Sunday, August 28, 2005

Second Oldest Christian Church in the World


OLD 4
Originally uploaded by nevadog.

I was told that this is the second oldest Christian Church in the world. It is located on Saddam's palace complex here in Tikrit, Iraq.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautiful picture, Zach.

Stay safe and take care --

jarvenpa said...

Thank you for sharing this photo, and for your honest blog. I hope you are soon back home with your wife and children.

phinky said...

Wow! That's all I can say.
I wonder if they were Gnostics, or Nestorians, or any of the other sects of Christianity that arose before the Council of Nicea introduced orthodoxy to Christianity and declared the other sects heretics.

Anonymous said...

exquisite, Zach. just exquisite. would you mind if i printed a copy?
would be glad to send a hard copy to you.

(hurria: what in history happened to the children, Abraham's, from Ur.
as history teaches...what happened to them)

praying for you zach, and your family

The Seriously Ill said...

What is really terrible is that Bush's closest allies in Iraq, the Kurds, are using theri influence for a land grab of hte Christian Assyrian and Turkmen minorities I wrote about it at Daily Kos.

Soon the birthplace of Chriwtianity will be devoid of Christians because of our Christian crusade.

Anonymous said...

hurria,

last night bubba shot the jukebox with his 45, said it was justifiable homicide. answer your question dated 29 aug?

they be the modern day mongols. no mind, no heart, no conscience. and afraid they gots no more petrol fer their suv's.

if you have tv, look at new orleans, lots of people pumping lots of gas to, kind of, flee for their lives. poetic justice? think they are thinking about iraqis, let alone the gi's in iraq?

stay safe.

Anonymous said...

Scattered, Hurria.

Anonymous said...

Looking at your great photo, I hope that I'm seeing the sun rising on the vestiges of an old and great civilization, which is going to be born again, rather than the sunset on the ruins of a devasted country, which will disappear into darkness.

Take care Zach

Anonymous said...

Hurria,

I enjoy reading your comments and can appreciate the passion and sense of outrage with which you right. Living in Iraq and watching its devastation first-hand certainly gives your thoughts an aura of gravitas. It's clear also that you relish taking the moral high ground and critizing the hypocrisy of American soldiers, Kurdish politicians, Shia theocrats, among others. But I always get the feeling that your outrage is a little selective. Were you as outspoken in criticizing Saddam's atrocities against your countrymen when doing so would have been dangerous? Why do you never mention atrocities commited by others beside Americans? I can already hearing you saying that I don't have the right to ask that question, and that the only issue is the immorality of American invasion and occupation, but as someone who is a member of a group labeled hypocritical by you, I have every right to call into question your own alleged complete lack of hypocrisy and moral purity.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful photo!

Anonymous said...

zach - a fabulous photo. A picture does say a thousand words. Take care of yourself.

Anonymous said...

Hurria,
You never really answer the hard questions. Where was the out rage from the Muslim community and for that matter from Muslim countries when saddam was burying thousands of Muslims in the sands of Iraq? Where was your blog, your out cry you for your countrymen, or were you one of the lucky ones to flourish under saddams regime? Just asking.

Unknown said...

I loved to see this ruined monastery every day while working at camp Danger in Tikrit. My research found that it was a flourishing large Syrian Orthodox (Jakobite) monastery until the Muslims came.

Unknown said...

I've been there. FOBB DANGER. The church was built into the side of a big hill and ontop of the hill is an old(but newer) mosque and of course the mosque is much bigger.