Surrounded by glass and steel government buildings, some of them bombed-out shells from long ago, St. George’s Church in downtown Baghdad has always seemed like something of an oasis.
Ever since the United States started using high explosives diplomacy with Iraq, the little Anglican church has had one close call after another.
Built in 1936 by the British military during their occupation of Iraq, the church lost some of its famous stained-glass windows when the United States military bombed a nearby building in 1992, and more were destroyed during the invasion in 2003, leaving only three examples remaining. They were mementos of British regiments stationed there.
Sunday the last three stained glass windows were blown out by the suicide bomb blasts that destroyed three Iraqi government buildings nearby, according to the church’s lay pastor, Faiz Georges.