Christmas in diaspora: Reflections of an Iraqi priest
Father Nadheer Dako moved from Iraq nearly three years ago to head the UK's Chaldean community. IS persecution of Christians in Iraq means thoughts are never far from home.
In the spacious nave of a Roman Catholic Church in London's district of West Acton, Father Nadheer Dako, stands beside an organ leading a group of children in a rendition of Silent Night.
Born and raised in Iraq, Dako left Baghdad three years ago to lead the Chaldean Church in the UK having worked as a pastoral priest for 20 years.
He spent eight months in Rome undertaking clerical studies before moving to London to take up his current post.
"It takes time to get used to a new country when you move, the language, the culture, the weather," notes Dako, who speaks Aramaic, Arabic, and English, and began developing his Italian in Rome.
"There are different challenges in different places. But as a diaspora community we are all sad about events in our homeland."
Currently Iraqi forces are battling the Islamic State group for control of the Iraqi city of Mosul, backed by an international coalition led by the US.
IS took control of Mosul in 2014 during a series of lighting advances across vast swathes of Iraqi territory launched from areas the extremist group had seized across the border in war-torn Syria. Millions of Iraqis fell under the the group's brutal puritanical rule in the process.
In Mosul - historically a cosmopolitan and religiously-diverse city - IS demanded that Christians in the city convert to Islam or pay a poll tax (jizya) to continue living in the area. Those who refused were told to leave or face death.
The vast majority left. One Iraqi Chaldean priest lamented at that time that as a result of the exodus in June 2014 no mass was held in Mosul for the first time in 1,600 years...
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