The symbolic gift Pope Francis received at the start of his visit to Iraq

Pope Francis received a small piece of Iraq this Friday: copy of a stylized Stations of the Cross, the work of a Muslim sculptor, one of the most famous in the country, embedded in the walls of a church in Baghdad.

At the start of this historic visit, the Iraqi President, Barham Saleh, gave the Pope a small bronze plaque as a welcome gift, specially designed for the first pontiff to visit this country in the Middle East.

Yaser Hikmat, son of Iraqi sculptor Mohammed Ghani Hikmat – who died in 2011 – personally supervised the realization of this project from Beirut. reproduction of the sixth station, “Veronica wipes the face of Jesus”, in the greatest of secrecy.

“It’s very symbolic of Iraq, my father was a Muslim artist who counted the passion of Christ in sculpture, it embodies the fact that there is no discrimination between the different components of Iraq “, he told the AFP.

This work is four times smaller than the original which, like the 14 cross stations at Hikmat, is two meters high by one meter wide.

But behind this work is, in fact, the recent history of the country that the Pope will travel from south to north until Monday morning.

In 1993, at a time when Iraq was suffering from embargo decreed by an international community determined to put an end to the war fantasies of dictator Saddam Hussein (1979-2003), despite everything, a church was built in Baghdad.

The Ascension Church, expropriated by a socialist state which owned all the land and could organize it at will, was rebuilt in a land ceded by the authorities in the popular district of Mechtel, in the great agricultural belt of Baghdad.

“Nice recognition” –

It took several years to bring the donations from 5,600 Chaldean families living nearby. And the persuasion of the Church to obtain from Mohammed Ghani Hikmat, the artist behind the majority of the monumental statues of Baghdad, a Stations of the Cross unlike any other in all the Chaldean churches of the world, he says AFP Father Fadi Nadheer, priest of the Ascension Church since his ordination in 2017.

Hikmat then locks himself in his studio and enters what he later describes as a sort of mythical trance. The result was revealed a few months later.

The artist, called the “Sheikh of Iraqi sculptors” carved the 14 Stations of the Cross in blocks of stone from the Nineveh Plain, a Christian stronghold in the north where the Pope will visit on Sunday.

But the scene is not just biblical. In a corner of each bas-relief, a woman and a child appear. They represent the Iraqi people, suffocated by the embargo and wars, marginalized beings like those whom Christ called to defend according to the Gospels.

Today, the embargo is a distant memory, but the Ascension Church is only its shadow. Its imposing, Babylonian-style architecture in yellow bricks typical of Iraq, and its atrium are hidden by a wall of heavy concrete blocks installed in 2007 during the civil war.

Of the 5,600 Chaldean families of the 1990s, only 400 are still there.

Despite the daily ordeal in a country that has gone from war against the political or economic crisis for 40 years, “our church was chosen as the official gift of Iraq to the Pope, it is a beautiful recognition”assured Father Nadheer.

It is a “great happiness” for the Christians of Mechtel, “But also for all Iraqis”, celebrates the young religious, dressed in a black cassock and small glasses. “Coming here, the Pope tells the world, ‘Look at Iraq, take care of the Iraqis, take care of them,” he said.

Sarah Benhaida and Dylan Collins in Beirut by AFP

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