Iraq:Churches are catering for locals and refugees alike, writes Michael Jansenin Suleimaniya.
Dr Faleh parks snugly against the wall of a house in the narrow street of the old city near the Church of the Virgin Mary, the oldest Christian place of worship in Suleimaniya. A small plaque over the door to the church courtyard proclaims that the house of worship was built in 1862. Around the sunny courtyard are the rooms of the church's caretakers, who also look after the grass and roses in the garden under the watchful eye of a chipped plaster statue of the Virgin.
Although the bell in the square tower remains silent, members of the congregation file in through the street door and take their places on hard benches inside the small church. Its icons are framed prints and posters, its carpeting modest beige wall-to-wall. On the marble altar is a white linen cloth edged with lace and vases of bright silk flowers.
Fr Denha Toma, in black cassock and wearing a beard, makes his way to a wooden cupboard at the side of the dais where the altar stands, takes out and puts on his vestments, a white caftan edged in grey and a rich red chasuble. We stand as the service begins with a prayer in Arabic read by a lay assistant and chants sung in the ancient Chaldean language. As we sit, a bent old woman in a balding brown fur coat and long black skirt makes her way to a pew in front, takes off her coat, and settles in for the service.
A strange, rough man in the baggy pants worn by Kurdish men, paint-spattered shirt and wildly tangled hair stands silently, hands folded in prayer.
There are 10 men and four women in the congregation, including the men aiding the priest. The Lord's Prayer is recited in Arabic, a lesson is read by the priest in Arabic and Chaldean.
Dr Faleh, an orthopaedic surgeon, and at least one other man, are refugees from Baghdad and do not speak Chaldean. Fr Denha forms a triangle with his fingers and touches the tips of the fingers of a woman in the front row who passes the blessing from person to person. Fr Denha serves Communion out of two gleaming silver chalices, the church's sole treasures, and the congregants file out of the church and the courtyard.
In the afternoon the priest conducts a second service for a much larger group at St Joseph's, a new church built for the community by Jalal Talabani, the local Kurdish chief and now president of Iraq. Over coffee in the reception room, Fr Denha says 230 families are registered here, 150 of them being displaced persons from Baghdad, where Christians are under attack. "Here everyone is safe and free to worship as they like. Refugees are welcome: our heart is very wide and we can accept anyone. There is pressure on all innocent people in Baghdad], not just Christians."
Although Christians are safe here, he prefers not to ring St Mary's bell ahead of the service so the "Muslims are not disturbed". He says St Mary's and St Joseph's, built in 2000, receive financial support from the local community, the Patriarch, Cardinal Emmanuel Deli in Baghdad, who governs Chaldean Catholics in Iraq, Syria and Iran, and the Vatican. "We pray to God and the Pope for moral support."