By Baghdadhope*
In the photo on the right the ceremony in 2009
A special ceremony was held in recent days in Mar Eliya Chaldean church in Baghdad.
35 boys and girls received their First Communion.
So far nothing strange, even in Iraq's darkest times the sacrament of first communion was always administered, although only to a few children. What made the day a unique one was the request made by the parish priest to the children's families to dress them differently than in previous years. Thus was that at the altar there were little men and women wearing the traditional clothes of the villages their families come from sewn for them by their female relatives.
Father Douglas Al Bazi explained to Baghdadhope the reason of this upstream choice.
"When I proposed to make the children wear the traditional clothes their families were perplexed to the point of talking directly with our Patriarch, Cardinal Mar Emmanuel III Delly, who asked me the reason of my request. My answer was that I think it is the right way to assert our identity which is made of liturgy, language, food, tradition but also clothes. This is not a throwback, but rather a desire to live the present and look to the future without loosing what made us who we are."
Is it the first time that the first communion ceremony includes traditional clothes?
"As far as I know in the last decades yes. Many years ago they used to dress the children like little newlyweds. In the harsh embargo time they used instead to be dressed like little monks and nuns. Why do not use the traditional clothes?"
"When I proposed to make the children wear the traditional clothes their families were perplexed to the point of talking directly with our Patriarch, Cardinal Mar Emmanuel III Delly, who asked me the reason of my request. My answer was that I think it is the right way to assert our identity which is made of liturgy, language, food, tradition but also clothes. This is not a throwback, but rather a desire to live the present and look to the future without loosing what made us who we are."
Is it the first time that the first communion ceremony includes traditional clothes?
"As far as I know in the last decades yes. Many years ago they used to dress the children like little newlyweds. In the harsh embargo time they used instead to be dressed like little monks and nuns. Why do not use the traditional clothes?"
Are the clothes representative of the traditions of the villages or of cities too?
"Most of the families of the children are from villages in the north such as Tel kaif or Batnaya or Tellesqof. But there are some coming from Mosul and in that case the children were indistinguishable from the Arab children in clothing. There was also a child from an Assyrian village who was wearing the traditional Assyrian clothes."
You said that in the beginning the families were perplexed, and then?
"Then everyone enjoyed the ceremony so that even those who had brought some spare clothes to be weared by the children after it preferred them to remain dressed in the traditional way. We are Iraqi Christians, those are our traditions. Remembering can only enrich our culture. The colours and the decorations did not not diminish the sacredness of the moment that had been prepared by the catechism, but I am sure that will remain forever in the memories of those children and their parents. "
"Most of the families of the children are from villages in the north such as Tel kaif or Batnaya or Tellesqof. But there are some coming from Mosul and in that case the children were indistinguishable from the Arab children in clothing. There was also a child from an Assyrian village who was wearing the traditional Assyrian clothes."
You said that in the beginning the families were perplexed, and then?
"Then everyone enjoyed the ceremony so that even those who had brought some spare clothes to be weared by the children after it preferred them to remain dressed in the traditional way. We are Iraqi Christians, those are our traditions. Remembering can only enrich our culture. The colours and the decorations did not not diminish the sacredness of the moment that had been prepared by the catechism, but I am sure that will remain forever in the memories of those children and their parents. "
