This is Sidra, an Aramaic manuscript that's at least 500 years old.<\/p>\n
It belongs to the Syriac-Christian Church of Qaraqosh and contains prayers to be recited between the feasts of Easter and the Holy Cross. It's a gem for this Christian community, the largest in Iraq.<\/p>\n
The book has a noteworthy story. It was objects like these that ISIS targeted.<\/p>\n
A group of priests managed to hide it, and in 2017, two Italian journalists found it.<\/p>\n
It ended up in the hands of FOCSIV, a federation of Christian organizations dedicated to volunteer work. Its members restored the book.<\/p>\n
They call it the \u201cRefugee Book,\u201d because it was a silent witness of the persecution of Iraq's minorities between 2014 and 2017.<\/p>\n
Before returning it to its land of origin, those who restored the book wanted to show it to Pope Francis.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt had many problems. All the miniatures were covered with scraps of paper so they wouldn't be visible. The manuscript has a fascinating story, which we were able to write down.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cYou've worked miracles, haven't you?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Lucilla Nuccitelli, from the ICPAL organization, which was in charge of the restoration, told the pope that it took 10 months to complete the project. <\/p>\n The president of the NGO that salvaged the book gave the pope a gift, with his upcoming trip to Iraq in mind.<\/p>\n I am giving this to you as a symbol. It's an apron for the women at our house in Qaraqosh. It's a shelter for women, where they can receive formation and aid. It's for refugee women.<\/em><\/p>\n Pope Francis gave them a blessing and asked them for a favor, which has become a staple of his meetings.<\/p>\n And pray for me.<\/em><\/p>\n Of course.<\/em><\/p>\n And in favor, not against me.<\/em><\/p>\n Certainly. Rest assured.<\/em><\/p>\n In Iraq the pope will visit the Nineveh plains. He will arrive in Erbil on Sunday, March 7. There he will celebrate Mass. He will also visit Mosul and Qaraqosh.<\/p>\n This city is known as the Vatican of Iraq, as it is home to the country's largest Christian community. It's also the city that suffered the most damage from ISIS.<\/p>\n Javier Romero<\/p>\n TR: CT<\/p>\n VM\/Laura Aprati e Marco Bova<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" February 25, 2021.The pope will visit this city in Iraq. In 2014, every last Christian was driven out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":14807,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"acf":{"video":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/ywEVFDQMLN4","video_descarga":"http:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/blibroqaraqosheng.mp4","international_url":"http:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/blibroqaraqoshint.mp4","type":"bn","newsletter":"si"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45606"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}