Raqqa Christians: Fading Away

“Raqqa was taken by the Islamic State (IS) in 2013, and declared the capital of the caliphate in 2014,” the website Portes ouvertes recalls. Christians then all abandoned the city, with only a handful still clinging on there.

In April, “three churches were returned to the Christians of Raqqa,” the same website reports. But Raqqa’s Church of the Martyrs is “the only Christian place of worship” to have risen from the ashes: a church that “stands tall and proud, its iron cross reaching toward a dusty sky” (La Croix International).

Armin Mardoian explains to La Croix’s special envoy: “The church was rebuilt in 2022, but Christians have only managed it since February,” notes this former blacksmith who heads the Committee for the Protection of Assyrian, Syriac, Chaldean, and Armenian Properties.

“Under Daesh, the city’s three churches were seized, looted, and those that weren’t demolished were eventually bombed during the city’s recapture by the international coalition,” he relates. The days when the Christian community lived in peace are lost in the mist of a bygone era.

“Before, we lived peacefully here and could freely practice our religion. But as soon as the first Islamists arrived, first with the Free Syrian Army, then with the Al-Nusra Front, and finally Daesh, almost all the Christians fled, either to the south of the country or to Europe,” Armin Mardoian laments.

At his side, another Christian who prefers not to give his name recounts how he survived in the hell of jihad: he had to convert or pay the “jizya,” a tax demanded from “infidels” in exchange for a certain level of security. He paid but had to accept the dress codes decreed by the jihadists and close his business during prayer hours.

“We didn’t even dare pray in our own homes. We were so afraid that we removed the images of the Blessed Virgin and Christ from the walls. It was an extremely painful time,” he sighs.

The Christians’ ordeal was to last three years—an eternity; but even after the liberation of Raqqa, in October 2017, and the policy of protecting religious minorities, very few exiles took the path of return: “There are still active Daesh cells in the region. We still receive messages on WhatsApp threatening us and calling us infidels,” a Christian points out.

This woman, originally from Aleppo, confides that she had been kidnapped by the Islamic State (IS) with her father and her spouse: all three had been denounced by a taxi driver wanting to earn some extra money. Tortured and submitted to many abuses, she joined her coreligionists with whom she said, finally, “Despite the threats, I feel safe with them.”

The High Property Committee Opens a Branch in Raqqa

In February 2024, “a branch of the High Property Committee has been opened in Raqqa, North and East Syria,” its sixth, and “dedicated to protecting the rights of minority communities.” But the Committee also has a “mission to meticulously document Syriac (Aramean–Assyrian–Chaldean) and Armenian properties, particularly those belonging to absentees, under a legal mandate,” SyriacPress reports.

It is in the hope that exiled Christians will return one day that Armin Mardoian, an administrative official with the Committee, carries out his task: he has “to catalog the lands and properties of those who were dispossessed in case they want to return one day,” he explains to La Croix, “but it’s difficult because most official documents have been destroyed.”

Some houses belonging to Christians in exile have been illegally acquired. “In those cases, we have to investigate with those who are now in Europe, or even in Australia, and then file a case with the local Court of Justice to have the situation recognized,” he adds, rather proud of having “recovered a little more than half of the community’s lands.”

Not discouraged despite all of this,one of the three Christian survivors confides: “In 1915, our people were massacred by the Turkish regime. Our churches were turned into mosques. We can’t let that happen again.” It was a struggle without the comfort of the sacraments. The Church of the Martyrs may still be standing, but there is still no priest to celebrate Mass.

“We depend on the Catholic Church in Aleppo; it’s their responsibility to send us someone,” insists one of the three Christians interviewed. But, he says, determined: “Even if no one comes back, we want our churches to remain, at least as a symbol that shows we lived here. And survived.”