HISTORY - A1

REDEMPTORISTS’ MISSION BAGHDAD

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HISTORY - A1

Meanwhile, in 1958, the new Chaldean Patriarch Paul III Cheikho, previously Bishop of Aqra, where Fr.M.Bloemen had studied Soereth, invited the Fathers officially, to come to Irak, and teach in his seminary, that was to be transferred from Mosul in the North, to Baghdad, the capital (1960). Fr.Jan Praats was the first to come. He spoke fluently Arabic and Soereth, the spoken language of the Chaldeans. Somewhat later he was joined by Fr.Lucien Cop, who had completed two years Arabic in Bikfaya, Lebanon. The beginnings were very difficult, because the fathers were housed badly, in the so-called Chaldean Patriarchate, with hardly a decent room. While they prepared their courses for the seminarians, a Chaldean priest Fr.Emmanuel Delly, later to become bishop and patriarch, taught the Chaldean liturgy, and Fr.Praats started translating The Law of Christ into Arabic. Every day Fr.Cop had to walk 5 km to reach the Chaldean church for the liturgy. When the Patriarch received a plot of land from the government, in a suburb of Baghdad, called Daura, the seminary and an orphanage, were constructed there, under the supervision of Fr.Praats. At 500 m. distance from that complex, he build a church and a house for the Redemptorists. But these buildings lay far away in a desert place (el-Mekaniek), at about 5 km distance from Daura. Sometimes during the winter period the whole region was floated, while in the summer, as water and electricity were lacking, life was unbearable. Every day, Fr.Praats went to Daura to bring bread and foodstuff to the seminarians. Once, when the area was inundated, he had to bear it all on his back, making his way through the mud. Unfortunately, because of a misunderstanding with the superior of the seminary, he was obliged to leave the country in 1965. For a short period, Fr.Cop, teacher of exegesis, was left alone. Fr.Praats continued his mission in Lebanon, where he became superior and was rewarded with the title of archdeacon in the Chaldean Rite, by Patriarch Bidawid. He died in a tragic accident on the road to Damascus in 1970. He is buried in the Chaldean cathedral of Beyrouth (cfr.G+L 1971,16-22).

The REDEMPTORISTS' MISSION in BAGHDAD

1. Short history of the Mission. (Under revision)

1.01: A house in the desert (1959 - 1971)

St.Alphonse (1696-1787), founder of the congregation of the Redemptorists, had a dream during his life time, to send some of his disciples, on mission to the Church of the East, the so-called Nestorians. At that time it couldn’t be realised, but about 200 years later something of his dream came through.
Around the year 1952 Cardinal Eugene Tisserand, head of the Congregation of the Oriental Churches, solicited the Redemptorist Fathers to start a mission among the Assyrians (The Christians of the Syriac Church of the East are known under different names, previously called Nestorians, since the end of the XVIIIth c. they call themselves Assyrians, and in the West they are known as the East-Syriac Orthodox Church). The Redemptorist Generalate accepted, in the name of the Belgian Province. Two Flemish fathers were send to Paris, and later to Lebanon to learn arabic (1953-55), in preparation for their mission, Fr. Maurice Demarey (1900-1074) and Fr.Jan Praats (1929-1970), who had been a teacher of history in the college of Essen (1951).
Under the protection of the local Chaldean Bishop, they travelled to East Syria, and started working there (Tell Arbosh) among the Assyrians who lived there, since they were driven out of Irak in the thirties. They were able to build a school, but for some unclear political reasons, they had to leave the country (1955), and settled finally in Lebanon, Beyrouth, in an Assyrian quarter of the city (Sid el-Boushriye, Jedeydet el-Metn). With the time passing, they constructed a church and a school for the poor people of the Assyrian community. Several other fathers and brothers joined the mission. Fr.Maurice Bloemen became the director of the school, and Fr.Timon de Cock visited abandoned Maronite villages. Much later, an Antonin-Maronite monk, Elie Sader, who had joined the congregation, build a huge complex 5 stores high, in the neighbourhood of Zahle, as a centre for retreats and spiritual revival.