In Nathia Gali, tale of a church that is unique

Delawar Jan

NATHIA GALI: St. Mathew’s church witnesses several contradictions every day. It’s a place of worship, yet regular services don’t take place. It’s Christians’ holy place but thousands who visit it are Muslims. It’s sacred for the followers of Jesus but is looked after by a practicing Muslim.

Many find it surprising to see a Muslim devotedly taking care of the church, sited at Nathia Gali National Park in Banni locality. Further surprises come when they notice the caretaker with a beard, characteristic of religious Muslims. “I was amazed to see a bearded man taking so well care of the church,” said a female visitor from Karachi, who said she prayed there with wit eyes.

The 98-year-old church that sits on a hill is well-preserved and kept clean and neat. “I clean it every day,” said the caretaker Abdul Waheed, a thin man whose trimmed beard was streaked with grey hair. He makes visitors take off their shoes to protect the sanctity of the place. He doesn’t allow students to enter because they could violate the sacredness of it.

Waheed gets just a pittance for the job, Rs1,500 ($15.67). However, he said it was not the incentive he had been working for. “My father Shakur Khan looked after it for 45 years. It’s been seventh year that I work here and what drives me to serve this place is my belief that it is God’s house,” he said, standing inside the tiny church that is surrounded by forested mountains and dotted around by houses owned by Muslims.

Thousands of people visit it every year but they don’t worship in the building that is meant for religious services. The fact that Christians don’t reside in Nathia Gali makes it only a site of attraction for tourists.

Regular services don’t take place because the thousands of goers are Muslims. After the withdrawal by British Army stationed in Bara Gali and Nathia Gali in 1947, no services were held here till date.

Christian people who sometimes come to pray are sightseers. Waheed said foreigners, mostly Christians, would visit the church, but they had stopped coming after Iraq war.

Foundation stone of the St Mathew’s Church was laid on September 26, 1914 by M.J.S. Donald, the chief commissionerof NWFP (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), reads a plaque. It was constructed to facilitate the British troops who had been discharging duty in this mountainous region and who had also manned trenches in the World War-II. The British Army had military bases in Bara Gali and Nathia Gali, former being now summer campus of the University of Peshawar.

This building has several marked features. In just two years, it will become a century-old building but still in good condition. It’s purely made of wood and no other material has been used in it. Representing a demonstration of skills in building a wooden structure, not a single nail has been hammered for stabilising it. Yet it firmly stood for almost a century.

The 13-bench church that can accommodate around 75 people at a time is still under the Church of Pakistan.

The local Muslim population, residents said, had never harmed it, rather they own it. They see it as an icon of their locality, though it has no importance for them from the point of view of religious belief.

“We have nothing to do with it. For us, there is mosque,” said a resident Iftikhar Aziz. “Emotionally, we are detached from this structure. However, we understand that this church adds to the beauty of this area and thus we take its protection as our responsibility,” he added.

He said it had become an identity for Banni. People, he added, knew the locality more by the church than by its name.

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