POPE FRANCIS BRINGS BACK HISTORIC PRAYER BOOK SAVED FROM ISIS THANKS TO THE TEAM OF WOMEN CONSERVING HISTORY

For the first time, a pope has visited Iraq, a dream of several previous pontiffs. The historic trip, steeped in symbolism and history, evoked Pope Francis to say he would be a ‘pilgrim of peace” preaching coexistence over war. However over one year ago, there was cultural diplomacy at work in preparation for the trip. The restoration of an Aramaic prayer book that was restored by a team of 5 women after ISIS desecrated the Catholic church in Iraq where it was once held.

The Central Institute for the Pathology and Conservation of Books (ICPAL) in Rome restored the manuscript, which was funded by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage in 1938 as a hospital for unusual patients: books. The institute has a long tradition of operating on works that have been struck by disasters like war, terrorist attacks, and fires. Despite the institute being secular, they have worked on numerous religious works due to their expertise in ancient papyrus. 

Maria Giovanna Fadiga, Docent of Paleography at ICPAL tells Forbes “the restoration of that book allowed for the Christian tradition to return to live, it was an act of faith. But the institute is not religious, it deals with all sorts of written documents; we are the oldest scientific institute to be able to do restorations on papyrus and scrolls” the institute focuses on a wide range of historical books, manuscripts, scrolls, and papyrus that have been damaged.

In 2017, when the area of Mosul was still under ISIS control, the prayer book was discovered by a group of journalists and given to a local bishop, Archbishop Mouche entrusted it to a federation of Christian NGOs for guardianship. It was in a poor state and was subsequently given to ICPAL to begin work on a restoration process.

Maria Luisa Riccardi, Head of Restoration for the prayer book tells Forbes the significance of what preserving the sacred book of the Syriac-Christian Church of Iraq means, “when we first learned there was a ‘refugee book’ and that the pope would bring it back to Iraq, that had never happened before and it made us incredibly proud.”

“It’s an important restoration because it helps our historical memory. The conservation of these historical works gives us the weight and importance and significance of these things, you cannot deny these things happened when you have the physical proof. It is the tangible confirmation, it cannot be erased, it remains.”

Riccardi led the team of women who worked tirelessly for 10 months to restore the sacred prayer book. The restoration process followed once the planning and research process was completed. ICPAL had to establish how the work would be handled whi

ch included speaking with scientific laboratories that are within the institute, experts from the Vatican Library which have Syriac volumes dating back to the 14th century, the same period as the manuscript. “We cannot do restoration without this extensive period of research first,” says Riccardi.

The manuscript was held in Qaraqosh, known to be home to the largest Christian community in Iraq and one of the cities that suffered the most damage from ISIS due to it being controlled by the terrorist group for more than two years, an occupation that began in 2014.

The prayer book was held in the Great Al-Tahira Immaculate Conception Church in Qaraqosh, the same place that ISIS used as a shooting range and one of the last places Pope Francis visited during his historic trip. It was here that he presented the restored book to the Syrian Catholic Archbishop Yohanna Boutros Mouche of Mosul.

The exchange is an example of cultural diplomacy at work. Sergio Mercuri, Italian Ambassador to San Marino and Former Sustainability Coordinator for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, explains the role cultural diplomacy holds in the quest for peace, “it is a powerful tool to aid different cultures and different people, it’s a form of soft power when making use of history. In this case, it’s a way of conducting diplomacy without weapons or military force but using the special capacity to restore and return to reality what has been hijacked by ISIS.”

The Italian culture, another cradle of the ancient and historic is the perfect setting for an obsession for preserving the past to take place, a passion that has turned arguably part of the cultural skill set, “when you have been so used to working with ancient relics of the past, you develop an ability, a love for restoration, and this is a skill in and of itself. This is something that Italy does normally and we make it available for the rest of the world.”

Thanks to a group of Syrian priests who lived and worked in Qaraqosh that learned ISIS was coming to take over the city, they came up with a plan to stash away hundreds of the most important books and religious icons they had, the prayer book being one of them. Underneath the church stairs, they hid the books, fabricating a makeshift wall to cover the space to make it look insignificant to the eyes of ISIS. This allowed for hundreds of books to be saved. “Isis would not have been able to recognize the importance of these books. When the terrorists had gotten hold of similar texts they destroyed them or sold them on the black market” says a local priest from Qaraqosh. 

There has been a long and painful history of the destruction of religious symbols and books, “ISIS has demonstrated very violent acts toward Christian symbols. In theory, if they could have gotten to this book, they would have destroyed it” says Riccardi “the priests hid the books fearing that the terrorist group would destroy them.”

Before Pope Francis’ trip to Iraq, he was presented with the restored book by Lucilla Nuccetelli, Director of The Academic Restoration Section of ICPAL where she unveiled the restored book in a stunning bespoke box the institute crafted. When the Pope was presented with the restored book Pope Francis said “you have done miracles here”.