Lay Anglican Leaders from Baghdad Church Presumed Dead

Four lay leaders of St. George’s Anglican Church in Baghdad are missing and presumed dead, according to the church’s vicar, the Rev. Canon Andrew White.

The congregation’s lay pastor, Maher Dakel, his wife and son, and the deputy lay pastor, Firas Raad, and their driver, disappeared sometime after Sept. 12 while returning to Baghdad by car from Amman, Jordan, where they had been attending a church conference.

In addition to his responsibilities at St. George’s, Canon White is the CEO of the Foundation for Reconciliation in the Middle East as well as the international director of both the Iraqi Institute of Peace and the Israeli and Palestinian Institute of Peace. Speaking from New York City, where he is scheduled to receive the Tanenbaum Peace Prize from the Dalai Lama on Sept. 28, Canon White said news of the disappearance had been delayed in hope the team had been kidnapped and not murdered.

“Hope remains,” he said, that they may be alive, but “due to extended passage of time and lack of a ransom demand this scenario is increasingly unlikely. The British Embassy is being very helpful in the search for the missing persons but things are looking increasingly grim.”

St. George’s is located outside the protected “Green Zone” in Baghdad and the violence of recent months forced the withdrawal of Canon White and the appointment of Mr. Dakel, a lay reader, to take services.

Established in 1936 as a memorial to the British dead of the Mesopotamia Campaign of World War I, St. George’s was closed following the first Gulf War. Ransacked following the fall of Baghdad, St. George’s reopened its doors in April 2003 and on June 15 the Bishop of Cyprus and the Gulf, the Rt. Rev. Clive Hanford, celebrated a Eucharist in the restored sanctuary.

Col. Frank Wismer, an Episcopal U.S. Army chaplain with the Coalition Provisional Authority, initially led services until Canon White was appointed vicar. The congregation grew quickly and by Christmas 2003, Iraqis outnumbered American and English worshipers.

Photos of St. George’s Church, Baghdad

• The church’s north side

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