The History of St Elijah Monastery

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Dair Mar Elia-Saint Elijah Monastery in English is an abandoned Assyrian Christian Monastery located in the Southern portion of the city of Mosul, Iraq. Saint Elijah monastery is the oldest Christian historical site in Iraq which dates back from the 6th century.

The monastery is suspected to be founded either in 595 AD or in 350 AD, the later being the more popular date by local archeologists and scholars, by an Assyrian Christian monk by the name of Mar Elia. Mar Elia was noted for being educated at al-Hirah and later the great monastery at Ezla Mountain in Turkey, a famous monastery claimed by the Chaldeans.

For centuries the Dair Mar Elia monastery served as the center for the Christian community for which thousands of Christians would make pilgrimages to the monastery in order to observe the Mar Elia Holiday that falls on the last Wednesday of November. However in 1743 a zealous Persian leader named Tahmaz Nadir Shah took control over the area, the ruler issued an order for the entire region to convert to Islam. Knowing that the monastery was a Christian, Tahmaz Shah issued an ultimatum to the monks to convert or die. When the monks refused to convert to Islam, the Persian ruler dispatched Soldiers to the monastery to force the conversion. When confronted by their armed aggressors, the monks were again offered the opportunity to convert to Islam and denounce Christ at which time the monks again refused shouting ―Christ is Lord!‖ The Persian Soldiers immediately laid siege upon the monastery murdering women, orphaned children in the care of the monastery, the monks and destroying most of the property thereafter. The monastery laid in ruins until the beginning of the 20th century when the Chaldean church begun making repairs and restoration to some of the monastery‘s halls and rooms as well as its neighboring reservoir and natural mineral water springs, enabling Christian pilgrimages to resume.

Shortly following World War II, the Iraqi Army placed its Headquarters along with an Republican Guard tank battalion inside of the monastery. The Army remained there in place well into the 21st century until the 2003 invasion of Iraq commenced by American forces. The monastery became the site of a major battle between the two forces and as a result of the battle, the monastery received severe damages when an Iraqi tank slammed it‘s turrent barrel into the Eastern wall, taking out a portion of the chapels roof. The 101st Airborne Division after winning the battle occupied the monastery and noted several defacements to many of the rooms with graffiti as well as the clogging of a historical cistern with trash and sewage. Not realizing initially the importance of this landmark, coalition forces followed suit with their Iraqi Army counterparts, and likewise defaced monastery rooms with graffiti and setting fire to the sewage clogged cistern.