One Christian community in Iraq has added cause for rejoicing this Feast of the Resurrection when their church opened for services for the first time since the building was desecrated by ISIS militants nearly eight years ago.

Entering St. Kyriakos's Chaldean Catholic Church, Batnaya in 2014, the militant extremists decapitated statues and smashed up the altar.

By the time ISIS had been defeated and the town was declared free from violence, Batnaya had been almost razed to the ground, becoming the worst damaged of the dozen or more Christian towns and villages in the historic Nineveh Plain.

Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) undertook a massive restoration and rebuilding program as part of an initiative to help the people of Batnaya to return en masse.

ACN, which supports persecuted and other suffering Christians, has helped towards repairs to two kindergartens in Batnaya, as well as St. Oraha's Dominican convent, parish hall, library and priest's house (presbytery).

Receiving funding of €200,000 (£166,000), St. Kyriakos's Church and the nearby chapel formed the centrepiece of the ACN restoration scheme and, when an ACN project assessment team visited Batnaya last month, they saw the work was nearing completion.

The work was put on pause for Holy Week to allow the services to take place, the first since August 2014, and Holy Mass attendance peaked at more than 500 for Saturday's Easter Vigil, celebrating Jesus Christ's resurrection from the dead.

Reporting to ACN from Batnaya, parish deacon Basim told ACN on Wednesday, April 20) ACN: "We were all so happy to come to the church for the feast services."

Rev. Basim, who has two daughters, Therese, 11, and eight-year-old Veronica, and who teaches English at a local secondary school, added: "We had worked so hard to get to this stage and the place was so full there were people in the aisles."

Noting that St. Kyriakos's Church is one of the largest churches in the diocese, Coadjutor Bishop Thabet Al Mekko of Alqosh told ACN: "We are all so grateful to Aid to the Church in Need for all the support you have provided."

Rev. Basim said he hoped the work on St. Kyriakos would be complete in July, the anniversary of the church, which dates back many centuries but was renewed in 1944.

Iraq remains a priority country for ACN. The charity's projects are geared towards safeguarding the presence of the country's Christians who have been decimated, down from more than one million 20 years ago to barely 150,000 nowadays.