Exclusive: On the Nineveh Plain, Iraq’s Ancient Christian Communities Survived ISIS

Mar Mattai Monastery (the Monastery of Saint Matthew) , Iraqi Kurdistan. Photo by Antonio Graceffo

“So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” (Jonah 3:3–4)

The drive from the Kurdish capital of Erbil to the Mar Mattai Monastery (the Monastery of Saint Matthew) cuts across the Nineveh Plains...