The bell of a new church built near the ancient city of Ur in Iraq was rung for the first time last week as part of a campaign to attract pilgrims to the country, home to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities.

The church is part of a complex that rises on a desert plain in the shadow of the Great Ziggurat of Ur, a city traditionally considered the birthplace of the prophet Abraham and visited by Pope Francis in the past for three years.

The construction of the temple should be completed this month.

Last week, the large bell was fixed to its belfry, which is made of traditional Iraqi yellowish clay bricks. Workers were polishing large stained-glass windows in bright colors.

During his historic visit to Iraq in March 2021, Pope Francis held an interfaith prayer at a site in Ur believed to be the home of Abraham, the father of Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

His visit was a moment of hope for a Christian community that once numbered about 1.5 million but has shrunk to just a few hundred thousand in the two decades since the 2003 US invasion followed years of religious bloodshed.

“The Pope’s visit to Iraq, especially to Di Qar governorate and the ancient city of Ur, was of historical significance,” said Shamil al-Rumaid, director of antiquities in Di Qar province.

“This church was built … near the archaeological sites of the ancient city of Ur, so that a large number of Christian brothers from all over the world could come to visit,” he said.

Iraq’s diverse Christian community was decimated first by the rise of al-Qaeda in the early 2000s and then by the Islamic State, an extremist group that brutally persecuted Christians and other minority faiths and denominations in 2014-2017.

The community is struggling to recover from the defeat of Islamic State in Iraq in 2017, suffering from high unemployment and difficulty returning to historically Christian areas, some of which are still controlled by armed groups.