Dozens of worshipers in Mosul celebrated, on Saturday, the first mass at the Mar Touma Church, which was restored after it was vandalized by the Islamic State and damaged during the battles to liberate the major city in northern Iraq.
Last September, while the 19th-century Mar Thomas Syriac Catholic Church was still undergoing restoration work, a bell weighing 285 kilograms was installed, made in Lebanon and transported to the city by plane, thanks to donations from the Fraternity in Iraq organization. French (non-governmental).
Accompanied by the organ, the voices of the worshipers resounded Saturday in the church that crowded them, as reported by the correspondent of the French Press Agency.
The altar of the church, built in white and gray marble, regained its former splendor, with its ornate columns and arches, and the small circular windows were decorated with new stained glass.
As the church bell rang, ululates erupted in expression of joy.
Priests and worshipers during a mass at St Thomas Syriac Catholic Church in Mosul, northern Iraq (French)
Father Pius Afas, 82, says, "This is the most beautiful church in Iraq... the reconstruction was very radical, as he contributed to restoring the church as it was built by its builders 160 years ago."
In the churchyard, the upper floors of the neighboring buildings still await restoration, the windows smashed.
It is believed that the militants have turned the church into a prison or court.
During that period its crosses and all other religious symbols were looted, while a mortar shell penetrated one of the cellars of the building.
The Fraternity in Iraq organization said last February that "the marble that had been burned... had to be removed, polished and renewed, and the ground was dug to reinforce the cement... and the cleaned marble was placed, and completed with new marble pieces."
Mosul and the Nineveh Plain region were historically an important headquarters for Christians, and they are still struggling to restore their normal life after the defeat of the Islamic State.
Convents and churches are being restored in the area, but slowly, while the tens of thousands of Christians who fled after ISIS took control in 2014.
Many Iraqi Christians were forced to emigrate, due to wars and conflicts and the deterioration of living conditions.
There are only 400,000 Christians left in Iraq today among its 40 million residents, after they numbered 1.5 million before the US invasion in 2003.
“This reconstruction is an encouragement for Christians to return,” says Sana Abdul Karim, a 50-year-old civil servant who has lived in Dohuk in the autonomous Kurdistan region since she and her family were displaced from Mosul during the Islamic State's takeover in 2014.
"We are original in this region, this is our region, our parents and grandparents are here, and we want to live in this region," she added.