Catholicos-patriarch of the Assyrian Church returns to Iraq
Mar Dinkha, the spiritual leader of Iraq’s Christians suddenly returned to Iraq from the US last Thursday, on his birthday.
Mar Dinkha IVMar Khanania Dinkha IV (born on September 15, 1935, in the village of Darbandoki, Iraq) and the current catholicos-patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East is returning to Iraq for the first time following the Liberation of Iraq.
He was baptized in the church of Mar Qaryaqos and is the fourth in the line of succession to the Bishopric See of Urmia bearing the distinguished title of Mar Dinkha.
The head of the worldwide Assyrian Church of the East, the oldest continuous Christian Church in the world is returning to the original site of the Church in Northern Iraq.
Taking with him a team of his staff as well as a limited number of followers, his trip is much anticipated by the beleaguered Assyrian Christians of Iraq.
“It’s about time! He should have been back three years ago” is one comment from a follower who wished to remain anonymous. “Too little too late” comes from another.
The Assyrian Christians according to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry under Saddam Hussein numbered 2.5 million.
Recent statistics have over 100,000 Assyrian Christians having left the country with those remaining struggling as Iraq stumbles towards what many believe is an Islamic Republic modeled after neighboring Iran.
Others wonder aloud if his job will be to lead the faithful to “the promised land” of an Assyrian Province as promised by the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Iraq or whether he will be destined to lead one of the last major Christian communities to leave their homeland in exile for the last time.
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