Islamic State defaces St George in assault on Christian churches in Iraq

From the Telegraph

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) militants have released new images showing the destruction of Christian churches in the terror sect’s strongholds in northern Iraq.

The photos depict groups of fanatics removing a cross and bell from the top of a church and triumphantly placing the black Isil flag on top instead.

In other shots, men with hammers chisel away at Christian emblems of Saint George and the Virgin Mary.The church in the pictures is not named, but the photographs are believed to have been released by the “Information Office of the State of Nineveh”, a propaganda wing of Isil. Nineveh is the governorate that includes the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, which was seized by Isil in June and is now the capital of their self-declared “Caliphate”. 

The Nineveh plain is also the traditional homeland of Iraq’s Assyrian Christians, more than 600,000 of whom were driven from their homes when Isil forces swept in last summer. Isil is believed to have destroyed a number of churches since then, seeing Iraq’s Christians as “Crusaders” and allies of the West. But seldom have the acts of destruction been depicted in such a detailed and deliberate manner. 

In one photograph, the militants are shown attacking a statue of St George as he slays the dragon. Although he is traditionally associated as the patron saint of England, he is also a significant figure in Mesopotamian Christian heritage too. “When one looks closely at the legend of St George, his fate bears striking similarity to the violence and persecution which Iraq’s Christian minorities have faced,” says Canon Andrew White, the London-born “Vicar of Baghdad”, who is based at the city’s St George’s Church.