Tag: Louis Raphael I Sako

Kurdistan elections: Christian parties want ‘real needs’ of minority to be heard

September 28, 2018 Iraq Bashar Warda, Elections, Iraq, Kurds, Louis Raphael I Sako, Minorities, Nineveh Plains, USA

The site of Mar Elia Church in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan region, where hundreds of Christians camped, displaced by Islamic State. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

The Christian minority in Iraqi Kurdistan is hoping for its “real” representatives to be voted into the Kurdish regional parliament this Sunday, 30 September, reports Kurdish news service Rudaw. The presidential and parliamentary elections in the semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq are the first after a referendum last year in . . . Read More

Iraqi archbishop tells USAID delegation to hurry up aid delivery

July 4, 2018 Iraq Bashar Warda, Donald Trump, Erbil, Iraq, Islamic State, Kurds, Louis Raphael I Sako, Middle East, Mosul, Nineveh Plains, Religious freedom, Sunni, USA, Yazidis

An Iraqi Catholic archbishop has said he and other bishops are “delighted” that the US aid arm is to make good on a pledge to send aid directly to non-Muslim communities recovering from ISIS’s occupation of their towns and villages, but warned “time is running [out]”. Archbishop Bashar Warda of . . . Read More

Chaldean Patriarch congratulates surprise Iraqi election winner

May 23, 2018 Iraq Assyrians, Dohuk, Elections, Iraq, Kirkuk, Louis Raphael I Sako, Nineveh Plains, Shia, Sunni, Syriacs

The Chaldean Patriarch, Louis Sako, has telephoned Iraqi Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr to congratulate him on his unexpected victory in the country’s recent parliamentary elections. The Patriarchate also said that Sako told Sadr he hoped for a government that promotes the common good of all the Iraqi people. According to . . . Read More

Iraqi archbishop nominated for 2018 Nobel Peace Prize

March 13, 2018 Iraq Iraq, Louis Raphael I Sako

Archbishop Louis Raphaël I Sako, the head of the Iraq-based Chaldean Church, one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, has been nominated for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, reports Asia News. Following his nomination, the archbishop said receiving the prize “would be an important and significant gesture, because it would . . . Read More

Trump’s migrant policy ‘a trap for Christians’

January 30, 2017 Bishop Angaelos, Damascus, Donald Trump, Islamic extremism, Louis Raphael I Sako, Middle East, Migrants, Refugees, Syria, USA

US President Donald Trump’s fast-tracking of Christian refugees from the Middle East will be “a trap,” according to Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako, Primate of the Eastern Catholic Church. “Every reception policy that discriminates the persecuted and suffering on religious grounds ultimately harms the Christians of the East,” he . . . Read More

‘Face of displaced Iraqi Christians’ is ordained

September 22, 2016 Iraq Ankawa, Baghdad, Erbil, IDPs, Iraq, Islamic State, Karamles, Louis Raphael I Sako, Nineveh Plains

The ordination of Martin Baani, a Catholic priest who became one of the when he dedicated himself to the needs of thousands of people in displacement camps, has been celebrated as a revival of Christianity in the Middle East, reports . Louis Sako, Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Baghdad, who performed . . . Read More

Frontier town sees first Communion despite IS

August 18, 2016 Iraq Alqosh, Assyrians, Chaldeans, IDPs, Iraq, Louis Raphael I Sako, Nineveh Plains

A Christian town some 50km north of the Islamic State’s Iraq stronghold of Mosul has celebrated its first Communion Mass, completing the initiation of a hundred boys and girls in the faith. In what was described as a “historic moment”, Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako presided over the ceremony . . . Read More

Iraq Patriarch to Shia clerics: ‘update discourse’

July 28, 2016 Iraq Iraq, Louis Raphael I Sako, Shia, Sunni

A high-ranking Iraqi Catholic leader has urged visiting Shia religious figures to stress more “equality and rights”, reports said. During a visit by representatives of major Shiite institutions in both Iraq and Iran, Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako outlined the experience of Christians, urging the language of religious . . . Read More

Iraq’s Christian homes ‘grab’ continues

February 24, 2016 Iraq Baghdad, Iraq, Islamic State, Louis Raphael I Sako, Nineveh Plains

Homes and businesses left behind by Iraq’s Christians are being illegally taken, as hostile forces continue to scrape off the last vestiges of two millennia of Christian presence in the country. “ISIS has displaced 120,000 Christians from Mosul and the Nineveh Plains, destroying monasteries, churches and homes to erase their memory. . . . Read More

Iraqis who fled Mosul and IS flee Turkish bombing

January 19, 2016 Iraq Assyrians, Baghdad, Iraq, Islamic State, Kurds, Louis Raphael I Sako, Mosul, Nineveh Plains, PKK, Saddam Hussein, Turkey

The Turkish air force has bombed the Assyro-Chaldean Christian village of Upper Sharanish in northern Iraq. Condemning what he called the “unjust act”, Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako urged Ankara to “respect the lives and properties of the inhabitants and not to displace them under the pretext of fighting” the Kurdish . . . Read More

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