Jacques Mourad, priest who survived ISIS: "My interfaith work saved my life"

Jacques Mourad, a Syriac Catholic priest who survived being held hostage for months by militants from the self-described Islamic State, is certain that his interfaith work saved his life.

Mourad was kidnapped in May from the Mar Moussa monastery along with a volunteer, taken to ISIS’s de facto capital in Raqqa, and held in a bathroom.

“During these 84 days that I was a prisoner in this bathroom in Raqqa, it could be said that it was one of the most difficult experiences that a person can go through: that of losing one’s liberty,” Mourad said, speaking through an interpreter to members of Rome’s Foreign Press Association on December 10, the first time he spoke publicly in detail about his ordeal. “For me it was also a very intense experience, from the spiritual point of view.”