“Every day I prayed to the Lord do not let me shoot anyone”
After 10 years as a parish priest to the Iraqi Catholic Chaldeans in Britain, Father Habib Jajou was consecrated on January, 2014 as the Archbishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Basrah and south Iraq

By: Robert Ewan

Amid the horror of the Iran-Iraq war, Father Habib served in trenches with Christian and Muslim Iraqi soldiers. “I prayed the rosary all day my bible and spiritual books were my companions they gave me strength and courage. The Muslim soldiers were also praying. We were brothers in arms on a journey into the unknown” he sighs.

Born in 1960 at the village of Baqofa in northern Iraq, and one of eight children, he felt the call of priesthood at a young age. He laments: “I wanted to consecrate my life when I was in primary school but I did not have enough courage to choose this spiritual path”. He went to Mosul University and graduated in geology and later obtained his Masters Degree in Geophysics.

By now Iraq was engaged in a war with Iran, its bloodbath descended on all Iraqis.Fr Habib found himself serving on the front line. He says: “The Iranians always attacked after midnight, they would come on foot with rocked propelled missiles, and they rushed towards us like spectres fleeing from the bowel of hell. The battles often lasted several hours, afterwards the air was impregnated by a sharp smell of death then we would swoon into an exhausted sleep”. He was discharged from the army in 1991.
The war had a searing impact on Fr Habib, “ but God had to find the way to get me through all the barriers, as in my teenage years, I felt the call for priesthood once again but this time I was free from the army and able to answer the call” says Habib. He joined and graduated from Babel Pontifical College in Baghdad. Ordained a priest in 1998, he served at St. George Chaldean church in al- Ghadeer district (South East of Baghdad).He followed the footsteps of his late sister who was a nun.

As a result of the second Gulf war, Iraq struggled to emerge from a near – apocalyptic destruction upon its civilian infrastructures and institutions. Additionally, the United Nations imposed economic and financial sanctions on Iraq which lasted thirteen years. Those sanctions were regarded as the toughest most comprehensive sanctions in history. He says: “the Iraqi people were punished for the actions of an authoritarian regime of which they had no control.” He added: “I felt the pain and the unmerited ordeals of the innocent Iraqi people both Christian and Moslems. I tried to nourishing the exhausted congregation, with kind words and deeds; I tried to give them peace in their turmoil.”

 In April 2003, the allied invasion of Iraq commenced and Saddam Hussein was ousted. Since the invasion, a wave of unprecedented cross-sect terror ignited with the main groups of Sunni and Shia to exterminate each other. These groups viewed the American led invasion as a Christian crusade and Iraqi Christians as its supporters and collaborators.

As Iraq continued to lose all semblances of order, the persecution of Christians continued in its ferocity. He worked assiduously to help his people to deal with bomb attacks on churches, kidnapping and the indiscriminate killing. The mass exoduses of Christians from Baghdad created severe shortages in priests and deacons, father Habib stayed defiantly in Baghdad and conducted regular mass at St. George church.
He carried a pistol for his protection and armed volunteers guarded his church. “Every day I prayed, to the Lord, do not let me shoot anyone. Some people in my parish were killed by criminals who wanted their money even my doctor was killed just because he had a new car. At sundown everyone stayed in their homes. Many rich families refused to send their children to school because of kidnapping. One day a piece of paper was pushed under door of the Parish house, it requested $10000 or the church will be bombed” said Fatehr Habib.
 Pope John Paul II elevated Father Andraous Abbouna, the mission’s priest, to a Bishop. After 12 years in London he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Baghdad.Fr Habib took over the mission in 2003.He and the Service Committees continued to carry the flame of progress for the Chaldean Catholic mission. The community’s appetency for practising their faith continued unabated. There were several fund raising activities which resulted in purchasing the mission’s current residency in West Ealing.Father Habib managed to blend easily with his new community. He revived several parish activities, such as newsletter, family gatherings. And organised many pilgrimages to the Holy Land, Lourdes and Fatima. He conducted masses for the Iraqi Catholic communities in Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff and Cheam in Surrey.One of the magnificence of the Chaldean Church is the right of the Divine Liturgy that the Chaldean Church until this moment practices and comes from Jesus’ apostils Addai and Mari.

Dr. Hani Sulaiman, chairman of the mission’s committee, said: “I admire his pride and decency he is not materialist, assets are the very last thing he would look for and that is why he never compromised his position or gave way for those who would have clasped him for favours. He is deeply committed to his message and his role.”

 
Archbishop Habib is dedicated to the cause of interfaith ,he participated in many interfaith events held in the UK.He shared his experiences and reflections on interfaith dialogue and action from a Christian perspective and aimed hard to draw people together in appreciation of diversity and spirituality. After almost 10 years in London it must be hard on him and to those he has known and helped during his ministry. He says: “The mission will find it hard, at first, and all one can do is to pray that God’s will be done. I ask them to pray for me to have the strength to accept and do God’s will in all things, even when it is hard to do”.
Archbishop Habib is anxious about the state of his congregation in the UK. He laments: “I am concerned that our community will lose its Aramaic language, the wide geographical dispersal of family members and the lack of attendants by younger generation to mass are leading to poorer family values.” He spoke emotively about the future of Iraq and the Christians. He says: “In Iraq there are millions of widows, orphans and illiterate, half of the people need urgent health care. We have to help the Iraqi people who hunger for security, peace and stability. We have to support the Iraqi church in its efforts of promoting truth, justice and reconciliation.”
Just as in the battlefields of the Iran-Iraq war, Bishop Habib finds himself embarking on another journey into the unknown. Undoubtedly, he will rely on his faith to illuminate his path.