No Easter celebrations in Iraq as church protests against President
▶ Catholic leaders call on authorities in Baghdad to focus on corruption and stolen state funds
Easter events have been cancelled in Iraq as Christian leaders protest against the decision to revoke the official status of Cardinal Louis Sako as Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church.
Easter Sunday will now only be observed through prayers, the church said.
The row is part of a wider political dispute between pro-Iran groups and opponents, who fear the growing dominance of Tehran-linked factions.
Most Christians in Iraq belong to the Chaldean Church.
Worshippers traditionally take part in Easter ceremonies and visit churches from the Plains of Nineveh, north and east of Mosul in northern Iraq, to Baghdad.
But that has changed this year, after Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid announced last July that he had cancelled a 2013 presidential decree that recognised Cardinal Sako as leader of the church.
The decree allowed Cardinal Sako to administer the community’s endowment.
Mr Rashid’s office said at the time that the decree had no “constitutional or legal basis” because the country’s president “only issues appointment decrees for employees of government institutions”.
Revoking the decree was “not intended to undermine the religious or legal stature of the cardinal”, the office said.
But Cardinal Sako views the decision as an attack against him and accused Mr Rashid of siding with Christian MP and militia leader Rayan Al Kildani.
Cardinal Sako and Mr Al Kildani have accused each other of exploiting their positions to seize Christian-owned properties illegally.
Cardinal Sako withdrew from the traditional seat of the church patriarchate in Baghdad and moved to a monastery in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region.
“The Chaldean Patriarchate announces the cancellation of all festivities, media coverage and reception of government officials on the occasion of Easter,” the church said.
The announcement was intended to show solidarity with Cardinal Sako, it added.
The patriarchate repeated its opposition to Mr Rashid’s decision, which it said was made “without legal justification, but rather to appease a known political party”.
“The Patriarch has neither killed nor stolen public funds, nor founded an outlawed militia, nor incited sectarian strife,” it said.
The church accused Mr Rashid of “targeting peaceful Christians” instead of “fighting corruption and retrieving stolen funds to state coffers”.
Mr Al Kildani is leader of the Babylon Movement, whose militia fought alongside the Popular Mobilisation Forces, an umbrella group of mainly pro-Iran paramilitaries, in the war against ISIS.
Since the terrorist group was defeated in 2017, Mr Al Kildani has forged strong ties with Tehran-allied militias.
In 2019, the US imposed sanctions on him and another militia leader, Waad Qado, describing them as “perpetrators of serious human rights abuses and corruption”.
Before the turn of the century, Christians lived in peace among the country’s Muslim majority population.
But with extremism rising after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the community faced the threat of being kidnapped or killed, with many Christians fleeing the country.
The houses and businesses they left behind were seized illegally, mainly by gangs that forged ownership papers.
In October 2010, an affiliate of Al Qaeda attacked the Our Lady of Salvation Catholic church in Baghdad and killed 58 people attending mass.
Worshippers traditionally take part in Easter ceremonies and visit churches from the Plain of Nineveh to Baghdad