Assyrian homeland

The Assyrian homeland or Assyria (Assyrian: ܐܬܘܪ) or Beth Nahrain refers to a geographic and cultural region in the Middle East, inhabited traditionally by the Assyrian people. The Assyrian Empire peaked in 671 BC, expanding from the Nile river in Egypt to Anatolia. [Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I By David Gaunt - Page 124]

Today, Assyrians are believed to form a slight majority in several counties in Iraq.Fact|date=March 2008 Since the fall of the Iraqi Baath Party, and in the face of violence against the Christian community, there has been a growing movement for Assyrian independence. Fact|date=April 2007

Etymology

The name of Assyria is believed to be derived from the phrase "māt Aššur", which is translated to "the country of the god Assur". The original capital the Assyrian Empire was named Assur, after the god as well. [Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible By Karel van der Toorn, Pieter Willem van der Horst, Bob Becking - Page 109]

History

Ancient period

Assyrians are Aramaic-speaking people who are indigenous inhabitants of Mesopotamia (mainly Iraq), and inheritors of the ancient culture of Assyria. They have a culture, language, and religion that is distinct from that of modern-day Arabs, Kurds, Persians, and Turks. [15]

They are believed to descend from the ancient Akkadians, who emerged as the ruling class of Assyria, starting with Sargon of Akkad (grandfather of Naram-sin). Babylonia, formerly Sumer and Akkad, was a colony of Assyria. The title of "King of Babylon" was "King of Sumer and Akkad" as transliterated from the Akkadian Šār Mat Šūmerī ū Akkadī. Eventually Aramaean tribes, among them Chaldeans, emigrated en-masse into the region and their language became dominant. These different cultures ultimately merged, to form classic Assyrian culture. [16] Today, in certain areas of the Assyrian homeland, identity within a community is aligned to village of origin or Christian denomination, as with Chaldean for example.

Modern and ancient Assyrians

With ancient peoples, there is not any realistic, definite method to prove direct lineage unless many ancient graves are unearthed, and the remains examined and carbon dated. The DNA samples must be compared to DNA samples of different grave sites, generating a report of the comparative analysis of the ancient people's DNA to that of the modern-day people. There have been DNA analyses conducted finding a common genealogy within the community. All northern Mesopotamian people it turns out, are very closely related genetically.

The arrival of the latest conquerors may have had some influence. Many of the ancestors of the modern-day Arabs, Kurds (Kurds belonged to the Yazidi faith), Mongols, Persians, and Turks were originally Christian or converts, and the area they ruled remained predominantly Christian with Syriac as the lingua franca prior to the Islamic conquests. Some may have been assimilated into the Syriac Christian culture. However, this is a slight possibility for the majority of Assyrians lived and still live isolated from other groups and are close-knit from village to village.

The ancient Assyrian empire had a policy of deporting the local inhabitants and relocating them to urban areas of the empire in order to assimilate them into Assyro-Babylonian culture. This caused a merger of cultures with some cultural loss. This altered their sense of national identity. This tactic was borrowed and applied by the Persians and many empires that followed. This has been the fate of the modern-day people also. The Ba'ath parties of Iraq, Syria, and to a lesser extent, Syria's influence and interference in Lebanese affairs, forcibly replaced all ethnic identities with an Arab national identity. [21] Assyrians formed about 5% of Iraq's population before the start of the Iraq War, but since then many have emigrated, mostly to Syria.

Early Christian period

The first known Assyrian church was the Assyrian church of the east which was established in Mesopotamia by St Thomas the apostle himself.

The Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East under His Holiness Mar Dinkha IV is a Christian church that traces its origins to the See of Babylon, said to be founded by Saint Thomas the Apostle.

It sometimes calls itself the Assyrian Orthodox Church, and is sometimes mistakenly thought to be an Oriental Orthodox body. In India, it is known as the Chaldean Syrian Church. In the West it is often known, inaccurately, as the Nestorian Church. The Assyrian Church of the East is known by historians and scholars and its 4th century predecessor also proclaimed by the Pope John Paul II as “The martyrs’ church”, because no church has suffered as much martyrdom for Christianity as the Assyrian Church of the East has, notably in the 4th century.

The Assyrian Church is the original Christian church in what was once Parthia; western Iraq and Iran. Geographically it stretched in the medieval period to China and India: a monument found in Xi'an (Hsi-an), the Tang-period capital of China (originally Chang'an), in Chinese and Syriac described the activities of the church in the 7th and 8th century, while half a millennium later a Chinese monk went from Beijing to Paris and Rome to call for an alliance with the Mongols against the Mamelukes. Prior to the Portuguese arrival in India in 1498, it provided "East Syrian" bishops to the Saint Thomas Christians. Patriarch Timothy I (727–823) wrote of the large Christian community in Tibet.

The foundations of Assyrian theology are Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, who taught at Antioch. The normative Christology of the Assyrian church was written by Babai the Great (551–628) and is clearly different from the accusations of dualism directed toward Nestorius: his main christological work is strikingly called the 'Book of the Union', and in it Babai teaches that the two qnome (essences) are unmingled but everlastingly united in the one parsopa (personality) of Christ.

Modern period

In the 15th century, the church decreed that the title of Patriarch could pass only to relatives of then-patriarch Mar Shimun IV. This upset many in the church's hierarchy, and in 1552 a rival Patriarch, Mar Yohanan Soulaqa VIII was elected. This rival Patriarch met with the Pope and entered into communion with the Roman Catholic Church. The Assyrian Church now had two rival leaders, a hereditary patriarch in Alqosh (in modern-day northern Iraq), and a Papal-appointed patriarch in Diyarbakır (in modern-day eastern Turkey). This situation lasted until 1662 when the Patriarch in Diyarbakır, Mar Shimun XIII Denha, broke communion with Rome, resumed relations with the line at Alqosh, and moved his seat to the village of Qochanis in the Turkish mountains. The Vatican responded by appointing a new patriarch to Diyarbakır to govern the Assyrians who stayed loyal to the Holy See. This latter group became known as the Chaldean Catholic Church. In 1804 the hereditary line of Patriarchs in Alqosh died out, and that church's hierarchy decided to accept the authority of the Chaldean patriarchs. The line of patriarchs at Qochanis remained independent.

Assyrians faced reprisals under the Hashemite monarchy for co-operating with the British during the years after World War I, and most fled to the West. The Patriarch Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII, though born into the line of Patriarchs at Qochanis, was educated in Britain. For a time he sought a homeland for the Assyrians in Iraq but was forced to take refuge in Cyprus in 1933, later moving to Chicago, Illinois, and finally settling near San Francisco, California. The present Patriarch of Babylon is based in Chicago, and less than 1 million of the world's 4.5 million Assyrians remain in Iraq.

The Chaldean community was less numerous at the time of the British Mandate of Palestine, and did not play a major role in the British rule of the country. However with the exodus of Church of the East members, the Chaldean Catholic Church became the largest non-Muslim group in Iraq, and some later rose to power in the Ba'ath Party government, the most prominent being Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.

In 1975, His Holiness Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII was murdered by David Ismail in San Francisco, California. The murder sparked outrage around the world and raised questions as to who was really responsible. Mar Dinkha IV was elected as a successor and sworn in by the Anglican Church.

On November 11, 1994, an historic meeting of Mar Dinkha IV and Roman Catholic Pope John Paul II took place in the Vatican and a Common Christological Declaration was signed. The efforts of Mar Bawai Soro, elected to head closer relationships with Rome led to closer ties with the Chaldean Catholic Church during the early part of Mar Bawai's term. However, communication has broken down between both Churches since the unanimous decision of the Holy Synod of the Assyrian Church of the East was made in November 2005 to remove Mar Bawai Soro.

Archdiocese of Lebanon, Syria & EuropeMetropolitan Mar Narsai D'Baz

Syria - Mar Aprem Natniel Europe - Mar Odisho Oraham

Archdiocese of IndiaMetropolitan Mar Aprem Mooken

Archdiocese Iraq & RussiaMetropolitan Mar Gewargis Sliwa

Baghdad - Bishop Mar Sargis Yousip Nohadra and Russia - Bishop Mar Iskhaq Yousip

Individual DiocesesAustralia & New Zealand - Bishop Mar Meelis Zaia Canada - Bishop Mar Emmanuel Eastern United States Europe - Bishop Mar Odisho Oraham Iran (presently overseen by the patriarch) Western California Western United States - Mar Aprem Khamis

Demographics

There are now an estimated 800,000 Assyrians living in their ancestral homeland (Assyria) in and around Nineveh and other parts of Assyria. The current Assyrian population worldwide is estimated at 3.3 million. [ [http://www.aina.org/aol/peter/brief.htm#1918 Brief History website with population figures] ]

Since World War I, the Assyrian diaspora has steadily increased so that there are now more Assyrians living in western countries (including Australia) than in the Middle East. The Civil War in Lebanon, the coming into power of the Islamic republic of Iran, the Ba'thist dictatorship in Iraq and the present-day unrest in Iraq have all driven Assyrians to seek refuge outside their home region.

Geography

Assyria is part of North Iraq, Southeast Turkey, Iran and Syria (in the Djazirah province), due to the number of Assyrians located in large numbers in those countries. Assyria is the North of Iraq, including Ninawa, Dohuk and Arbil provinces.

Other ethnic groups that live in the region are Kurds, Turkmen and Yazidis.

Historical attractions

References

ee also

*Al-Jazira, Mesopotamia
*List of Assyrian settlements
*Roomrama (Assyrian anthem)
*Greater Syria