Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2025 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Uncategorized

Iraqs Christians Meet Ask For Own

Juan Cole 10/29/2003

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email

Iraq’s Christians Meet, ask for own Province

A conference of Chaldean and Assyrian Christians met in Baghdad Monday, and came to two principal decisions (al-Zaman). They decided to seek a province of their own in Ninevah, near Mosul (a district that also has many Kurdish villages alongside Christian ones). And they decided that Iraqi Christians should be known as Chaldeassyrians instead of as Chaldeans and Assyrians, so as to stress the unity of the Iraqi Christian community. Iraqi Christians are estimated at 3.5 percent of the population. Nestorian Christians in the Middle East who spoke Syriac or Aramaic or used them in their liturgy were called Assyrians. (Nestorians had tended to stress the humanity of Jesus and rejected the phrase “mother of God” for Mary because it compromised that humanity). A group of Assyrians in Cyprus and Iraq broke from Nestorian doctrine in the 1400s and became Uniates, one of a number of Eastern churches admitted into communion with Rome. They allowed to keep their own liturgy rather than adopting Latin (the Chaldeans use Aramaic, the language of Jesus). Pope Eugenius IV called this new Assyrian Uniate Catholic group the “Chaldeans.” The rest of the Nestorians in the region continued to be called Assyrians.. About 80% of Iraqi Christians are Chaldeans or Uniate Catholics. The conference is urging that they unite into a single group, which I presume means that the Chaldeans are willing to see the Nestorian Assyrians as coreligionists rather than as heretics.

Chaldeans complain that they were given no representation by the US on the Interim Governing Council (there is an Assyrian member).

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

Support Independent Journalism

Click here to donate via PayPal.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter to have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.
Warning! Social media will not reliably deliver Informed Comment to you. They are shadowbanning news sites, especially if "controversial."
To see new IC posts, please sign up for our email Newsletter.

Social Media

Bluesky | Instagram

Popular

  • Israel's Netanyahu banks on TACO Trump as he Launches War on Iran to disrupt Negotiations
  • Iran's Hypersonic Missiles Hit Israeli Refinery, Military Sites, as Israel does the same to Tehran
  • A Pariah State? Western Nations Sanction Israeli Cabinet Members
  • Why did Israel defy Trump – and risk a major War – by striking Iran now? And what happens next?
  • Will Iran reply to Israeli Attacks with "War of Attrition?" Will its Nuclear Red Line Hold?

Gaza Yet Stands


Juan Cole's New Ebook at Amazon. Click Here to Buy
__________________________

Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires



Click here to Buy Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


Click here to Buy The Rubaiyat.
Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2025 All Rights Reserved