Archbishop Paul Faraj Rahho was a courageous leader of the Chaldean Catholic community in northern Iraq.

In February 2008, after he led the Stations of the Cross at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Mosul, gunmen ambushed his car, snatching him and killing his driver and two companions.

Rahho was born in 1942, a year after the second British invasion of Iraq. He spent nearly all his life in Mosul, a city with one of the largest and oldest Christian populations in Iraq. In 1954 he entered St Peter’s junior seminary, Baghdad, and then, at 18, graduated to the major seminary. He was ordained a priest on June 10, 1965 and, after a brief spell in Baghdad, appointed to St Isaiah’s church, Mosul.

After gaining a licence in pastoral theology at the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas, Rome, Rahho returned to Mosul in 1977. He served as a priest in the parishes of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and St Paul’s.

He built the church of the Sacred Heart in Telkif, a new district of Mosul, and the bishop’s residence. He also opened an orphanage for handicapped children. He was ordained Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul on February 16, 2001, giving him responsibility for around 20,000 Catholics in ten parishes — although it is an Eastern-rite denomination, the Chaldean Catholic Church is in full communion with the Vatican.

In the chaos after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 Christians found themselves targeted by Islamic terrorists, and Rahho worked closely with Iraq’s other Church leaders. In 2003, after the death of Pope John Paul II, Armenian Orthodox, Assyrian and Syrian Orthodox bishops joined him for a Mass at St George’s monastery.He also forged good relations with Muslims. After his residence was bombed in July 2004 an imam offered him accommodation at a mosque complex.

However, Rahho did express concern about moves to incorporate Sharia into the new Iraqi Constitution: “We are in a predominantly Muslim country,” he said. “We are not concerned that Islam is the state religion, but being a basic source of legislation contradicts the principles of democracy and freedom, and, above all, the other possible sources are not mentioned.”

Despite the attacks on Christians, Rahho strove to lead his flock by example. In 2005 he organised a series of events in Mosul to celebrate the Year of the Eucharist. That same year, his colleague, the Syrian Catholic Archbishop of Mosul, Basile Georges Casmoussa, was abducted at gunpoint outside his church only to be released 24 hours later unharmed. Church officials denied a ransom had been paid.

With rising violence in Mosul, Rahho talked about Christians in the city facing stark choices. Either they fled, converted to Islam, paid the jizya (a tax imposed on non-Muslims) or risked being killed. One in three Christians had been forced out of the city, he claimed.

In June 2007 he celebrated a requiem Mass in St Addai’s church, Karamless, for Father Ragheed Aziz Ganni and three sub-deacons, who were shot dead by terrorists after Sunday Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit. Before opening fire, the gunmen had demanded that they convert to Islam.

In that year Rahho went with the Chaldean Patriarch Emmanuel Delly III to Rome, where Pope Benedict XVI made him a cardinal. While in Rome, he revealed to the Chaldean official representative to the Vatican that he had recently been threatened by gunmen in the street.

In an interview with Asia News shortly before he was kidnapped, Rahho said: “We, Christians of Mesopotamia, are used to religious persecution and pressures by those in power. After Constantine, persecution ended only for Western Christians, whereas in the East threats continued. Even today we continue to be a Church of martyrs.”

Archbishop Paul Rahho, leader of the Chaldean Catholic Church in northern Iraq, was born on November 20, 1942. He was found dead on March 13, 2008, aged 65