HOLDING THE EUCHARIST IN IRAQ

As one of the oldest continuous Christian communities in the world, the Christians of Iraq with a culturally rich ecclesiastical heritage, have given the Church innumerable saints, many of whom are martyrs for the faith. 

One of the most recent martyrs for the faith was SERVANT of GOD RAGHEED AZIZ GANNI, an Iraqi Chaldean Catholic priest, who was killed along with three subdeacons,  his cousin Basman Yousef Daud, Wahid Hanna Isho, and Gassan Isam Bidawed in front of Mosu's Holy Spirit Chaldean Church, where he was a parish priest, Trinity Sunday, 2007.

 Father Ragheed was born in 1972 in the predominantly Sunni city of Mosul , Iraq.

After completing a degree in Civil Engineering at Mosul University in 1996 and fulfilling obligatory military service under the Saddam Hussein regime, he entered the seminary in Iraq. In 1996 his bishop sent him to Rome  for further study at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas Angelicum where he completed a licentiate in ecumenical theology in 2003. He was ordained a priest in Rome on 13 October 2001 at the Pontifical Urbaniana University. While studying in Rome, he made a point to be actively engaged with the poor, and frequently volunteered with the Sant'Egidio community, delivering meals to the homeless.

During his study in Rome he resided at the Pontifical Irish College where he played soccer for the College. The annual showcase 5-a-side tournament played in May among the Scots, English, Beda and Irish Colleges has been named the "Ragheed Cup" in his memory.

 Father Ragheed celebrated his first Mass in the Chapel at the Irish College. Today he is one of the nine figures represented in the apse of that chapel where the relics of Saint Oliver Plunkett rest in the altar wrapped in the priestly stole of Father Ragheed. He regularly offered Mass for the Lay Centre at Foyer Unitas which was at the time housed on the grounds of the Irish College.

 Fluent in Aramaic, Arabic, Italian, French, and English, he served as a correspondent for the international agency Asia News of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions.

He was finishing his degree in Rome when the Iraq war broke out. Father Ganni had received permission from his bishop to return to the Angelicum in Rome to work on a doctorate in ecumenism. In a prewar interview he expressed his opposition to the invasion of Iraqi fearing that Iraqi Christians would be targeted and persecuted. He looked forward to returning to his native land to serve the Church and people there. He did so after Saddam Hussein was ousted from power in 2003.

On June 3, 2007, Father Ganni had just finished celebrating the Sunday evening Mass and three deacons had recently decided to accompany him because of threats against his life. After the liturgy, he was walking away from the church with Daud as Isho, Bidawed, and Isho's wife followed by car. The group was stopped by unknown armed men.

 One of the gunmen shouted at Father Ganni that he had warned him to close the church and demanded to know why he didn't do it. Father replied asking "How can I close the house of God?" The gunmen ordered the woman to flee. Then after the gunmen demanded that the four men convert to Islam and they refused, the four were shot. The car was then set with explosives to deter interference and so that the bodies would remain abandoned. Several hours passed until a police bomb-squad defused the devices, allowing corpses to be recovered.

Thousands of people attended the funeral of the four men in Karemlash, Iraq on 4 June 2007. Father Ganni was secretary to Paulos Faraj Rahho, the Archbishop of Mosul of the Chaldean Church, Iraq's largest Christian community.  Archbishop Rahho was murdered only nine months after Father Ganni's death, in the same city of Mosul.

Father Ragheed was known to have a sense of humor and from the many photos of him, it is obvious he was a man of great joy, with a love for the Eucharist..

"There are days when I feel frail and full of fear. But when, holding the Eucharist, I say 'Behold the Lamb of God. Behold him who takes away the sin of the world', I feel His strength in me. When I hold the Host in my hands, it is really He who is holding me and all of us...keeping us united in His boundless love...In normal times, everything is taken for granted and we forget the greatest gift that is made to us. Ironically, through terrorist violence that we have truly learned that it is the Eucharist, the Christ who died and rose, that gives us life. And this allows us to resist and hope."