[
link to www.utoronto.ca]
The [Jesuit] monastic community at Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi comprises male and female members.
Fr. Paolo Dall'Oglio is the founder and leader of the community. He first travelled to the Middle East in 1977, and as a young Jesuit priest first stumbled upon the ruins of the then abandoned monastery of St. Moses. Fr. Jacques Mourad, a Syrian Catholic from Aleppo, is also the parish priest of Qaryatayn. Sister Huda Faddoul, from Damascus and of the Greek Catholic church, is the leader of the female community, and is supported by Deema Fayyad, who is still a novice, and is also Greek Catholic, but from Homs. A new novice is Khouloud Marmari with a Syrian Orthodox/Catholic backround from the Wadi Nasara in Western Syria. The monastic community is rounded out by brother Boutros Abo, a deacon of the Syrian church from Hasake in Eastern Syria; brother Jihad Yusuf, a Maronite from Wadi Nasara, and brother
Jens Petzold, a previously unbaptised Swiss/German, who came to the monastery as a back-packer.
[
link to www.terrasanta.net] 1/23/2012
Many Christian Iraqis have been fleeing their country in the past few weeks, which is once again ablaze with the violence of inter-ethnic and inter-religious violence. But there are also those who go to Iraq, completely going against the trend, to give comfort and aid to the local communities: a small group of foreign religious from another country in torment, Syria.
There is a friar, three postulants and a novice (from Western countries but Arabic-speaking)
sent by Father Paolo Dall'Oglio to establish a place of prayer and encounter with Islam
in Iraqi Kurdistan similar to the Syrian monastery of Mar Musa, which he renovated in the Syrian desert and is now a goal and an international beacon, for Christians and Muslims, of a dialogue that many deemed impossible. The decision to transform the old parish church of the Virgin Mary in the heart of the
Iraqi Kurdish town of Sulaymaniyah, into a symbol of hope and commitment, that can give new perspectives to the remaining Christians, had been taken more than a year ago by Bishop Luis Sako, who is also responsible for the eparchy (the diocese of the Oriental Churches) of Kirkuk. He spoke of it with Father Paolo, who accepted enthusiastically.
Although in the meantime the Syrian monastery of Mar Musa has been isolated and dangerously besieged by the political violence that has broken out in Syria and Father Paolo himself is forced into silence by the authorities of Damascus, which are already ready to expel him, the project has gone ahead. Brother
Jens Petzold, head of the small mission in Iraq, tells us in an email that he
arrived in Sulaymaniyah, just before Christmas, as the US Army was about to leave the country.
Christian Peacemaker Teams
[
link to en.wikipedia.org]
Christian Peacemaker Teams -
Iraqi Kurdistan [
link to www.facebook.com]
CPT Kurdistan supports Kurdish-led, nonviolent, grassroots resistance to the Turkish and Iranian Military actions on Iraqi Kurdish SocietyMission
We are a faith-based organization that supports Kurdish-led, nonviolent, grassroots resistance to the Turkish and Iranian Military actions on Iraqi Kurdish Soil and the unjust structures that support these actions. By “getting in the way” of violence and educating in our home communities, we help create a space for justice and peace.
Company Overview
Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) offers an organized, nonviolent alternative to war and other forms of lethal inter-group conflict. CPT provides organizational support to persons committed to faith-based nonviolent alternatives in situations where lethal conflict is an immediate reality or is supported by public policy. CPT seeks to enlist the response of the whole church in conscientious objection to war, and in the development of nonviolent institutions, skills and training for intervention in conflict situations. CPT projects connect intimately with the spiritual lives of constituent congregations. Gifts of prayer, money and time from these churches undergird CPT’s peacemaking ministries.
Description
CPT Kurdistan supports Kurdish-led, nonviolent, grassroots resistance to Turkish and Iranian Military actions on Iraqi Kurdish Soil. We are a single team based in the Sulaymaniyah area of the Kurdish region of Iraq working with NGO's and individuals dedicated to ending the Bombing and Shelling of the boarder areas by the Turkish and Iranian Military's. We support local communities who deal with this violence as a daily part of their lives and also work to support those who use Non violent means to oppose the corruption of the KRG that allows this violence to continue.
Joined Facebook
10/30/2011
Location
Sulaymaniyah, Iraq
IRAQI KURDISTAN UPDATE: January-March 2012 [
link to www.cpt.org] 4/6/2012
On team during this period were
Bud Courtney, Lukasz Firla, Ramyar Hassani, Amy Peters, Garland Robertson,
Kathy Moorhead Thiessen, Patrick Thompson, and team partners and translators Mohamed Salah and Parween Saeed.
[...]
Networking with local Christians
The team met with Jantz [
Petzold]
and Sebastien [
Duhaut]
in January, two monks staying in the Old Church near the bazaar. Jantz plans to be in
Sulaymaniyah for ten years and is hoping to establish a Christian/Muslim dialogue. He invited the team for tea and discussion, in which Thompson, Firla, and [Bud] Courtney partook.
[...]
Brother Jens, a Catholic monk, and his friend Andres Rump from Germany spoke about his concept of documentary-making. He presented the team with a copy of his first documentary, “Sheikh Ibrahim and Bruder Jihad,” about the life and friendship of a monk and an imam in Syria. Andres is looking around the Sulaymaniyah area for a topic to make another documentary and spent time discussing possible subjects and themes with the team.
[
link to www.deirmarmusa.org]
Paolo Dall’Oglio SJ is the leader of this community and
Sebastien Duhaut is an inmate of the monastery.
Article written by CPT Kurdistan member
Kathy Moorhead Thiessen:
Mar Musa Monastery, Syria: Interesting people (Part 1 of 3) [
link to goinpeacenottopieces.blogspot.com] 4/21/2012
This is Part 1 of three posts on the monastery Mar Musa in Syria. Syria shares a border with Iraqi Kurdistan and there are many Kurds who have been effected by the events of the last year. There is a large refugee camp in the north of Iraqi Kurdistan.I love meeting interesting people. And it is amazing how they turn up so unexpectantly in my life.
Soon after arriving in Sulaymaniyah in February I began to hear team mates speak of Jens [
Petzold]
the monk from Switzerland (although they called him Jantz which seemed strange to me, as I knew that was a last name). I haven't had much opportunity to get to know a monk so I was very interested to meet him (and I know a few real nice people from Switzerland).
Jens has recently arrived in Sulaymaniyah from Mar Musa monastery in Syria. He has been sent by his community there to live in the "Old" Chaldean church in the centre of Sulaymaniyah. His dream is to live here in community for at least 10 years and to develop a place of interfaith dialogue. Presently, the old church is not being used as a church. The new church is much closer to the CPT house and most Sundays someone from the team goes to worship there. Of course all the service is in either Arabic or Chaldean so worshiping together means sitting and being among other Christians and feeling the vibe.
On the day we went for tea with Jens he had a friend visting from Liege, Belgium, which is on the border with Germany. Andres Rump is a film maker who has created a documentary about the friendship between Brother Jihad, another monk from the Mar Musa monastery and Scheich Ibrahim, a Sufi imam from Damascus. (more on this in Part 2 of Mar Musa Monastery: Scheich Ibrahim, Bruder Jihad). He lives in a small community in Liege who dwell in small wooden trailers. He described them as "circus wagons". Their source of electricity is solar panels on the roofs. He told me that he has to make choices in how to "spend" the small amount of electricity produced. So sometimes there is not enough for the computer. Other more important things take priority.
Andres often remarked on the wonderful birds that live around the courtyard of the old church. On the day I visited the trees nearby were full of black birds (don't know the kind), singing as if their lives depended on it. It was marvelous.
Andres was in Sulaymaniyah exploring and searching for the subjects for his next documentary. He had known Jens from the months he spent in Syria, so when the fim maker heard that he was now living in Iraqi Kurdistan he came to see what opportunities might present themselves. As of yet he is still searching, waiting to find the right interesting people with interesting lives.
PHOTO: [
link to 2.bp.blogspot.com]
A tour of the rooftop of the church:
Jens [
Petzold] in the foreground, team mate
Bud Courtney in the middle and Andres in the back.
Iraqi Kurdistan: Anniversary of the Kurdish Spring [
link to www.cpt.org] 3/31/2012
by
Bud CourtneyMid-February marked the one-year anniversary of the start of 62 days of demonstrations in which thousands of Kurdish Iraqis spoke out for justice and met severe repression from military and police forces. The climate surrounding the anniversary was tense with anonymous calls for protests and police forces on standby for days.
[...]
[Bud] Courtney is a CPT Reservist and Catholic Worker from New York City, USA. Video:
The Catholic Worker MovementUploaded by openflows on Oct 20, 2006 In The East Village, Christian Anarchy Meets Occupy Wall Street [
link to eastvillage.thelocal.nytimes.com] 10/31/2011
Soon after legendary folk singer Loudon Wainwright III finished performing for cheering protesters in Zuccotti Park yesterday afternoon, telling them that the Occupy Wall Street encampment reminded him of the 1968 “Summer of Love,” a
Catholic Worker band called the Filthy Rotten System showed up.
Bud Courtney, who plays banjo in the group, said its decidedly unholy name came from the late Dorothy Day, who started the Christian-anarchist Catholic Worker Movement 78 years ago with Peter Maurin during the Great Depression. She is now being considered for sainthood by the Catholic Church.
“Dorothy observed that all of our problems come from our acceptance of the filthy rotten system,” said Mr. Courtney, 61, a former actor who served on a
Christian Peacemaker Team in Iraq
