As he walks through a corridor of the church bathed in light from its stained-glass windows, Faleh Hassan Fouad, who guards the Sabtian Church in Basra, Iraq, recalls the days when he used to visit the church with his Christian friends from the neighborhood.
Fouad says those days are gone, as his Christian friends emigrated abroad. Consequently, the church, founded in 1963, was closed in 2003.
Over the years, Fouad, a retired Ministry of Oil employee, continued to visit the church to preserve it, though many people left the country, leaving him saddened.
He told Reuters that he visited the church out of loyalty to his friends, despite it being closed and having suffered from bombing, weather erosion, and other damages.
The current Christian population in Iraq is estimated at 200,000–300,000, down from about 1.5 million before the U.S. invasion that ousted former President Saddam Hussein in 2003.
There are 14 officially recognized Christian sects in Iraq, mostly living in Baghdad, Nineveh Governorate, and the Kurdistan Region.
Recently, Dorar Iraq Association for Human Development decided to restore the Sabtian Church by removing the tiles that blocked its windows and doors, cleaning its interior, and restoring its façade.
Henadi Abdul Ali, the association’s president, said:
“This church was chosen because it is one of the old churches in Basra, over 55 years old.”
Sabtian Church
Sabtian Church
Sabtian Church
