The Universe, UK
Jan 30 2007
Historic day for Catholics in Iraq
Posted on January 30, 2007
For the first time in more than five years, the tiny Armenian
Catholic community in Iraq has its own archbishop.
The Vatican announced on January 26 that Pope Benedict XVI had given
his assent to the Armenian Catholic bishops’ election of Father
Emmanuel Dabbaghian, 73, as the Armenian Catholic archbishop of
Baghdad.
The post had been vacant since the October 2001 retirement of
Archbishop Paul Coussa at the age of 84.
The Armenian Catholic Archdiocese of Baghdad covers all of Iraq, and
since 2001 Vatican statistics have given the Armenian Catholic
population of the country as 2,000 faithful.
But Deacon Michel Jeangey, head of the Armenian program at Vatican
Radio, said `probably more than half’ the Armenian Catholics have
moved, at least temporarily, to Armenia or Syria.
`They will return if there is peace,’ he said.
Still, Deacon Jeangey said, one Armenian Catholic priest and a group
of Armenian Catholic nuns continue ministering at the church’s
parishes in Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk as well as running a social
center and two schools in Baghdad.
Archbishop-elect Dabbaghian was born Dec. 26, 1933, in Aleppo, Syria.
After studying philosophy and theology at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian
University, he was ordained to the priesthood in 1967.