On April 5, 2024, a delegation of SOS Chrétiens d’Orient participated in the re-consecration of the Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Mosul, Iraq, destroyed 10 years ago by the jihadists of the Islamic State. The church, full of bullet marks and shell fragments, is completely rebuilt by the SOS Chrétiens d’Orient Endowment Fund, thanks to the generous legacy of two of its benefactors.
Violent fighting devastated Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, between June 6 and 9, 2014. On June 10, the entire governorate fell into ISIS’ hands. The liberation of the city become a reality on July 10, 2017, after three years of jihadist occupation. The city is smashed and nothing has been spared. In the western part of Mosul, on the Tigris’s right bank, the fiercest battles were witnessed.
It is here that Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church is located as well as the adjoining Christian school. The building was full of bullet marks and shell fragments, additionally to an unexploded rocket penetrated one of the domes. The school itself, was destroyed.
In this context, and responding to Mgr Najeeb, Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul and Aqra, call, SOS Chrétiens d’Orient has committed to rebuild the church and its school. Works started in 2022 financed entirely by the SOS Chrétiens d’Orient Endowment Fund and thanks to the generous legacy of two of its benefactors.
By bequeathing to the SOS Chrétiens d’Orient Endowment Fund for the reconstruction of this church, our benefactors are thus contributing to the return of Christians to Mosul, the biblical city with a historical and civilizational heritage, one of the cradles of Christianity.
