As most of Iraq’s 700,000 Christians filed into church, they found themselves, unlike other religious groups in Iraq, with more to fear from the future than the past.

Christian girls wearing bright lipstick and no headscarves voiced fears that such freedoms would come to a rapid end if hardline clerics among Iraq’s Shia majority impose Sharia, Islamic law, and turn the once-secular state into an Islamic republic.

“It is Easter only in name, because all of us are suffering and we are worried. There is no peace, no security and we are not happy,” Noor George, 22, said, surrounded by her family. “No one knows what will happen.”

Outside the National Evangelical Protestant Church in Baghdad, where altar girls walked down the central aisle clutching flowers and crosses, elders shrugged at the end of the Baathist era, pointing out that, for all the evils of Saddam Hussein, persecution of Christians was not one.

Samir Ahad, 57, secretary of the church council, said: “He could be a very, very bad man in many ways, but he donated an organ to our church. Since the establishment of Iraq 80 years ago, and especially during Saddam’s time, we have been treated well.

“The fault of the regime was not to give the Shias their freedom of worship. That was a mistake and now it could make things worse. Is it going to be a pro-Iranian government, which will make everybody, including Christians, put scarves on their heads, ban alcohol and stop parties or will it be live and let live?” The minister, Pastor Ikram Ibrahim Mehhani, avoided a political sermon, confining himself to a brief expression of hope that “there will be a new, good government soon”.

The concern is understandable, with soldiers having had to fire shots in the air to ward off four looting attempts and with calls for Sharia rule by Shia leaders who were in the cities of Najaf and Karbala for one of the holiest days of the Shia Muslim calendar.

Mohammed Mohsen al- Zubaidi, the self-proclaimed mayor of Baghdad and a recently returned exile, has said that the country’s new constitution would be derived from Islamic law.

The Christian minority, which includes Protestants, Roman Catholics, Chaldeans, Orthodox adherents and others, makes up just over 2 per cent of Iraq’s 26 million population.

Yesterday they were joined in Easter celebrations by coalition forces stationed throughout Iraq.

Services were held at military bases across the country, although some were said to have been cancelled in Baghdad, where US Marine units who had fought their way through the country over the past few weeks, have been busy making arrangements to return home and have been handing over to the US Army.

As the Marines withdrew, leaving the more complex task of peacekeeping and law and order to other units, Iraqi police and white-uniformed traffic officials have been struggling to bring some semblance of order to a city that has been in chaos for a fortnight, with no water or electricity in most areas.

At one Iraqi air defence artillery school, Chaplain Major John Routzhan, of the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, wished his congregation of 30 soldiers a happy Easter before asking them to pray for four colleagues injured over the weekend in southern Baghdad when an Iraqi girl handed them an explosive.

Officials believe that it was an accident, with many Iraqis eager to clear homes and schools of suspected bombs.

“We just want to pray for their recovery, and continue to pray in days ahead that all interaction with the enemy and unexploded ordnance would just vanish and go away,” Major Routzhan said.

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