Ancient relics emerge from church ravaged by ISIS

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Baghdad (AsiaNews) - A discovery of great historical, religious and cultural value that confirms - once again - the bond of Christians with Iraq and, more generally, with the Middle Eastern region of which they are the original people and an integral component since the first centuries.

Over the past few days, a dozen or so ancient relics and parchments belonging to some saints have emerged inside a church devastated by the Islamic State (IS, formerly Isis), which is now undergoing restoration.

The site of the discovery was the Syrian Orthodox church of Mar Thomas in Mosul, once the economic and commercial capital of the north and in the recent past the stronghold of the Islamic "caliphate" established by Isis. Found inside were six stone containers bearing Aramaic inscriptions of saints and several manuscripts in Syriac and Aramaic languages.

The workers who made the discovery immediately called the leaders of the local Church, starting with the Syrian Orthodox Archbishop of Mosul Mor Nicodemos Sharaf.

Among the relics that emerged was a stone container with an inscription relating to Saint Theodore, a Roman soldier born in the province of Corum, Turkey, in the 3rd century and beheaded for having converted.

Parallel to this important discovery for the Christian community and for the whole of Iraq, the topic of antiquities theft and smuggling is back on the agenda in the region. In fact, a network specialised in the illegal trade of antiquities with an epicentre in the Middle East has recently emerged, which also involved Jean-Luc Martinez, a former senior manager of the Louvre. The investigation has uncovered a clandestine and illegal trade that has been expanding in the shadow of the Arab Spring uprisings in the past decade and has also financially fuelled the violence of the Islamic State. 

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