According to the tradition, Christianity entered the Nineveh plain and the city of Baghdede from the end of the 4^thcentury or the beginning of the 5^thcentury. More than likely, sources argue that evangelisation began in the 7^thcentury. “The village was first Nestorian[1], then around 615 [it] became Monophysite[2]. In the 11^thand 12^thcentury, many Christians from Tikrit, before being forced to convert to Islam, left Tikrit and settled in Baghdeda. In 1743, Nader Shah’s troops besieged the area, plundered Baghdede and destroyed the churches.

At that time, the villagers escaped to Mosul and took part in the defence of the town”[3].

Former Syriac-Orthodox bishop see, the village became Catholic at the end of 18^thcentury.

There are still several ancient Syriac-Catholic and Orthodox churches in nowadays Baghdede. All have been violated, sullied, plundered, even burnt by ISIS, all along the 24 months it occupied the city. Despite wreckages and destructions, some of these churches still stand firm against time and invaders and carry on being testament to this distant past.

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[1]Nda : Church of the East.

[2]Nda : Syriac-Orthodox

[3]Source Jean-Marie Mérigoux, O.P., in « L’Orient chrétien dans l’empire musulman », Collection Studia Arabica III, Editions de Paris, 2005.

Although the reliability of demographic statistics can be considered as a problem, due to successive wars, to never-ending mass movements of population and to the absence of proper census, nevertheless, we can admit that at least 40 000 to 50 000 people used to live in Baghdede before ISIS attacked in July 2014. Nearly 90 % of the inhabitants in Baghdede were Syriac-Catholics. The other 10 % were being split between Chaldeans (Catholic), Syriac-Orthodoxes, as well as apostolic Armenians. To this must be added thousands of displaced people, 5 000 to 13 000  – depending on the different phases – Christian people, mostly coming from Baghdad or Mosul who came to settle in Baghdede from 2003 on. All were running away from crimes and misdemeanours committed by the terrorist or mafia groups that appeared after the Iraqi state collapsed.

Before 1980, this city was said to be exclusively Christian. But afterwards, Muslim families progressively settled in, as part of the campaign of Arabisation of the Nineveh plain set up by Saddam Hussein.

The life of Mar Behnām and Mart Sārah is reported in the Chroniclewritten by of a monk from Edessa (Urfa, in Turkey) in the 12^th-13^thcentury[1]. According to that Chronicle, Princess Sārah, sister of Prince Behnām, was healed from leprosy by Mar Mattai (Saint Matthew), on the spot of a miraculous water spring. Healing both flesh and soul, as the holy monk converted both children and christened them at once. Their father was the king of Nimrūd, Sinharib II, and he went mad with anger with this conversion, the Assyrian king had the children killed, together with their 40 slaves of the princely suite. Behnām and Sārah, martyred saints were probably of Persian origin and could have lived in the 4^thcentury if we consider the tradition as reliable ; however they also could have lived in the 5^thor 6^thcentury, without much more precision, as we lack reliable historical sources. The tradition also relates that the Queen Širīn “had a 7-km long tunnel dug between her place and the martyrion”, so that she could go and cry at her ease on her children’s grave. She eventually succeeded in converting her husband, “exorcised by Mar Matta”[2] .

Even nowadays, « everybody, the Christians who live in the sphere of influence of the monastery, as well as the Arabs from around Nimrūd, was absolutely convinced in the existence of this tunnel, and that the find of any hole is hailed as the discovery of the tunnel’s entrance (…) »[3].

That is how was established and transmitted, throughout the centuries and until nowadays, the fabulous epic of Assyria’s conversion to Christianity.

The beautiful monastery of Mar Behnām and Mart Sārah, located in Khdir, very close to Baghdede is, according to the tradition, the place of the original martyrium. Mar Behnām has been venerated for centuries by a huge number of Christian Syriac-speaking visitors, but also by muslims or yazidis, and more especially women who come to ask the saint’s intercession to get abundance and fertility. This shrine could have been built on the place of a primitive church.

The building of a church dedicated to Behnām and Sārah in Baghdede is the symbol of the revival of a faith, deeply ingrained in the flesh and soul of Iraqi Christians for the past 16 centuries.

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[1]Quoted in Assyrie Chrétienne, Jean-Maurice Fiey, Institut de lettres orientales, Beyrouth, 1965-1968.

[2]In Assyrie Chrétienne, Jean-Maurice Fiey.

[3]In Assyrie Chrétienne, Jean-Maurice Fiey.

Amongst all the Christian buildings in Baghdede, the church of Mar Behnām and Sārah is the most recent. Raised along one of the busiest roads of the town, the church is an example of modern architecture, breaking up deliberately with the traditional architecture standards for churches in Mesopotamia.

Mar Behnām and Sārah Monastery, in Khdir, is a masterpiece of ancient Christian art, combining Assyrian sources, muslim Atabeg style from the 12^thcentury, and Armenian-styled stone laces. On the contrary, the church of Mar Behnām and Sārah presents a completely unusual type of architecture and still unclassifiable. Whereas the first one sublimates ancestral roots, the second one glorifies the future.

The building of Mar Behnām and Sārah church started in 2005 and it was consecrated on August 4^th2008. Just like for the new Al Tahira[1]church in Baghdede, the building of this new church rallied large numbers of inhabitants and workers in the great Christian city. Through this enthusiasm, the building of Mar Behnām and Sārah is a symbol of the Syriac-Catholic vitality of Baghdede at the dawn of the 21^stcentury, despite wars and anti-Christian persecutions committed by armed jihadist groups.

The religious compound of the church is closed by a wall and a gate, which have no protection nor defence aims, unlike other surrounding walls, usually high and massive to protect places of worship.

The building is impressive at first sight. Its daring arch-shaped architecture is totally unprecedented in the Syriac world. Some see also a sort of tent of brotherhood in it. From the outside, 9 large curved arches run along the tiled roof and seem to bear gracefully the whole of the building.

Inside, the vault’s weight does not rest on pillars, as it usually does, but on round arches, leading all forces towards the load-bearing side walls.

The structure is made of reinforced concrete, covered with light ochre stone tiles. The pediment is ornamented with a large rectangle-shaped bas-relief, probably out of stucco, covered with a bronze-looking paint.

This fresco features the christening of Behnām and Sārah by Mar Mattai, it has been hammered out by the jihadist occupiers between 2014 and 2016.

The church is bathed with light thanks to a large number of windows in the side walls. The inner structure of the building shows a large hall, leading to a big slightly raised choir, totally open with no door nor curtains. The choir is round-shaped and covered by a spiral vault with 12 niches. At the very centre of the platform, behind the altar, a large ambulatory has been arranged. The baptistery, immediately on the right when you get in, has been completely damaged by the profaners. The church has been torched and plundered. The marble Stations of the Cross have been wrecked, just like all the liturgical pieces of furniture.

The bell tower raised on the southern side of the building has been collapsed down. Fortunately, the bell has been ringing again since the town was liberated. The restoration works are going on.

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[1]See notice SC002 about Al Tahira church

The restored church of Mar Behnam and Mart Sarah of Baghdede was inaugurated on August 15, 2019, the day of the feast of the Assumption.

The Restoration Committee started the interior works in March 2019, under the supervision of Abed al Aziz and Jerjis Mousa, with the financial support of CAPNI and L’Oeuvre d’Orient.