In this photo, Chaplain VanDurme is shown celebrating Easter Vigil Mass on April 3, 2010. He recalls it was a very powerful night and experience. The picture shows him Baptizing and Confirming three soldiers.
Dair Mr Elia, or in English Saint Elijah’s Monastery was an abandoned Christian monastery, the oldest in Iraq, dating from the 6th century, and is in the Ninawa Governorate, just south of Mosul in Northern Iraq.
Former St. Patrick’s and Blessed Trinity Parochial Vicar and St. Ann’s-Hornell Pastor Army Chaplain Captain Patrick J. VanDurme learned this week that he was the last priest to say Mass within the monastery founded about 595 AD.
Army Chaplain Father Jeffery Worton, still on active duty, was the last priest to say Mass inside the chapel.
Word came this week to Father Worton that it is confirmed the ILIS (acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) destroyed that historic monastery some time before August 2014.
Now discharged, former Chaplain Van Durme says this is very sad news for him. This was a location where Christians prayed, lived and celebrated for over 1,400 years and now it has been leveled. He stated that it him hurts more because of the impact on the people who are being killed in the name of God.
