Shafaq News/ On Saturday, Christians in Iraqi Kurdistan held masses at Ainkawa churches in Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan Region, with the participation of Kurdish ministers and Erbil governor, Omed Khoshnaw.

Hundreds of Christians from the cities of central and southern Iraq arrived in Erbil to celebrate Christmas and New Year.

Earlier today, Iraqi PM, Muhammad S. Al-Sudani, arrived at the Our Lady of Deliverance Church in Baghdad to participate in the mass.

"The government is proud of all Iraqi components, and our power is in our diversity…celebrating Christmas is a clear sign of our victory over terrorism," Al-Sudani said.

Parliament Speaker Muhammad al-Halbousi also attended Christmas celebrations at Our Lady of Deliverance Syriac Catholic Cathedral."

In Al-Sulaymaniya, the masses are held in Saint Joesph Catholic Church amid security measures.

The celebrations were restricted in 2019 and 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Iraq is home to many eastern rite churches, Catholic and Orthodox, traditionally a sign of the country's ethnic and religious diversity.

But war and sectarian conflict shrank Iraq's Christian population from 1.5 million to about 400,000 after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Following the onslaught of ISIS in 2014 and the brutal three-year war that followed, their numbers have fallen further, though it is unknown precisely by how much.

Iraq declared victory over the militants, but the damage done to Christian enclaves on the Nineveh Plains has been extensive.

In 2020, the Iraqi parliament approved the birthday of Jesus Christ (Prophet Issa) as an official yearly holiday.