Iraqi Christians Pray for Peace on Sombre Christmas [View All]

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Christians won't be celebrating Christmas this year. Midnight mass, the centerpiece of Christmas festivities in Iraq (news - web sites), has been canceled because of night-time curfews.


Few will be showing up to church on Christmas morning, scared that insurgents who have bombed churches, mosques and Muslim religious festivals, will strike again.


"We usually go to midnight mass and then a celebration and then we go home where the family gathers for dinner," said Bushra Gorjis, 31, a cleaner. "This year we are not going to church because everyone is scared of the terrorists."


While Iraq's Christian minority, some three percent of the population, had little power under Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), they were free to worship without the threat of sectarian violence.

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