Source: KurdishMedia News
http://www.kurdmedia.com/news.asp?id=4557
On December 25, 2003 KurdishMedia News reported, "Kurdish Christians filled the streets Thursday and held midnight mass without fear, unlike their counterparts hundreds of kilometres to the south in Baghdad...Baghdad’s churches canceled Christmas Eve midnight mass, citing fears of violence in the capital where insurgents launched a series of Christmas Day rocket and bomb attacks. Churches in the capital held services Wednesday afternoon because Christians and Muslims alike are reluctant to venture out at night in Baghdad...About 5 percent of Iraq’s 25 million people are Christian. 'We hope the situation will improve in Iraq to enable people from different religious and ethnic backgrounds to start rebuilding the country,' [Zadok] Adam, [who leads a small Assyrian political party,] said. Christians in the north and in Baghdad say they live in harmony with their Muslim neighbours. The overthrow of Saddam by US and British troops last April has led to fears of sectarian strife and prompted a call for unity last Sunday by the newly appointed leader of Iraq’s largest Christian denomination, the Chaldean Catholic Church."