SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Pope Francis arrived in Mosul city on Sunday following his trip to the Kurdistan Region.
The 84-year-old pontiff flew by helicopter from nearby Erbil on the third day of his historic trip to Iraq.
Amid extremely tight security, Francis held a prayer service for the “victims of war” outside al-Tahira church, ravaged by Islamic State (ISIS) militants.
Iraqi priests and clergy welcomed the pope and Iraqi and Vatican flags fluttered in the center of Mosul.
The pope said he welcomes return of Christians to Mosul, escaped from the city due to ISIS capture of Mosul and fight against the militant group.
He said the exodus of Christians from Iraq and the broader Middle East “does incalculable harm not just to the individuals and communities concerned, but also to the society they leave behind”.
“We reaffirm our conviction that fraternity is more durable than fratricide, that hope is more powerful than hatred, that peace is more powerful than war,” he said.
“This conviction can never be silenced by the blood spilled by those who pervert the name of God to pursue paths of destruction,” he added.
He then read a prayer repeating one of the main themes of his trip, the first by a pope to Iraq, that it is always wrong to hate, kill or wage war in God’s name.
There are more than 30 churches in Mosul that have been completely destroyed by ISIS militants, overran a large swath of territory in Iraq in 2014.
He will later travel to Qaraqosh in the Nineveh plain, which is one of Iraq’s oldest Christian towns. He will visit the faithful at the Church of the Immaculate Conception.
Francis’s trip is the first papal visit to Iraq, where he has preached coexistence and urged an end to violence in the name of religion.
The pope’s visit to Iraq as a “pilgrim of peace” aims to reassure the country’s ancient, but dwindling, Christian community and to expand his dialogue with other religions.
The Christian community of Iraq, a Muslim-majority country of 40 million, has shrunk from 1.5 million before the 2003 US-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein to only 400,000 now, about one percent of the population.
