Preserver

Back in June of 2014, the city of Mosul, Iraq, fell to Islamic State. Refugee families ran for their lives, many landing 20 miles away in the town of Qaraqosh, where "Father Najeeb" lived. He's a native Iraqi and a Catholic Dominican priest.

Says this journalist, "By the time I met the Dominican friar in 2015, he was a legend—gathering his own resources to rescue hundreds of priceless Christian manuscripts from the hands of ISIS, ferrying scores of leather-bound editions to safety in northern Iraq and beyond, then turning his attention to what he calls the “live leather,” the people made homeless by ISIS."

photo: npr.org

Christianity has a much deeper history in Iraq than most of us knew - til we started to hear of Christians' troubles at the hands of IS. Father Najeeb was born to a Christian family in Mosul, earned his PhD. in Switzerland. He's been digitizing and preserving ancient church documents since before 2007, for a total of 55,000 volumes tucked away in a monastery.

If IS ever finds them, they'll probably go the way of ancient sculpture, art, and books that have been destroyed by those savages in the other cities they've taken.