Baghdad, Iraq - A woman lights a candle in a pretty courtyard outside the Virgin Mary Church, a scene replayed in Christian places of worship the world over. But this woman is in Baghdad and she is a Shiite Muslim.
Umm Ali lives nearby in Karrada, one of the few parts of the battered Iraqi capital to have recovered some semblance of normality from the horror of suicide bombs and sectarian killings.
Beside a splashing fountain, below a frieze of the Virgin Mary in her classic pose with arms outstretched and open, the Shiite mother of three young children cuts a strange figure in her black hijab headscarf.
"It's the same thing for me here as a mosque," she tells AFP, referring to Islam's recognition of Mary and a long tradition of Iraqi Muslims praying at Christian shrines.
"I came here to pray that God will look after my children."
But this is not the whole story. She prefers to pray here rather than at any of the numerous mosques within a muezzin's call because someone listened here. Her prayers were answered.
"I came here when I was pregnant and I prayed for a girl because I have two boys. A girl came!" she says joyfully.
Asked about her husband, she shakes her head and her eyes well up with grief. He was a victim of the bloodshed that has gripped Iraq and refuses to let go. She can say no more.
Her willingness to pray at this lonely Catholic outpost in a Shiite area of Baghdad flies in the face of those who seek to keep Iraq divided along sectarian lines, pitting Shiite against Sunni, or majority against minority.
In the vestry, the priest is poring over manuscripts next to hefty religious tomes. "Life is hard for everyone here, not just the Christians," he says.
The priest, who will not disclose his name for security reasons, has ministered at the church for five years. He says life was normal before the US-led invasion in 2003 and the removal of dictator Saddam Hussein.
"Before, people could come and see me and stay up till midnight talking. Now they can't come here after 8 pm because of the curfew," he says.
Of greater concern is the dwindling size of his congregation.
Up a stairway roofed in vines lie neatly-rowed pews crowned by a beautiful turquoise dome where several hundred parishioners would sit and listen to his sermons.
"We even had people on the stairs," he reminisces. "Our church is nice and big for our country, but now we don't have more than 50 or 60 people coming."
Those who dare to enter his immaculately kept church, adorned with simple stained glass windows in bright squares of blue, pink, gold and green, come nervously and in fear.
Iraq's Christians, estimated before the war to number about 700,000, have been the target of sectarian cleansing, killings and kidnappings at the hands of both Sunni and Shiite Islamists, as well as criminal gangs.
Their churches have been bombed, their homes confiscated. Without their own militia to defend them, the community is believed to have shrunk to half its previous size, with more people joining the exodus each day.
If priests speak, they do so without giving their names -- the dangers were illustrated by the recent kidnapping of two Iraqi fathers by an unknown group in the northern city of Mosul. They were fortunate and were later released.
Karrada's other main church is hard to miss. Sandwiched between the Iraqi stock exchange and a primary school, a giant cross dominates the skyline.
"Glory to God and peace on earth," reads the inscription in Arabic on the building's facade.
Beyond the church the scars of war are all too clear -- the rubble of bricks and waste piled high on the Baghdad dust and further down the street the blackened-out shells of bomb-struck shops.
Around 50-60 worshippers pick a pew in the vast hall for Sunday morning mass.
"It's so hard to worship, I can come only once or twice a month because of the dangers. The security situation depends on each individual, but I am obliged to suffer," says one parishioner, a women in her 50s wearing makeup and jewelry.
Giving her name as Siham, she says she and her family were forced out of Dora, a popular neighbourhood for Christians before the fall of Saddam. It is now one of the last bastions of the Sunni insurgency in Baghdad.
"I am trying to find another place," she says, clearly in distress.
A month ago, armed insurgents came and beat her brother-in-law over the head with a pistol. They apparently thought the Christians might have information about a recent American raid.
"Most Christians in Baghdad are very wary of the future. Most don't come out and come to church, they can't come here, they are too afraid."
With two months to go until Christmas, worshippers are not thinking ahead about what gifts to buy or how to decorate their houses. They are simply trying to survive.
"Christmas is the special season and we always tried to hold nice ceremonies with carols, songs, a Christmas tree and a crib," says one father at the Virgin Mary Church. "But for two years we have had no crib and no Christmas tree."
"People are not happy and they don't want to celebrate. There are not so many children, so when there are no children what is the point of a tree and a crib?"
Asked if he expects things to improve for Christians in this war-weary city, where large slabs of concrete and scores of checkpoints have helped stem the violence, he sighs. "Walls are not a sign of peace," he says.
"I don't have the gift of prophecy but I hope and pray and invite people to pray for us."