Monastery of Saint Elijah

A brief history

Dair Mar Elia was founded around 595 by a monk named Mar Elia and was one of the oldest monasteries in Iraq. It belonged to the Church of the East and later to the Chaldean Catholic Church. In 1743 the army of Nader Shah killed the 150 monks living there after they refused to convert to Islam, and the house closed; its ruins became a place of pilgrimage. They were damaged during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when the site lay inside an American base, and the Islamic State destroyed them entirely in 2014.

Saints & traditions

For centuries thousands of Christians came each year for the feast of Mar Elia, kept on the last Wednesday of November.