Blog Media The Oldest Church in Iraq, Built Inside a Mountain (Saint Hormizd Monastery) November 13, 2021November 13, 2021 C 0 Comments Rabban Hormizd Monastery is an important monastery of the Chaldean Catholic Church, founded about 640 AD, carved out in the mountains about 2 miles from Alqosh, Iraq, 28 miles north of Mosul. Its proximity to Mosul and the political upheaval that the region has experienced in the past decade have created an unstable environment in which the future of the monastery is by no means certain.