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Entering St. Joseph Syrian Catholic Church, one Iraqi told Cox News Service, "'Previously, we felt safe when we walked on the streets or were in our homes. Now we don't feel safe. We miss it." But was she glad that Saddam is gone? The parishioner had to think hard before answering. "Half and half," she replied. "If the future will get better, then it was good."

But many Iraqi Christians are convinced that it might not get better for a long time.

"The situation still is not safe," one woman attending Sacred Heart told the Sun (which in one instance misspells the church as Scared Heart) "We are in our homes, but we can sometimes hear bullets. At least under Saddam it was safer than now."

"We don't care about Saddam, whether he is in rule or not," another Christian says. "He put two police cars in front of the church [to protect it]."

Now, many Iraqi Christians are asking, who will protect them?

"It's going to be like Iran," said one at Evangelical Protestant Church. "Even Christians will have to wear head scarves. There will be no alcohol. No dancing. All Christians are afraid now."

It wasn't just the parishioners who worried yesterday. "We are afraid that the fanatics could do something bad, especially among our Muslim brothers," Bishop Ishlemon Wardouni, head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, told The Christian Science Monitor. "We have a long history of persecutions here. … We have heard their slogans, 'No Saddam, No Bush, Yes to an Islamic State.'"

Other Christian leaders say now is not the time to be cowed by Muslim radicals. "Now we must all work together to rebuild our society and also promote the role of Christianity," said Jalil Mansoor David, the priest at St Paul's Church in Mosul yesterday. "The responsibility on us is great."

On knees, Christian soldiers
Iraqis weren't the only Christians in the country commemorating Resurrection Sunday.

At a former Iraqi air defense artillery school, Army chaplain Col. Douglas Carver led services for soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division. "It's unbelievable," he said. "Here we are, celebrating right in the middle of the Islamic world, preaching Jesus Christ."

But though the service seems to have been more celebratory than those of Iraqi Christians, the message of resurrection is hard for American soldiers, too.

"A lot of guys are struggling with mortality," Navy Cmdr. Jim Ellis, the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing's chaplain, told the Associated Press.

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April (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47