Despite the threat of ISIS 100 Christian children received First Communion in Alqosh, Iraq on the Feast of the Assumption.

Asia News.net reported:

The first communion Mass in Alqosh was an historic moment” for a “frontier town” that has been under threat from the militants of the Islamic State (IS) for a long time. Now it can “hope for peace and normalcy” around these hundred children, said Mgr Basil Yaldo, auxiliary bishop of Baghdad and close associate of the Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako.

The Chaldean primate presided over the ceremony that was attended by “all the priests of the city, the nuns and more than 700 people. The faithful were excited because for the first time, the patriarch celebrated communions in the community.”

Alqosh is an historic town in the Nineveh Governorate, Iraqi Kurdistan. It is located about 50 km north of Mosul, a Jihadist stronghold, and constitutes one of the main centres of the Assyrian-Chaldean Christian tradition.

At about 3 km from the centre, in the mountains overlooking the city, stands the ancient monastery of Rabban Hormizd, see of the Nestorian patriarchs from 1551 to 1804.