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Chaldean Catholic Church

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The '''Chaldean Catholic Church''' ({{lang-syc|ܥܕܬܐ ܟܠܕܝܬܐ ܩܬܘܠܝܩܝܬܐ}}, ''ʿītha kaldetha qāthuliqetha''), is an [[Eastern Catholic Churches|Eastern]] [[Syriac Christianity|Syriac]] [[Particular church#Autonomous particular Churches or Rites|particular church]] of the [[Catholic Church]], under the [[Apostolic see|Holy See]] of the [[Catholicos]]-[[Patriarch of Babylon]], maintaining [[full communion]] with the [[Bishop of Rome]] and the rest of the Catholic Church. The Chaldean Catholic Church presently comprises an estimated 500,000 people who are ethnic [[Chaldean people|Chaldeans]]
==History==
The history of the Chaldean Church is the history of the [[Church of the East]] founded between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD in Mesopotamia [[Chaldea]] (Persian ruled [[Mesopotamia]]) — represented today by at least eleven different churches, (then ruled by the successive Parthian and Sassanid Empires, where it was known by derivative names for Chaldea) — between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD. The region of Chaldea was also the birthplace of the [[Syriac language]] and [[Syriac script]], both of which remain important within all strands of [[Syriac Christianity]]. The terms ''Syriac'' and ''Syrian'' originally being [[Indo-Anatolian]] derivatives of ''Assyrian''.<ref>Frye, R. N. (October 1992). "Assyria and Syria: Synonyms" (PDF). Journal of Near Eastern Studies 51 (4): 281–285. doi:10.1086/373570.</ref>
It was originally a part ==Chaldean Church History==The history of the Chaldean Church is the history of the [[The Assyrian Church of the East]] before founded between the 1553 consecration of 1st and 3rd centuries AD in Mesopotamia [[Shimun VIII Yohannan SulaqaChaldea]] who entered communion with the (Persian ruled [[Roman Catholic ChurchMesopotamia]]) — represented today by at least eleven different churches, when it was renamed (then ruled by the ''Church of Mosul''. Subsequent to thissuccessive Parthian and Sassanid Empires, where it was again renamed known by Rome in 1683 as derivative names for Chaldea) — between the Chaldean Catholic Church in recognition 1st and 3rd centuries AD. The region of Chaldea was also the native Chaldean people birthplace of Mesopotamia Iraq where Father Ibrahim was raised the [[Syriac language]] and lived at UR [[Syriac script]], both of Chaldeanswhich remain important within all strands of [[Syriac Christianity]].
It was originally a part of [[The Church of the East]] before the 1553 consecration of [[Shimun VIII Yohannan Sulaqa]] who entered communion with the [[Roman Catholic Church]], when it was renamed the ''Church of Mosul''. Subsequent to this, it was again renamed by Rome in 1683 as the Chaldean Catholic Church in recognition of the native Chaldean people of Mesopotamia Iraq where Father Ibrahim was raised and lived at UR of Chaldeans.  After the extensive massacres of Chaldean and other Christians by [[Tamerlane]] around 1400 AD had devastated many Chaldean bishoprics and finally destroyed the 4000 year old city of [[AssurNineveh]], the Church of the East — which had extended as far as [[China]], [[Central Asia]], [[Mongolia]] and [[India]] — was largely reduced to [[AssyriaMesopotamia]], its place of origin. It was followed by its core founders of [[Eastern Aramaic]] speaking ethnic [[Assyrian Chaldean people|AssyrianChaldean]]s who lived largely in the area of northern Mesopotamia between [[Diyarbakır|Amid (Diyarbakır)]], [[Mardin]], [[Harran]] and [[Hakkari]] in the north to [[Mosul]], [[Irbil]] and [[Kirkuk]] in the south, and from [[Salmas]] and [[Urmia]] in the east to [[Al-Hassakeh]], [[Tur Abdin]] and [[Edessa]] in the west; an area approximately encompassing ancient [[AssyriaChaldea]].<ref name="Frazee">Charles A. Frazee, ''Catholics and Sultans: The Church and the Ottoman Empire 1453-1923'', Cambridge University Press, 2006 ISBN 0-521-02700-4</ref>{{rp|55}} The [[episcopal see]] was moved to [[Alqosh]], in the Mosul region, and Patriarch Mar [[Shimun IV Basidi]] (1437–1493) made the office of patriarch hereditary in his own family.<ref name="newCath Encyclopedia">Chaldean Catholic Church (Eastern Catholic), The new Catholic Encyclopedia, The Catholic University of America, Vol. 3, 2003 p. 366.</ref>
===1552: Yohannan Sulaqa===
Dissent over the hereditary succession grew until 1552, when a group of Chaldean bishops, from the northern regions of [[Amid]] and [[Salmas]], elected a priest, Mar [[Shimun VIII Yohannan Sulaqa|Yohannan Sulaqa]], as a rival patriarch. To look for a bishop of [[metropolitan bishop|metropolitan]] rank to consecrate him patriarch, Sulaqa traveled to the [[pope]] in Rome and entered into communion with the [[Catholic Church]], after first being refused by the [[Syriac Orthodox Church]]. In 1553 he was consecrated bishop and elevated to the rank of patriarch taking the name of Mar Shimun VIII. He was granted the title of "Patriarch of the East AssyriansChaldeans", and his church was named ''The Church of Athura and Mosul''.<ref>George V. Yana (Bebla), "Myth vs. Reality," ''JAA Studies'', Vol. XIV, No. 1, 2000 p. 80</ref>
Mar Shimun VIII Yohannan Sulaqa returned to northern [[Mesopotamia]] in the same year and fixed his seat in [[Amid]]. Before being put to death by the partisans of the [[Assyrian Church of the East]] patriarch of [[Alqosh]],<ref name="Frazee"/>{{rp|57}} he ordained five metropolitan bishops thus beginning a new ecclesiastical hierarchy: the patriarchal line known as the ''Shimun line''. The area of influence of this patriarchate soon moved from Amid east, fixing the See, after many places, in the isolated Chaldean village of [[Qochanis]].
The connections with Rome loosened up under Sulaqa's successors: The last patriarch to be formally recognized by the Pope died in 1600, the hereditary of the office was reintroduced and, in 1692, the [[Full communion|communion]] with Rome was formally broken, with this part of the church once more rejoining the [[Assyrian Church of the East]].
{{See also|Shimun VIII Yohannan Sulaqa}}
A new so-called 'Chaldean' Patriarchate occurred in 1672 when [[Joseph I (Chaldean Patriarch)|Mar Joseph I]], Archbishop of Amid, entered in [[Full communion|communion]] with Rome, separating from the Chaldean Church Patriarchal see of Alqosh. In 1681 the [[Holy See]] granted him the title of "Patriarch of the Chaldeans deprived of its patriarch."
It is believed that the term 'Chaldean Catholic' arose due to a Catholic [[Latin language|Latin]] misinterpretation in recognition of the native Chaldean people of Mesopotamia and misreading of the [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] ''Ur Kasdim'' (according to long held Jewish tradition, the birthplace of Abraham in northern Mesopotamia) as meaning ''Ur of the Chaldees''.<ref>''Biblical Archaeology Review'', May/June 2001: Where Was Abraham's Ur? by Allan R. Millard</ref> The Hebrew ''Kasdim'' does not mean or refer to the ''Chaldeans''. Ur Kasdim is generally believed by many to have been somewhere in [[Assyria]], northeastern [[Syria]] or southeastern [[Anatolia]]. The 18th century [[Roman Catholic Church]] then applied this misinterpreted name to their new diocese in northern Mesopotamia, a region whose indigenous inhabitants had always previously been referred to ethnically as ''Assurayu, Assyrians, Assouri, Ashuriyun, East Syrian, Athurai, Atoreh'', etc., and by the denominational terms ''Syriac Christians, Jacobites and Nestorians''. Thus the term 'Chaldean Catholic' is historically, usually and properly taken purely as a [[doctrinal]] and [[theological]] term for Chaldean converts to Catholicism.<ref>Travis, Hannibal. ''Genocide in the Middle East: The Ottoman Empire, Iraq, and Sudan''. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2010, 2007, pp. 237-77, 293–294</ref><ref name="conference.osu.eu">http://conference.osu.eu/globalization/publ/08-bohac.pdf</ref><ref name="conference.osu.eu"/> The modern Chaldean Catholics are [[Assyrian people|Assyrians]]<ref>Nisan, M. 2002. ''[http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14225.html Minorities in the Middle East: A History of Struggle for Self Expression]''. Jefferson: McFarland & Company.</ref> and originated from ancient Chaldean communities living in and indigenous to the north of Iraq/Upper Mesopotamia which was known as Chaldea from the 25th century BC until the 7th century AD (rather than the long-extinct [[Chaldea]]ns/[[Chaldees]], who were 9th century BC migrants from [[The Levant]], and always resided in the far southeast of Mesopotamia, and wholly disappeared from history circa 550 BC). Chaldean Catholics originate from the exact same cities, towns and villages as other Chaldeans, speak exactly the same dialects of Eastern Aramaic, have exactly the same family, tribal and personal names, and have the same genetic profile.  Despite this, ''a minority'' of Chaldean Catholics (particularly in the [[United States]]) have in recent times confused a purely religious term with an ethnic identity, and espoused a separate ethnic identity to their Chaldean brethren, despite there being no historical, academic, cultural, geographic, archaeological, linguistic, anthropological or genetic evidence supporting a link (or any sort of [[Chaldean continuity]]) to the late Iron Age Chaldean land or race, rather they are regarded as part of the [[Assyrian continuity]] by scholars. [[Raphael Bidawid]], the then patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church commented on the [[Assyrian name dispute]] in 2003 and clearly differentiated between the name of a church and an ethnicity: : “I personally think that these different names serve to add confusion. The original name of our Church was the ‘Church of the East’ … When a portion of the Church of the East became Catholic in the 17th Century, the name given to the 'church' was ‘Chaldean’ based on the Magi kings who were believed by some to have come from what once had been the land of the Chaldean, to Bethlehem. The name ‘Chaldean’ does not represent an ethnicity, just a church… We have to separate what is ethnicity and what is religion… I myself, my sect is Chaldean, but ethnically, I am [[Assyrian people|Assyrian]].”<ref name="Parpola">{{cite journal | author = Parpola, Simo | year = 2004 | title = National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Identity in Post-Empire Times | journal = [[Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies]] | volume = 18 | issue = 2 | pages = pp. 22 | publisher = JAAS | url = http://www.jaas.org/edocs/v18n2/Parpola-identity_Article%20-Final.pdf | format = PDF | authorlink = Simo Parpola }}</ref>
In an interview with the The 'Chaldean Catholic'is historically, usually and properly taken purely as a [[Assyrian Stardoctrinal]]and [[theological]] term for Chaldean converts to Catholicism.<ref>Travis, Hannibal. '' Genocide in the September–October 1974 issue, he was quoted as sayingMiddle East:: “Before I became a priest I was an AssyrianThe Ottoman Empire, before I became a bishop I was an AssyrianIraq, I am an Assyrian todayand Sudan''. Durham, tomorrowNC: Carolina Academic Press, forever2010, and I am proud of it2007, pp.237-77, 293–294</ref>Mar Raphael J Bidawid<ref name="conference. ''osu.eu">http://conference.osu.eu/globalization/publ/08-bohac.pdf</ref><ref name="conference.osu.eu"/> The modern Chaldean Catholics are [[Assyrian Starpeople|Assyrians]]<ref>Nisan, M. 2002. ''[http://www. September–October, 1974upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14225.html Minorities in the Middle East:5A History of Struggle for Self Expression]''. Jefferson: McFarland & Company.</ref>and originated from ancient Chaldean communities living in and indigenous to the north of Iraq/Upper Mesopotamia which was known as Chaldea from the 25th century BC until the 7th century AD.
All Joseph I's successors took the name of Joseph. The life of this patriarchate was difficult: at the beginning due to the vexations from the traditionalists, under which they were subject from a legal point of view, and later it struggled with financial difficulties due to the tax burden imposed by the [[Ottoman Empire|Turkish]] authorities.