Qaraqosh workshop clothes Iraq’s churches in embroidered heritage
In the Nineveh Plains town of Qaraqosh, known to its Assyrian residents as Baghdeda, a small workshop stitching Christian liturgical garments has become a supplier to churches across Iraq and abroad, its vestments for bishops, priests and deacons drawing on Syriac, Chaldean and Assyrian designs rooted in the region’s ancient faith.
The Samih tailoring and embroidery workshop, run by Najlaa Faraj and staffed by several women, makes cassocks, deacons’ robes, baptismal garments and full liturgical vestments, along with embroidered altar and church coverings made to clergy’s requests. Some designs are drawn from the carvings and decoration of historic churches, then recreated as embroidery on fabric.
Faraj said the symbols worked into the garments are deliberate. “The embroidered symbols on the vestments are not random,” she said. “They carry religious meanings, such as grapes and wheat symbolizing the Holy Communion, wine and the Eucharistic bread, alongside the cross, the chalice, images of the Virgin Mary and saints such as Mar Mattai and Mar Behnam.”
Each tradition has its own designs and colors, Faraj said. A full set of vestments includes the cassock, the stole and an outer cope, with additional pieces according to a clergyman’s rank, and purple is worn during Lent and mourning. Some Syriac Catholic vestments are blue for the Virgin Mary, embroidered with lilies for Mary and St. Joseph. Syriac deacons’ robes are typically fully embroidered, she said, while some Chaldean designs carry only the Eastern cross along the edges, in liturgical gold, red, green and blue.
The workshop has made vestments for senior clergy including Patriarch Younan Hano Butros Giwargis of the Ancient Church of the East and Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Yonan of the Syriac Catholic Church, along with several bishops. Its fabrics are specialized church cloth imported mainly from India, with some European materials, and its garments have been shipped to churches in the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia.
[Source: 964 English]
