Scriptures Preserved from Jihadist Iconoclasm

Jerome · Jun 11, 2019

The Man Who Fought Against Jihadist Iconoclasm in Iraq

Rev. Fr. Najeeb Michael, the new Catholic archbishop of the Chaldean rite of Mosul, was ordained a bishop on January 25, 2019 by Cardinal Raphaël Sako, the patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church of Iraq. The Dominican became famous a few years ago when he saved treasures that ISIS would have burned.
Click to expand...

In August 2014, he fled the Christian city of Qaraqosh that was about to fall into the hands of ISIS. During the night, the future archbishop gathered together manuscripts....then set off for neighboring Kurdistan....8,000 Chaldean, Syrian, Armenian and Nestorian manuscripts found in churches and villages in northern Iraq and damaged by humidity and age, were saved in this way.
Click to expand...

Jerome · Jun 11, 2019

Priest on a mission - WORLD Magazine

By the start of the Iraq War, Michael’s Digital Center for Eastern Manuscripts, an operation he founded, was more than a decade old. Working with scholars in France and the United States, he began painstakingly digitizing and preserving Iraq’s ancient church documents.
Click to expand...

At the height of Islamic insurgency in 2007, terrorists set off a bomb at the entrance to the Clock Church, an explosion that ripped through the doors and windows of the chapel where the priests were holding evening prayer. No one was hurt in the blast, but for Michael it put into overdrive his quest to save the artifacts. The church and its monastery and extensive library were at risk.
Click to expand...

Michael began to load a hired car with rare books and manuscripts every evening at sunset. The car would then take the documents to the Dominican mission in Qaraqosh, a safer city 20 miles east across Nineveh Plain....Besides ancient Scripture and church writings, the collection included dated works on science, astronomy, and medicine.
Click to expand...

Michael’s roving library took flight again before militants overtook the city in August. This time Father Najeeb hired a large truck to carry books and manuscripts from Qaraqosh to Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.
Click to expand...

Scriptures Preserved from Jihadist Iconoclasm

Jerome Well-Known Member
Site Supporter

Jerome Well-Known Member
Site Supporter

Useful Searches

Scriptures Preserved from Jihadist Iconoclasm

Jerome Well-Known Member Site Supporter

Jerome Well-Known Member Site Supporter

Jerome Well-Known Member
Site Supporter

Jerome Well-Known Member
Site Supporter