Washington D.C., Jun 9, 2017 / 05:04 am
Iraq's Christians have suffered persecution for centuries, yet their faith has survived and the community will remain, provided their material needs are met, a Chaldean Catholic bishop has said.
"The story of suffering of Iraqi Christians is an ongoing phenomenon," Bishop Bawai Soro, auxiliary bishop of the Chaldean Eparchy of Saint Peter the Apostle of San Diego, told CNA in an interview. "For two thousand years, it's a story of suffering, a suffering Church," he added, a "Church of the martyrs."
Bishop Soro, a native of Iraq who came to the United States as a refugee in 1976, related of how his grandparents had told him of the massacre of Assyrian and Chaldean Christians in the region around the time of World War I, where hundreds of thousands of Assyrians in the Ottoman Empire were killed or dispersed by the new progressive government.
"The same thing, the whole story was repeated again after 100 years," he said. "But amazingly, if my grandparents survived this difficulty and were able to hand their faith to the next generations, this suffering generation will do the same."