Jerusalem, Mount of olives. The Israeli government is planning to build a new section of the separation wall, which would separate the Arab districts of the city from the West Bank. December 2012
Salmas, Iran. Salmas is an ancient Assyrian village near the border between Iran and Turkey. The few Christians left there live peacefully together with the Kurds. August 2011
Mardin, Turkey. The 40 Martyrs church and its garden, open till midnight, are the meeting point of the Christian community. Muslims are not welcome.July 2013
Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan. The Kurdish autonomous region respects the co-existence between ethnicities and faiths. In this school Arabs and Kurds, Christians and Muslims learn Arab, Kurdish and Syriac languages. October 2012
Yardenit, West Bank. The Jordan river counts various Baptismal sites both for local and foreign people. The Catholic Church, though, recognizes only the Qasr el Yahud site, between Israel and Jordan. January 2013
Smakieh, Jordan. A statue of the Virgin Mary in the cemetery of this little village in the South of the country. Only two Christian families live there. April 2013
Deir Abu Hennis, Egypt. A funeral in the little village in Upper Egypt. Many of its inhabitants never left the village. July 2012
Pataver, Iran. Olga is a Christian Assyrian who emigrated to Paris. Every summer she goes back to her homeland. Less and less people live in the Christian villages of North-Western Iran. August 2011
Basra, Iraq. An amusement park in the most southern city of the country. Basra citizens are mostly Shiite Muslims, since Christians left because of post-Saddam's civil war. November 2012
Ani, Turkey. Ani is the ancient capital of the Armenian empire, situated at the closed border between Armenia and Turkey. Nowadays Ani is a stack of churches' ruins, homes and the Cathedral. August 2013.
Damascus, Syria. The Umayyad Mosque is situated in the center of the old city. It is one of the most ancient and holiest sites of Islam. The ongoing fighting in Syria has just lightly touched it. January 2014
Deir Abu Hennis, Egypt. A woman is going to the cemetery to leave food on her husband's grave. July 2012
Il Cairo, Egypt. A Zabbaleen family in their home at the foot of the Mokattam mountain. All the Zabbaleens are Christians working as dustmen, living among the rubbish of "Garbage City". July 2012
Vak?fl? Köyü, Turkey. This is the last Armenian village of the Mussa Dagh, known as "Moses mountain". The people of the 8 villages surrounding were able to outlive the genocide perpetrated by the Ottomans. Almost 180 Armenians still live here. July 2013
Saint Veni monastery, Egypt. The monks of this monastery near Mallawi, Upper Egypt, have been assaulted many times by fundamentalist Salafis from nearby villages. July 2012
Gharduka, Rojava, Syrian Kurdistan. Gharduka is on the frontline between Kurds and Isis. The village is empty and its only church has been destroyed by the jihadists who bombed it after using it as a trench. January 2014
Baghdad, Iraq. Saint Mary church is on Palestine Street, Northern suburb of Baghdad. The church was stricken by a suicide attack in 2010 - two people died. Since then, the church is constantly lifeguarded. November 2012.
Saint Taddeus Monastery. Every year the Armenian community stages a three-day pilgrimage into the Monastery at the border between Iran and Turkey. The 60 a.C. St. Taddeus is one of the first Christian churches. July 2011
Saint Taddeus Monastery, Iran. Iranian women are obliged to wear a veil covering their hair and a manta-like fabric over their trousers. During the pilgrimage, Christians don't have to comply with the regime's laws, though they are monitored by policemen. July 2011
Jerusalem. The guardian of an Ethiopian church showing an ancient copy of the Bible. The Christian community includes Catholics, Ortodoxes, Egyptian and Ethiopian Copts between Damascus gate and Jaffa gate. December 2012.
Saint Taddeus monastery, Iran. The annual pilgrimage is the occasion to celebrate weddings and baptisms. St. Taddeus is one of the first martyrs of Christianity. The Black Church is dedicated to his memory. July 2011
Deir Abu Hennis, Egypt. An Orthodox wedding. The Catholic community of the village is a minority, but the relationships between the two denominations are good. During festivities, representatives of each denomination pay tribute to others. July 2012
Deir Abu Hennis, Egypt. Little girls in church during a wedding. Due to the Orthodox rules, women can't cross the altar line when they are "dirty" because of their menstrual cycle. July 2012
Bethlehem, West Bank. The Nativity cave is located under the main altar of the church. During Christmas time, holy masses are celebrated amid many foreign believers and tourists. December 2012
Saydnaya, Syria. A nun inside Our Lady monastery, the second holiest place for Eastern Christianity. Bethlehem is the first one. Many Christian holy places closed to Damascus have been destroyed by the jihadists. January 2014
Salmas, Iran. There are two cemeteries in the village. The mortal remains of the first Christian inhabitants are kept in one of them. Many graves have been desecrated by thieves looking for gold. August 2011
Tabriz, Iran. The life of the Armenian community revolves around the parish, which has a church, a kindergarten and a garden. A high wall surrounds it. July 2011
Deir Abu Hennis, Egypt. Dancing in front of the bride's house. August 2011
Beit Jala, West bank. The Israeli government plans to build another part of the separation wall on the land where Christians own olive fields. Christians of Beit Jala celebrate a mass every friday, in an attempt to avoid the project. January 2013.
Around Kars, Turkey. Almost all of eastern Turkey was inhabited by Armenians during the Ottoman empire. Nowadays there are a few Turkish villages, where sheep-farming is the main activity. August 2013
Rifugio. Christians of the Middle East
2011- 2014
Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, West Bank
published by Schilt Publishing, 2015
During New Year’s evening mass 2011, an explosion destroyed the Saints Church in Alexandria. Twenty-one people died. The story appeared in Western newspapers and television, but after a few days the media’s attention faded. We felt the need to know more. We wanted to know these millennial communities and give witness to their experience after the media exit. So we left, to discover stories, families and villages in their everyday life. We were looking for the heirs of the evangelists and the first pilgrims. In some cases we have retraced and followed their steps, crossing the borderlands that divided Paganism from Christianity. Maku in Iran, Deir Abu Hennis in Egypt, and the Turkish Antakya are tiny points on the atlas, but they are the vestiges of a journey that has reached us after two millennia. We never left the house, we have only explored other rooms.
An estimated 12 million Christians live in Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Iran. They are the narrators of this work. They have entrusted us tragic, romantic, and comic stories. Refuge gave us examples of co-existence and exclusions, of relationships based on people and of ghettoization. We reported the version of the Christians, without concealing any hostile attitude towards Islam and Muslims. We have repeatedly faced sectarian viewpoints but we did not surrender to those who sought to foment a clash of civilizations.
selected reviews
Guardian
TIME
Pdn
selected features
verve
FK
CNN
fotoup
roadsandkingsdom
featureshoot
selected exhibitions
Palazzo Costanzi, Trieste, Italy 2015
Villa Manin, Udine, Italy 2016
Palazzo delle Opere Sociali, Festival Biblico, Vicenza, Italy 2016
Austrian Hospice, Jerusalem, 2016
Image Festival, Amman, Jordan, 2017
Museo Diocesano Tridentino, Trento, Italy, 2018
National Museum, Baghdad, Iraq, 2019
