ERBIL, Iraqi – Satellite photos
obtained by The Associated Press confirm what church leaders and Middle
East preservationists had feared: The oldest Christian monastery in Iraq
has been reduced to a field of rubble, yet another victim of the ISIS
terror group's relentless destruction of heritage sites it considers
heretical.
St. Elijah's Monastery stood as a place of worship
for 1,400 years, including most recently for U.S. troops. In earlier
millennia, generations of monks tucked candles in the niches, prayed in
the chapel, worshipped at the altar. The Greek letters chi and rho,
representing the first two letters of Christ's name, were carved near
the entrance.
This month, at the request of the AP, satellite
imagery firm DigitalGlobe tasked a high resolution camera to grab photos
of the site, and then pulled earlier images of the same spot.
Before it was razed, a partially restored,
27,000-square-foot stone and mortar building stood fortress-like on a
hill above Mosul.
Although the roof was largely missing, it had 26
distinctive rooms including a sanctuary and chapel. One month later
photos show "that the stone walls have been literally pulverized," said
imagery analyst Stephen Wood, CEO of Allsource Analysis, who pinpointed
the destruction between August and September 2014.
"Bulldozers, heavy equipment, sledgehammers, possibly
explosives turned those stone walls into this field of gray-white dust.
They destroyed it completely," he said from his Colorado offices.
On the other side of the world, in his office in
exile, in Erbil, Iraq, Catholic priest Rev. Paul Thabit Habib, 39,
stared in disbelief at the before- and after- images.
"Our Christian history in Mosul is being barbarically
leveled," he said in Arabic. "We see it as an attempt to expel us from
Iraq, eliminating and finishing our existence in this land."
ISIS, which now controls large parts of Iraq and
Syria, has killed thousands of civilians in the past two years. Along
the way, its fighters have destroyed whatever they consider contrary to
their interpretation of Islam.
St. Elijah's joins a growing list of more than 100
religious and historic sites looted and destroyed, including mosques,
tombs, shrines and churches. Ancient monuments in the cities of Nineveh,
Palmyra and Hatra are in ruins. Museums and libraries have been
pillaged, books burned, artwork crushed -- or trafficked.
U.S. troops and advisers had worked to protect and honor the monastery, a hopeful endeavor in a violent place and time.
"I would imagine that many people are feeling like,
`What were the last 10 years for if these guys can go in and destroy
everything?"' said U.S. Army reserve Col. Mary Prophit, who was deployed
there in 2004 and again in 2009.
Built in 590, tragedy struck at St. Elijah's in 1743,
when as many as 150 monks who refused to convert to Islam were
massacred by a Persian general. In 2003 St. Elijah's shuddered again --
this time a wall was smashed by a tank turret blown off in battle. Iraqi
troops had already moved in, dumping garbage in the cistern. The U.S.
Army's 101st Airborne Division took control, painting over ancient
murals and scrawling their division's "Screaming Eagle," on the walls.
Then a U.S. military chaplain, recognizing its significance, began a
preservation initiative.
Roman Catholic Army chaplain Jeffrey Whorton, who celebrated Mass on the monastery's altar, was grief-stricken at its loss.
"Why we treat each other like this is beyond me," he said. "Elijah the prophet must be weeping."
ISIS destroys Iraq's oldest Christian monastery, satellite photos confirm
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