Related articles and links |  1 of 3

Georges Hormis Sada was an air vice marshal in Saddam Hussein's military. By any standard, he was a success. His son became a doctor in the United Kingdom. His daughter is a teacher in Jordan. With a monthly salary of 1,000 Iraqi dinars—worth $3,300—he had a bank account worth over $3 million. "It was a great life," he says.

In a country that is 96 percent Muslim, Sada is a Presbyterian. Now retired, he is the president of the National Presbyterian Church in Baghdad and chairman of the Assembly of Evangelical Presbyterian Churches-Iraq.

Nearly two decades of war, crushing United Nations sanctions, and a regime willing to let its people suffer rather than comply with U.N. resolutions about its weapons programs have all contributed to the deaths of at least 1 million Iraqis. During this time, currency devaluation has shriveled Sada's bank account to the equivalent of $500.

Yet Sada, 62, deflects talk of leaving the country (although about one-third of the country's Christians emigrated during the 1990s). "We are praying very hard," Sada told Christianity Today by telephone during a visit to the United Kingdom. "We know that one day our Lord will make it better."

Marilyn Borst has made four visits to Iraq since 1998 as a missions catalyst at First Presbyterian Church in Houston and as a leader of Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding. She notes that three Presbyterian churches are in or next to the northern and southern no-fly zones patrolled by American and British pilots.

"I've heard the fighters there. I've heard the antiaircraft responses on the ground from the Iraqis. I've heard the air raid warnings," Borst said. "So there is a great deal of fear."

Saying they trust in God's providence, Iraq's Presbyterians are continuing with worship, Sunday school, and youth meetings inside their buildings. Christians say the Iraqi president makes inexpensive building materials available to churches, gives land, and has even provided pipe organs.

"Far from repressing Christianity, the government of Iraq supports a multiplicity of religious expression, seeing this as a way of providing balance," Borst said.

Some observers, however, think Saddam Hussein's support of Christian churches is partly propaganda and partly an effort to maintain allegiance to his military regime. Operation World notes, "Religious minorities have been favored by Saddam Hussein if they demonstrated loyalty."

Presbyterian missionaries came to Iraq in 1836. Iraq has five Presbyterian churches with an estimated 3,000 members. Iraqi Presbyterians, however, tally membership by numbers of families. The oldest church, in Mosul, founded in 1840, has just five to ten member families. National Presbyterian in Baghdad, founded in 1952, has more than 300 families. The Assyrian Presbyterian Church, Baghdad, founded in 1921, has 36 families. Kirkuk's National Presbyterian Church, founded in 1958, has 36 families. The only church in the south, National Presbyterian Church in Basra, established in 1940, has 32 families, down from 110.

According to tradition, in the first century the apostle Thomas evangelized the region we today call Iraq. An estimated 600,000 Christians live in the country of 22 million people. By far the largest group is the Chaldean Catholic Church, followed by the Assyrian Church of the East (called the Nestorians by some), the Syrian Orthodox Church, and the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Despite relative freedom for Christians, the U.S. State Department designated Iraq as a "country of particular concern" in 1999, 2000, and 2001 for severe violations of religious freedom. The State Department says the regime, run by Sunni Muslims, "for decades has conducted a brutal campaign of murder, summary execution, arbitrary arrest, and protracted detention" against the majority Shi'a population. American officials estimate that government policies have killed at least 130,000 Iraqi civilians during Saddam Hussein's 23-year rule.

next page... |  1 of 3

November 18 2002, Vol. 46, No. 12