Adil Najam
With Christmas just a few days away, churches around the world, including in Pakistan, are decked for the festive season. We wish all our Christian friends a Happy Christmas.
We were originally going to design a little ATP Christmas Card and put it up here (like Pakistani newspapers do). Instead, we thought, it better to make this into a little tour of Pakistani churches and turn it into an ATP Photo-Quiz (it has been a while since the last one). This also gives us an opportunity to write about Christian Churches in Pakistan, having written in the past about a Hindu Mandir and Sikh Gurdwara.
There are literally hundreds and hundreds of churches spread all over Pakistan, where ever Christian communities have lived in the past or now live. Here we present you with pictures of 15 of them organized into three clusters of 3, 6 and 6). How many of these Pakistani churches can you identify by name and location? And what additional information or stories do you have about them.
My own sense is that no reader would be able to identify all of them on sight, largely because they are from all over the country (Hint #1). I certainly could not have. A little Internet snooping would, of course, get you to most of them (Hint #2). And that would be perfectly fine (and educational). But before you do that, do try to see which ones you can identify immediately; I could identify 6 for sure and 2 more ‘probably.’
The top cluster (above) has three famous Pakistani churches all in the North of the country (Hint #3).
The middle cluster (below) has six more Pakistani churches all in built in classical church architectural styles and all going back to the British days (Hint #4). These include some of the most famous and largest churches in Pakistan (Hint #5) and include some Cathedrals (Hint #6).
Many of the grandest churches in Pakistan were built during the British days, but contrary to popular belief most functional churches have been built in the last 50 years, are fairly small, and often in smaller towns with local congregations. Their architectures vary (much like the architectures of mosques in Europe and North America) by affluence and spirit of architectural innovation amongst the community.
The bottom cluster (below) have six more Pakistani churches with more innovative architectural styles. The first two are pre-independence (Hint #7), the remaining four much more recent (Hint #8).
The city most represented in these 15 pictures is Karachi (Hint #9), although I suspect there are as many - if not more - churches in Lahore; but I may be wrong. I should also add that although there is a large diversity of functional churches operational in Pakistan, at least two of the churches featured here were recently the subject of cowardly acts of violence and displays of religious intolerance (Hint #10) that I, as a Pakistani, am deeply shamed by.
Photo credits will be added later with answers.
Sorry for multiple messages. I am just sending this out as a Christmas card/email to by Christian freinds. I got this idea from your opening, and these are nice pictures about Christmas as well as Pakistan.
Oh, on the pictures, I think the first picture in the second cluster is of the main Cathedral in Karachi.
You have very gently reminded us of the nation we could have been but are not.
I was a little worried by this post in the beginning because it was all goody-goody, but I am very glad that your punch-line at the end is about the religious intolerance that has recently been shown specially of Christian churches. I am happy about this post because it owns this important part of our heritage with pride but also speaks out against religious intolerance and the arrogance of those religious elements who think that they and only they have a monopoly on truth and wisdom. Thank you.
Top left, very first picture is the chuch in Pindi, near the stadium and Intercontinental Hotel. The right hand (3rd) picture on the very top could be the big church in Murree.
Adil: Very nice post. I guess the top ones are in LHR, St. Anthony’s & S. Heart; the bottom one is in Murree, I don’t recognise the rest. Merry X-mas to all Pakistani Christian Brothers/sisters. A day might come when a Pakistani will only be considered Pakistani & will not be discriminated in the name of Religion.
I believe the middle picture in the top set, with red brick steeple, is in Lahore. I think it is the church with St. Anthony’s.
I should have found a way of numbering the pictures, but did not want to spoil them.
I wouddl suggest you number them for convenience as follows (by cluster and by number going row by row):
TOP Cluster:
1, 2, 3
MIDDLE Cluster:
4, 5
6, 7
8, 9
BOTTOM Cluster:
10, 11
12, 13
14, 15
Great article and nice pictures. Did not know there were so many beautiful churches in Pakistan.
Not really sure, but I think that in the middle set the 3rd picture (with the curved side and the square tower) is the church in Muree.
And at the bottom, last paid of pictures on the left with large cross is the church in Islamabad.