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Christian Orphans Are Stuck in Limbo in Iraq |
| Section: CULTURE / CULTURE CLASH |
| Author: Julia Duin |
| Publication:
The World & I Online |
| Issue Date: 2/1/2005 |
| Size: 1,511 Words, 9,460 Characters |
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Compared with the ferocity of war in much of Iraq, the isolated Monastery of the Virgin Mary--twenty-five miles north of Mosul--exists in tranquillity. Surrounded by desert, this cool shelter--complete with olive trees, honeybees, and a Chaldean church--houses six monks and thirty-six orphaned boys, ages five to fourteen. Twenty-two girls live at a convent in nearby Mosul.
Over the years, the Rev. Mofid Toma Marcus, thirty-seven, an Assyrian Christian monk in charge of the monastery and orphanage, has kept the wolves away. During dictator Saddam Hussein's reign, he passed off his orphanage as a seminary for students preparing for the priesthood, because the government was not anxious to let the outside world know the actual number of orphans in the country.
Even today, when the boys, dressed in jeans and T-shirts, line up after their naps and are asked how many want to become priests, six raise their hands. They will go to a C...
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...g in Sulaymaniyah. It includes a music room with a drum, piano, and four violins; a computer room; pingpong tables and a ceramics lab. In a room of children's paintings, one shows a depiction of Elvis. Another shows a crucified Christ.
A boy with tattered sandals, black pants, a dirty T-shirt and sad expression just sits and watches visitors walk by.
© 2004 News World Communications Inc.
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Publication Details
(The World & I Online) |
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The World & I Online is a
comprehensive academic resource that encompasses a broad range of
articles by scholars and experts in the areas of Global Studies,
Liberal Arts, Fine & Applied Arts, General Science, and Spanish.
Originally published monthly in print as The World & I, our site
includes the complete contents since 1986 and continues to publish
a new issue online each month. |
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