’s State Board of Antiquities and Heritage. The Paris-based Catholic charity L’Oeuvre d’Orient managed the day-to-day restoration work under the guidance of France’s National Institute of Heritage.
Mosul’s Christian population, once 14% of the town, has now shrunk to fewer than 60 families in a city of nearly 2 million, reports the Catholic non-profit media outlet Zenit.
“These churches are usually not just stones. They are the memory of religion, history, and community,” Archbishop Najeeb Michael Moussa, the Chaldean bishop of Mosul, was quoted as saying after the ceremony.
The restoration, he added, showed that “faith will be wounded but not extinguished,” and that every bell strike “calls not only the faithful, but the longer term.”
Teams first cleared mines and explosives from the sites before starting reconstruction. Among the rigorously restored features was the Thirteenth-century alabaster door of Saint Thomas, carved from local marble generally known as farsh and depicting Christ with the twelve apostles.
Church bells solid by the Cornille Havard foundry in Normandy now ring out again over Mosul. The same foundry restored the bells of Notre-Dame de Paris, Zenit notes.
Inscriptions on the bells include the phrases “The truth will make you free” and “Peace I leave you, my peace I provide you with.”
The reconsecration of Mar Toma took place in an Orthodox ceremony, while the rededication of Al-Tahira followed on Thursday.
The secular inauguration, held jointly for each churches, marked the official public reopening of the buildings to the people of Mosul.
Patriarch Louis Raphaël Sako, head of Iraq’s Chaldean Church, presided over the reopening of Al-Tahira. He was joined by Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Mor Ignatius Aphrem II, Iraq’s Minister of Culture Ahmed al-Badrani, Nineveh Governor Abdul Qadir al-Dakhil, French Ambassador Patrick Durel and representatives of UNESCO and Œuvre d’Orient, Syriac Press reported.
Sako described the reopening as “not merely about restoring stones, but about restoring trust — a message of peace and hope for the people of Mosul and all Iraq.” Recalling the 13 Chaldean churches and three monasteries that after existed in Mosul, he said most now stand abandoned. He reminded those present that Mosul “was a Christian stronghold long before the arrival of Muslims at the top of the seventh century.”
Addressing the group, he called for “mutual trust and human, fraternal, and national relations,” warning that “extremism and sectarianism can never construct a state or peace.” He stressed the necessity to rebuild society “upon the values of brotherhood, respect, and acceptance of others.”
In a direct rebuke to the Iran-backed Babylon Movement, a political party in Iraq led by Rayan al-Kildani, he stated, “We Christians haven’t any militias, and if such groups exist, they don’t have anything to do with Christian ethics, and we don’t recognize them.”
He urged that Christians in Iraq must give you the chance to live with full and equal rights under coherent legal, political and security strategies.
Mar Toma is believed to be built on the positioning where the Apostle Thomas stayed en path to India, while Al-Tahira commemorates a Marian apparition said to have protected the town from Persian invaders in 1743. Both churches had long served as points of unity amongst Christians and Muslims in Mosul.
The restoration of the 2 churches was a part of Aliph’s “Mosul Mosaic” program, which goals to rehabilitate cultural landmarks damaged during conflict. Before rebuilding began, teams needed to remove landmines and unexploded ordnance left behind by IS forces.
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