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Toronto Chaldeans pray for homeland

By 
  • March 19, 2010
{mosimage}TORONTO - Toronto’s Chaldean Catholic community continues to pray for peace in the wake of further violence affecting Christians in Iraq.

“We go with prayer and in this Holy Week, we ask our Lord Jesus Christ, King of Peace, to make peace in this country. All our hearts go to the (people in Iraq),” Chaldean Archbishop Hanna Zora told The Catholic Register.

The violence has displaced 4,320 Christians in Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul. Recent violent attacks in the country were mostly sectarian in nature and came amid national parliamentary elections. About 38 people were killed on election day and 110 injured due to mortar and rocket attacks in and near Iraq’s capital, Baghdad. In February, eight Christians were killed within a 10-day period in Mosul.

Zora is pastor of the Good Shepherd Chaldean Church in Toronto, home to 1,650 families, a majority of whom are from Iraq.

“In every occasion, especially during Holy Mass ... my first prayer is for the peace of Iraq, especially for the people of Nineveh,” he said.

Nineveh is the biblical name for Mosul.

Zora was born in Batnaia, north of Mosul. He has been stationed in Canada since 1991.

The Chaldean Catholic Church is in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. There are an estimated 2.5 million Chaldean Catholics around the world.

Please see:  Iraqi Christians still can't go home

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