Arab world hails pope

• April 3 , 2005 | Baghdad | 7:00 a.m. ET

Sadness and fear in Iraq

Tom Aspell

News of the pope's death reached Iraq's 800,000 Christians in the early hours of Sunday morning causing sadness mixed with trepidation and fear for their future.

Special masses were scheduled in Baghdad's 45 churches serving Chaldeans, Eastern-rite Catholics who are autonomous from Rome but who recognize the Pope's authority. 

Many of them still speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus.  The other significant communities are Assyrians, Syrian Catholics, Armenian Orthodox and Armenian Catholic Christians who fled from massacres in Turkey in the early 20th Century.

On Sunday, Andreas Abuna, the Auxiliary Bishop to the Chaldean Patriarch of Iraq, said all Christians here would be praying for the pope's soul.  Bishop Abuna said he himself has special reason to mourn the pope's death:

"I will never forget the Holy Father because he ordained me bishop in Rome on Jan. 6, 2003," he said.  "All my life I will pray for him."

Christians have inhabited Iraq for about 2,000 years, tracing their ancestry to ancient Mesopotamia and surrounding lands.

Before the first Gulf War of 1991 they numbered more than one million, but at least 200,000 have emigrated since then, fleeing a failing economy and recent attacks on Christian targets in Mosul, Baghdad and elsewhere.

Under Saddam Hussein the Baathist regime kept a lid on anti-Christian violence. Some Christians, notably Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, help positions of power in overwhelmingly Muslim Iraq. But after Saddam's removal there were frequent attacks against Christian churches, and threats against largely middle-class Christians, particularly in Mosul and Baghdad.  Dozens were kidnapped for ransom.

Pope John Paul was a vocal critic of both the first Gulf War and the U.S.-led invasion which toppled Saddam Hussein.  He visited more than 20 Islamic countries during his reign, but canceled plans for a trip to Iraq during the 1990's after his closest aides convinced him his security could not be guaranteed.

• April 3, 2005 | Moscow | 7:00 a.m. ET

'Humanitarian number one'

Preston Mendenhall

Late night broadcasts carried news of the pope’s death at 11:37 p.m. Moscow time on Saturday. Russia was not, however, on the list of the more than 100 countries Pope John Paul II visited during his 26-year papacy -- by his own admission a regretted hole in the most-traveled pontiff’s itinerary.

While the pope did much to improve relations the Orthodox Church during his papacy, time ran out on his mission to build bridges to Russia’s dominating faith. The Catholic and Orthodox churches split in the Great Schism of 1054.

The pope reconciled with Greek, Romanian and Georgian Orthodox, but never won an invitation from Patriarch Alexey II to visit Russia. Alexey is believed to be wary of losing Orthodox believers to the Catholic faith.

In Russia, the pope is remembered for his historic role in bringing down the Iron Curtain of communism, put in place by the Soviet Union, which for decades dominated John Paul’s homeland of Poland.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet president, told Italian TV in an interview Sunday that the pope was “humanitarian number one on the planet.”

President Vladimir Putin called the pope “an outstanding public figure, whose name signifies the whole era. … I have very warm recollections of meetings with the Pope. He was wise, responsive, and open for dialogue.”

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