Sunday, March 12, 2017

IRAQ - In Kirkuk, the political and Christian Social components try to unite into a single Council

The appeal repeatedly launched by Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael I to Iraqi Christians not to proceed "in random order" on the political and social ground, but to try to merge their forces in one "component" is beginning to have its first effects: on Monday, March 6, the creation of a "Council" of Christian communities that proposes itself as a liaison between the different political and social organizations animated by Christian militants, able to act as a unitary speaker of the political and institutional bodies of the Province, took shape in Kirkuk.

The initiative was also supported by local political leaders, starting from Kurdish Rebwar Talabani, the current president of the provincial council of Kirkuk: the new body - said Talabani - will be able to give a positive contribution not only with regard to the condition of Christian communities, but also to recreate and favor the peaceful and cooperative co-existence between different ethnic and religious components of society. 

Even Pastor Haitham Jazrawi, head of the Evangelical Christian community in Kirkuk, is satisfied that the initiative of a single organism able to unite the Christian components at a social and political level can represent a positive new element in the present, problematic condition experienced by the Iraqi Christian community.

Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako has repeatedly stressed that the situation of emergency in the entire Iraqi nation also calls Christians not to proceed in random order, avoiding to emphasize in an exasperated manner the identity factors of each ecclesial community. 


The Primate of the Chaldean Church had already suggested members of the different national Christian communities to express a unified position on the political and social processes taking place in Iraq, presenting oneself as "Christian component". 

The use of the expression "Christian people" to express the unified position of Iraqi Christians in relation to political and social events and national institutions, according to the Primate of the Chaldean Church "does not come into conflict with the protection of millenary identity", and allows you to "not to waste time arguing" around this heritage identity.