Shafaq News- Kirkuk

On a hill rising east of Kirkuk stands the Red Church, known locally as the Church of Tahmazgerd, one of the oldest surviving witnesses to Christian life in the city.

Over the centuries the site grew into a sprawling Christian cemetery, and it still draws visitors, researchers, and clergy who see in it a symbol of endurance and of the religious diversity that has marked Kirkuk for generations. The site's origins reach to the fifth century CE, when the region was swept by a wave of persecution against Christians under the Sassanid Empire. The History of Karka, a sixth-century Syriac text and the principal early account, places the killings in the year 446, during the reign of Yazdegerd II, in what is remembered as the "Massacre of the Kirkuk Martyrs."

Death tolls vary widely by source. Documentation by the French heritage organization Mesopotamia Heritage cites some 12,000 dead along with the city's entire church hierarchy, while Assyrian martyrological accounts put the figure far higher, at around 153,000 clergy and laity killed over several days.

The Officer Who Became a Martyr

The church takes its name from a Persian officer, Tahmazgerd, whom tradition holds led the campaign against the Christians before repenting, converting to Christianity, and asking to be executed on the very ground where his victims had died –becoming, in the telling, a martyr himself. According to Mesopotamia Heritage's documentation of the site, the Christians of Kirkuk raised a large martyrion on the hill in around 470, after the death of Yazdegerd II, to perpetuate the memory of the dead. Each year, Kirkuk's Christians still commemorate the martyrs of Tahmazgerd, traditionally on 25 September.

The origin of the name "Red Church" is contested in local memory. By popular account, it comes from the blood spilled during the massacre, said to have stained the soil of the hill a reddish hue, while others hold that the naturally red earth of the area is the real reason. The account tied to the massacre has remained the more enduring among residents, and the site is widely known by its local names, the "Red Church," or "Qrmzy Klisa."

Today the site is above all a vast cemetery, its graves, old and recent, spread across the hill. The tombs date from different periods and bear inscriptions in Arabic and Syriac, forming a kind of catalogue of local Christian history –a record of the city's communities: Chaldeans, Syriacs, Assyrians, and Armenians, and some of the inscriptions preserve the names of families who lived in Kirkuk for generations, a number of whom have emigrated in recent decades amid the country's security and economic pressures.

Damage, Restoration, and Slow Decay

The building was restored in 1923, and a church with two naves and two altars was built within the cemetery in 1933 to serve religious rites and the burials that continue there to this day. Researcher Ali Al-Bayati told Shafaq News that the Red Church, or Church of Tahmazgerd, is among the oldest religious landmarks in Kirkuk, linked to historical accounts reaching back to the fifth century. The site “reflects the religious and cultural diversity the city has long been known for,” and represents an important part of an Iraqi heritage that needs continual protection and care.

Voices from the Community

Speaking to our agency, Faira Samir, a Christian resident, described the Red Church as part of the memory of Kirkuk's Christians, with families long accustomed to visiting the cemetery on religious occasions and feast days to pray for their dead. The place carries “deep spiritual value” for Christian families who remain tied to the city's history despite emigration and hardship.

The Red Church is "not merely a cemetery" but a witness to the Christian presence in Kirkuk stretching back hundreds of years, said Korkis Yousif, another Christian resident, noting that many of the graves belong to well-known families who settled in the city decades ago, with younger generations still keen to visit and care for the site.

According to Lamis Khalid, also a Christian resident, the cemetery holds the remains of successive generations of Christians who lived in Kirkuk. Visiting the Red Church brings a sense of connection to roots and history –particularly as the number of Christians in the city has fallen in recent years through emigration and insecurity.