During mass at a Dominican convent, Father Philippe Khoshaba evoked the journey by Jesus' disciples from Emmaus to Jerusalem when "faith was reborn", and prayed for Iraqi soldiers killed during the US-led war and for all its victims.

His message to the faithful was one of peace and the rebuilding of a new future together despite differences between Iraq's many ethnic and religious groups.

Khoshaba later voiced some concerns to AFP.

"Today, the great fear is to be viewed as blending with the Americans. There is no authority, no dialogue with Muslims, the only thing that exists are contacts between neighbors, but the atmosphere remains tense."

The northern region of Mosul is home to about half of Iraq's total Christian population of 600,000 and there are seven Christian villages in the area.

Since the fall of this city which backed former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, the majority Muslim residents have not hidden anti-US sentiments made worse by shooting incidents with US marines last week that killed many civilians.

Coming out of Easter mass, the Christians said they were happy for the most part to be free from what they felt was an authoritarian regime. But many were quick to recall that Saddam had protected them from extremists Muslims.

"Saddam Hussein liked Christians. Now people, ignorant ones, could confuse Christians with Americans and attack us," warned Jawdat Barsoom, a 65-year-old retiree.

During the height of US air strikes against the city a few weeks ago, "imams in Mosul's mosques were calling us Bush's people," said the head of Iraq's Dominican order Father Naguib Mekhail.

Christians' relations with Saddam Hussein were ambiguous, however.

"During the 1970s, the secular Baath party wanted to mix the races and religions. It adopted a policy of Arabizing Christian villages, building mosques where there were no Muslims and nationalizing dozens of private schools," said Koshaba.

"This created tensions between the two communities. Christians here live like Europeans, which is not well accepted."

After the Gulf War in 1991, Saddam Hussein became isolated from western nations and encouraged Islamic movements to consolidate his domestic power base, Koshaba said.

"He gave more freedom to Muslims, who committed aggressions against Christians. With 80 percent of the population unemployed, people turned to religion and the Christians became scapegoats."

Saddam nonetheless passed a law in 1995 punishing anti-Christian acts.

"Churches were ransacked in the Mosul region and a nun had her throat slit in Baghdad. Saddam Hussein intervened to protect us," acknowledged Father Mekhail.

But he added that Saddam protected Christians more so he could count on their loyalty and because he had little fear from them.

"He trusted us because we are pacifists and we never posed a threat to any government," said Anwar Faraj, a 54-year-old teacher.

Iraq's former deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz is a Jesuit-trained Chaldean Catholic, but a nun leaving the church Sunday noted that now "there is no authority, we have no idea of what is going to happen."

Others who had attended Easter mass hoped the United States will not stir trouble between Christians and Muslims as the British were said to have done when they controlled the region in the 1930s.

SPACE.WIRE