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==Overview History==

The modern '''Chaldean''' Catholics are native [[Chaldean people|Chaldeans]] of [[Mesopotamia|Mesopotamia]] <ref>Nisan, M. 2002. Minorities in the Middle East: A History of Struggle for Self Expression .Jefferson: McFarland & Company. Jump up ^ http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14225.html</ref> and originated from ancient Chaldean communities living in and indigenous to Iraq/Mesopotamia which was known as Chaldea from the 53rd century BC till today as [[Chaldean people| Chaldean people]] continue to survive in [[Mesopotamia]].

Chaldean Americans are a highly religious people proud of their Christian heritage. According to legend, they were converted to Christianity by the Apostle Thomas on one of his missionary journeys to the East. (St. Addai, an associate of Thomas, is revered as a Chaldean patron.) In the third century, they were followers of Nestorius, a patriarch of Constantinople who was declared a heretic by the Roman Church for teaching that Jesus Christ was not concurrently God and man. This division between the followers of Nestorius in the East and the Roman Church lasted until 1445, when some Chaldeans were received into the Roman Church by Pope Eugenius IV. They were permitted to retain their historic rituals and the Chaldean/Aramaic language for mass and other ceremonies. Searching for an appropriate name to call this new Catholic rite, the Pope focused on their historic homeland, which in ancient times had been the land of the Babylonians, Assyrians, and Chaldeans. It was also the historic homeland of the prophet Abraham, who came from Ur, a city of the Chaldeans. Hence, the Pope chose "Chaldean" as the name for the new Catholic rite.

== Immigration to America==