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Christians who fled jihadist violence in northern Iraq are gathering this week for a five-day, multi-Church celebration of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, a public witness they say ISIS tried to erase a decade ago. From September 9–13, the Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean, Syriac Catholic, and Syriac Orthodox communities are uniting in prayer, music, and cultural events across Ankawa, Erbil’s Christian district.
The program opened with a 1.25-mile candlelight procession from the Chaldean Shrine of St. Elijah to the Assyrian Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, followed by prayers and a homily from Mar Awa III, Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East. Organizers say the week leads into a vigil for the feast, with sports, concerts, and family activities designed to draw thousands.
Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil, who coordinated the festival with leaders of other Churches and with support from Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), called the timing “deeply symbolic.”
“Faith has survived, and hope is stronger than death,” he said, noting that communities once driven out are again carrying the Cross through public squares.
The festival is meant to be annual, building on 2024’s ecumenical celebrations and expanding youth involvement through a Joint Youth Committee representing all four Churches. For local elders who lived through displacement, seeing young Christians plan marathons, children’s games, and concerts together is a concrete sign of unity taking root.
Rebuilding families
Context matters. ISIS seized large areas of the Nineveh Plains in 2014; by August that year, more than 120,000 Christians fled toward Erbil. Iraqi and allied forces would not declare victory in Mosul — the nearest major city — until July 2017.
In the years since, ACN and local Churches have backed rebuilding so families could return. Today Iraq’s Christian population has dropped from an estimated 1.4 million under Saddam Hussein to well below a quarter million.
For Catholics and many other Christians, the Cross is not a banner of triumphalism but the sign of a love that bears suffering and brings life. As the Catechism puts it, “The cross is the unique sacrifice of Christ, the ‘one mediator between God and men’” (CCC 618). That conviction explains why carrying a cross through streets once scarred by war is more than memory; it’s a claim about the future.
While the festival speaks first to Iraq’s Christians, Archbishop Warda says it carries a broader message after years of persecution: From the land of Abraham comes a word for the global Church — “we are still here… the Cross has not been silenced.”
For neighbors of every faith and for secular friends abroad, the sight of communities rebuilding together offers a simple hope: Violence does not have the last word.
If you’re following from afar, pray for safety and for the young organizers leading this renewal. Their work is already shaping what Christian unity can look like in Iraq — public, joyful, and resilient.
