Baghdad's ransacked, penniless Anglican church struggles on to next Mass
By Joelle Bassoul
The broken statues of
the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ lean against the wall in the
looted St. George Anglican church in Baghdad 17 May 2003. The
church was looted 19 April 2003, and is being cleaned and partly
reshaped for Sunday mass and prayer. AFP PHOTO/Patrick BAZ
BAGHAD (AFP) Hanna Tuma disappears behind the altar of St.
George's Anglican church and returns with a handful of broken,
dust-covered communion wafers.
"That's all the looters left behind," says the 59-year-old caretaker of the church, built at the end of the First World War in memory of British troops fallen in combat.
The safe that had contained the communion chalice was opened with a grenade.
The stained-glass windows are broken, lights
stolen and a left-over Christmas tree uprooted next to a smashed
crib.
It was April 19 when the thieves descended on the compound, the
eve of Easter and four days before St. George's Day. US forces
had put the Iraqi regime to flight 10 days earlier, leaving the
city to marauding mobs.
Tuma was in the church hall, which doubles
as his home, when 20 armed men burst in and threw him to the floor.
Hands and feet bound and with a revolver stuck to his head, he
watched the looting of his modest home. It was two days before
passers-by heard shouting and came to set him free.
"I cried to see the fruits of years of work disappear before my eyes," he says, sitting in an empty room where three barefoot children play.
Since the raid, neighbours have given him
some curtains and two old sofas as well as a little food, his
wife Rima says.
After the house, the thieves went for the church.
"I could hear what they were doing, and it broke my heart," says the Syrian-Catholic caretaker, his lips trembling.
The ochre building stands in a wasteland where a garden once blossomed between the now burnt-out information ministry building and the Al-Rashid Theatre in the heart of the capital.
The windows are smashed and the door closed.
"I used to open up at seven in the morning for people who wanted to pray before going to work," explains Tuma, turning the key to the entrance.
A statue of the Virgin Mary, the plaster peeling off, greets visitors.
It is the only religious item left in the church.
"The looters ripped all the icons off the walls and took the pictures of the saints. I can't understand what they wanted them for," he says.
A stock of food kept in a side room also
disappeared. "I put the food for the family there to keep
it safe."
But his ordeal did not end there.
"Three days ago, two armed men came
here and threatened me. I told them there was nothing left to
steal."
Despite all this, Tuma refuses to quit.
"I have been caretaker here since 1998. I had just been released after spending 18 years in Iranian prisons and this job allowed me to set up home and have a family close by the church."
Tuma had taken pride in washing the stone floor, playing church music over the sound system he installed and planting flowers in the garden.
The system, the hosepipe and the lawn-mower were all stolen.
It was also badly vandalised during the 1991 Gulf War when British forces played a leading role alongside the United States in pushing Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.
However, Tuma refuses to get a gun for protection. "God is my weapon," he says.
"I'll clear up the rubble, clean and prepare the church as usual for mass on May 25.
"The thieves left us 31 dinars (3 US cents) in the safe. I'll give them to the British priest who will lead the Mass," he says proudly.
In a corner of the church, amid shards of glass lies the top part of a cross on which are engraved the words: "Love, faith, hope".