Iraq’s Christians now face the prospect of a bleak Christmas marked furtively behind closed doors.

Church leaders have had to inform their flocks that there would be no midnight Mass on Christmas Eve because of the curfew imposed on the tense city.

Even on Christmas Day congregations will be sparse as Christians will hesitate to venture out of the safety of their homes to celebrate.

A few Christmas tree vendors can be seen on Baghdad streets but trade is slow and many of their spruces are sold to Muslims who buy them to mark the new year.

“This year there are few people celebrating Christmas in Iraq, and this is reflected in the number of trees I’ve sold. Last year I sold double the number I’ve sold this year,” said Abu Samr, who used to do a brisk trade in plastic Christmas trees, fairy lights and baubles from his shop in Baghdad’s well-off, ethnically mixed district of Karada.

“I think that the number of Christians is decreasing in Iraq after the attacks on the churches, and the economic situation is not good, not only for the Christians but also for all the Iraqis,” he said.

Imad Nima, who sells his trees on the street, was equally pessimistic. He had sold only 12 trees, half the number he sold last year.

One of his few clients was Thamr Habib, a besuited Christian businessman who was loading a tree into his car. He and some of his friends compare this Christmas to the early days of Christians in Iraq when they were a persecuted minority in the centuries after the death of Christ.

“This Christmas we can’t celebrate in the churches or in the street as we used to in the past, and that’s why I’m going to celebrate with other Christian families in the house of a relative,” he said.

The trappings would all be there — the roast turkey, fruit and presents for the children, he said. But no one would return home after the meal: travelling the streets of Baghdad after dark is too dangerous. “None of the families will leave the house till the morning.”

In the nearby Syrian Catholic Church of Our Lady of Salvation, a beautiful liturgy in Aramaic, the language of Jesus, rose to the freshly plastered ceiling last Sunday.

The chant was all the more haunting because it came from the mouths of only 30 worshippers in a church where services were once standing room only.

Fresh plaster covered the damage inflicted by a car bomb that shattered a service in August, wounding many of the congregation. It was one of five churches attacked in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul. The few worshippers who still go to the church now have to pass guards armed with sub- machineguns.

The pain of that attack has been compounded by the knowledge that Christians and Muslims have lived more or less peacefully in Iraq for almost 1,400 years. Even during Saddam Hussein’s rule they were able to worship free from the fear of sectarian violence.

Now, the ever-dwindling Christian minority — thought to number about 800,000 — has been attacked by extremists hoping to drive a wedge between the communities.

“Some people are trying to make a differentiation between the religious groups for their own benefits,” said Basil Issa, 40, an engineer who was in the church when it was bombed but who still goes to pray every Sunday.

It makes little difference to Baghdad Christians whether it is terrorists trying to foment sectarian strife or hardline Muslims who close down alcohol and music shops with firebombs. They are afraid, and their numbers are steadily decreasing.

“Of course it’s sad,” said Nidal Yussef, 50, a housewife, as she arrived at the Syrian Catholic Church for the baptism of a friend’s baby. “I used to come here with my family to see the lights and the tree. It’s not like that now.”

Gloomy as Christmas may be, the prospects for the new year are even bleaker, Bishop Meti Matokka, the church’s spiritual leader, said.

“If the security situation stays as it is, things will get worse,” he said after leading the Sunday service.

“The Christians were the first ones here, but if things get worse, the future for Christians here is not good.”

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