BAGHDAD, Iraq — It is Sunday evening, Aug. 7, and the Parish Church of St. Eliya's is almost ready for Mass. The marble floor has been swept. The flowers are arranged and several heavily armed men are on guard at the main gates.

A week ago Catholic parishioners at St. Eliya's in Baghdad had just finished Mass when a car-bomb exploded outside in one of six simultaneous attacks on Iraqi churches which have left many Iraqis asking whether Christianity has a future in modern Iraq.

“After this attack people were asking, do we run or do we fight?” said Father Bashar Warda, the young parish priest of St. Eliya's, whose quick thinking saved many lives when he ordered his parishioners to head home after he heard news of an attack on another Baghdad Church last Sunday night.

“The reaction of our people has encouraged us and made us realize the strength of our community,” says Father Bashar. “Straight after the explosion people from across the neighborhood came to offer help as soon as they could.”

Others were not so fortunate and 11 people died in churches in Baghdad and many were injured in attacks which many Iraqis, Muslim and Christian, see as an unprovoked and inexcusable assault on a vulnerable, minority community which has a reputation for pacifism and moderation.

“The Christians are a gentle people and they never did anything to deserve this,” says Mohammed Shemkhi, a Muslim barber who witnessed the aftermath of an attack on a Syrian Catholic church.

“We are a small community and an easy target in a very dangerous political game,” says Father Warda. “But now after a few days have passed we realized that we should not be afraid. The bombing brought us all together. We now feel that we have to speak out, and that although we are a small community we think that we should make a stand for peace in Iraq.”

Iraq is home to an estimated 800,000 Christians who live mainly in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul. The majority are from the Chaldean Catholics, although Iraq also has sizeable numbers of Armenian, Greek and Syrian Orthodox Christians, as well as followers of several recent Protestant and Evangelical imports.

Chaldeans are one of the most ancient Christian denominations and are even brought up speaking Syriac, a dialect of the Aramaic spoken by Jesus, rather than the Arabic of their Muslim neighbours.

Under Saddam Hussein Iraq's Christians flourished. Saddam was secular with little enthusiasm for religion and he saw little reason to discriminate against the Christian minority. Christians prepared to pledge loyalty to Saddam could even rise to powerful positions in the Baath Party such as Tarik Aziz (born Michael Johanna) who was Iraq's Foreign Minister for over a decade.

Following the U.S. invasion in 2003, however, Iraqi Christians risked being identified with the American occupiers who are regularly depicted as ‘Crusaders’ in anti-US propaganda. Although the Christians tried to keep a low profile and steer clear of politics it was only a matter of time before they ended up in the gun sights of the intolerant Jihadist movement.

“We expected minor troubles but nothing of this magnitude,” says Father Bashar. “We never expect this massive targeting of Churches.”

Although many Christians discount the bombings as the work of foreign jihadists intend on destabilizing Iraq, for others the bombings are a bloody warning of worse to come.

One Chaldean Catholic who has decided that the bombings are the final straw is Luay Michael David, 45, who has lived in Baghdad all his life but is now planning to sell up and leave Iraq for good. Luay had hoped to one day see his 19-year-old son take over his profitable pastry shop. Instead, he now says that his only priority is to take his family to somewhere safer.

“I know many others who have left Iraq, and now after these bombings I think that there is no other option,” says Luay as he watches his son serve two Muslim women who are dressed in typical all-enveloping black robes.

“I used to go to church. Now I won't go anymore. I don't think that we have seen the last of the bombings,” he says.

Luay's decision to abandon his past and flee abroad is increasingly common for many Iraqi Christians. Although he says that he has never felt individually threatened on account of his religion he now hopes to join his Iraqi brother-in-law in Paris and start a new life.“The United States has made things very difficult for us,” he says. “For the Iraqi Christians the result of the invasion is that we have been bombed.”

Staying Put

Many Christians are reluctant to discuss emigration which they see as a betrayal of family, ancestry and friends which may threaten the very existence of Christianity in Iraq. The unspoken truth is that as more Christians leave life will become harder and harder for those who remain, as well as undermining the limited influence and safety in numbers which Christians enjoy at present.

“The world would be in a fine state if every time there was a little explosion somewhere people fled their homelands!” says Basim Vahram, an Armenian Orthodox Christian, who explodes in anger at the very suggestion of emigration. “My homeland is like my mother. Even if she is very old and ugly I will never abandon her.”

For Vahram, a descendent of Armenian Christians who settled in Iraq in the 19th century to escape brutal religious persecution in Turkey, simply giving up and running away is no solution. Iraqi Christians should be grateful for the support that they received from Muslims in the days following the Church bombings, he says.

“Relations between the religions in Iraq are very good,” he says. “In Iraq the Muslims are our brothers. When my Muslim friends heard about the explosions they were very angry, and since then each one who has seen me has kissed me and apologized.”

“The real conclusion I draw from the explosion was that the Muslims love the Christians very much,” he says. “Within 5 minutes after the first explosion the police began to surround all the Churches in Iraq to protect the Christians.”

Meanwhile, at the Church of St Eliya's, evening approaches as Father Bashar begins preparing for the first Sunday evening mass since last week's attacks. The heat of the day has gone, the birds start to sing and the warm dusty glow of a Middle Eastern sunset floods over his Church.

“This morning we were afraid that no-one would come to mass,” smiles the priest, as the first parishioners start to arrive. “But in the end more than a hundred people came. Now we are expecting an even bigger turn-out for this evening's mass. Even if the Christians are few in number, we can still set an example of hope and forgiveness for all Iraqis to follow.”

James Brandon filed this story from Baghdad.