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Every day our television screens are full of death and destruction in Iraq. Every day people ask me if it is really that bad. Sadly I have to answer in the affirmative. Iraq is that bad, there is total fear in the lives of normal Iraqi people. Every week people offer me things for the Church, credence tables, communion wafers and even pews. In reality we need none of these things. What we need are Kalashnikovs, bullets, and salaries for our five armed guards who watch the church 24 hours a day. Bomb barriers and razor wire now surround the church. Yet here we have one of the most dynamic churches that I have ever been part of.

Eight hundred members

Every day scores of people come to worship God and learn. We now have over 800 members of the Church, 100 of which are children. None are Anglicans but they come to St George’s because here they are loved and cared for. Also it is the nearest church to most that come, and is well guarded and relatively safe. One Saturday evening a month we have the joint church council, made up of both our Iraqi church council from St George’s and members of the Coalition Chapel in Baghdad’s fortified International Zone, meeting in the Prime Minister’s office. Usually divided by walls and razor wire, the two communities come together and hear each others story. It is the only church gathering in Iraq that brings the two communities together. In Christ we truly are united.

From this meeting I rush back to Saddam’s former palace to speak at the evening Alpha course. Next morning I take the service in the Coalition Chapel before returning to my day job of trying to make peace between the varied communities of Iraq.

Three years ago we could not have imagined that there would be such a strong Anglican presence in Iraq. Amongst the death and destruction of Iraq there is a real living and vibrant Anglican Church, a church which is growing rapidly. St George’s has nothing, across the divide there is a church of people with much, but they also live in total fear, military and diplomats. Mainly Americans and a few British, Australians and others, we all live with great risk but we also have great hope.

Lay leaders keep churches going

Maher, St George’s lay pastor, and the various lay readers at the Coalition Chapel can keep the churches going without me, showing lay leadership at its best. When we come together, church is much like church anywhere in the world until you hear the stories of the past week. On both sides of the divide that runs through Baghdad there are stories of death and destruction. One might have had their closest colleague killed in a roadside bomb, and the other his brother killed in a suicide car bomb. It is often in the same incident that members of both communities suffer, so these people are united by more than faith. They both share in the present day death and destruction of Iraq.

It is at times like this that our hope becomes theological rather than political. Our hope is in God alone.

Andrew White

Late news of loss

Canon White wrote in late September, “We have received news that our lay leadership team from St George’s, Baghdad, have not returned from a conference in Jordan. With the group were Maher, our lay pastor, with his wife, son and assistant pastor Firas, as well as the driver”.

“It seems that our beloved team have been killed. We know that they were attacked between Rammadi and Fallujah. It is difficult to describe the pain that the community and we are going through. They were a wonderful team and without them we are deeply concerned about the Church. We do not know if they were targeted because they were Christians or that they were just attacked for their car. What is clear is that things are more difficult for the Christians than ever.”

Bishop Clive adds, “So long as they wish it, we shall try to keep St George’s available for local Christians. With the cost of security, this is an expensive operation, but a very worthwhile one.”

Canon Andrew White at Cyprus & the Gulf Annual Meeting

Information on the Diocese of Cyrus and the Gulf