TEHRAN, Apr 4 (Reuters) In Iran, where the ancient Chaldean Catholic community is dwarfed by the Muslim majority, Tehran’s church leader expect a big turnout as the faithful say farewell to Pope John Paul on Friday.
Tehran’s Chaldean Archbishop Ramzi Garmou says it is often difficult to get his dwindling flock to mass on Sundays, a working day in Iran.
But on Friday — as the Pontiff’s funeral Mass is being celebrated on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica — Garmou expects Catholics to pour into St. Joseph’s church in Tehran.
”People knew him, perhaps more than any pope before,” Garmou told Reuters today, when asked what the Pontiff meant to Iran’s Chaldeans, whose fast-emigrating community now numbers only around 8,000.
”I have received many calls offering condolences and asking about the mass,” he said.
Garmou stressed the antiquity of Iran’s Christians, quoting accounts of the apostle Saint Thomas spreading Christianity to Persia in the first century.
Most of Iran’s Christians belong to the Armenian church which is some 100,000 strong. Most Chaldeans live in Iraq.
Chaldeans have emigrated from Iran in droves since the 1979 Islamic revolution, mainly to Europe and the United States.
Garmou said they were driven by economic factors and fears about the geopolitical situation in West Asia.
Christian communities are permitted to worship freely in Iran, with around 67 million Muslims, but are banned from proselytizing
Yorumlar kapatıldı.