Iraqi Christians celebrate first Easter 'Holy Fire'

Shafaq News / With joyous ululations, thousands of Iraqis have celebrated for the first time the arrival of the "Holy Fire" brought from Christianity's holiest site in Jerusalem to mark Orthodox Easter.

With chanting and prayers, excited crowds gathered Saturday night to greet the flame's arrival at the Syriac Christian Orthodox Mar Matta monastery of Saint Matthew, about 28 kilometres (17 miles) from the war-ravaged city of Mosul in northern Iraq.

"It is a message of peace and love for all... a message of resurrection for this bruised country, so that it can regain its strength, its security and its peace," Bishop Timathos Moussa Shamani, of the Mar Matta monastery, told AFP.

The flame had been taken earlier Saturday from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem -- where Christian tradition says Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected..

According to believers, the fire descends from heaven on the eve of Easter, and is a symbol of Christ's Resurrection.

From Jerusalem it was carried in a special lantern to Jordan, before being flown to Iraq -- a method that is used every year to take the flame to other Orthodox communities, including Greece.

For the first time, the flame came directly to Iraq. To calls of "halleluia" and the clanging of cymbals, the lantern arrived carried by a bishop into the church at the monastery.

(AFP)