On Sunday, Chaldean Catholic Patriarch, Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in Baghdad to discuss the region's unfolding crises. The Chaldean Patriarchate announced that Sako called for empowering the Church's role in assisting impoverished families by developing housing complexes that uphold human dignity and provide a decent life, affirming the vital role that...
By Solène Tadié
Budapest -- Catholicos-Patriarch Awa III of the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East recently visited Budapest with a stark warning: Christianity in the Middle East is vanishing. Entire communities are being erased, while the Western world looks away.
The latest report submitted by the Assyrian Universal Alliance (AUA) highlights the urgent and ongoing challenges facing the Assyrian people across Iraq, Syria and Turkey, where systemic discrimination, political exclusion, and cultural erosion threaten their very survival. As one of the region's oldest indigenous communities, Assyrians continue to endure grave human rights violations.
Nearly eight years after the official fall of the Islamic State in Iraq, the situation for Christians remains alarming, marked by insecurity and discrimination. Iraq ranks 17th among the countries where Christian communities are most persecuted,[1] despite their ancestral presence. The ECLJ is working to draw the attention of the United Nations to these persecutions.
By Souhail Lawand
(CNA) -- To mark the World Day of Eastern Christians, held every year on the sixth Sunday of Easter and organized by the association L'Œuvre d'Orient, Cardinal Louis Raphaël Sako, patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, presided over the Divine Liturgy in the Chaldean rite at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris on Sunday, May 25.
A top Christian religious figure in Damascus on Tuesday said that the minority community, which he called a "key component" of Syria, is entitled to participate in writing the country's new constitution despite an Islamist-led government in charge. "We will not compromise on our rights. It is within our rights to participate in writing the constitution.
By Dr. Themistocles Kritikakos
Earlier this week, the Greek-American organisation, the Eastern Mediterranean Business and Cultural Alliance (EMBCA), held its third Forum on the Greek Genocide--a subject long confined to the margins of history.
By Dario Salvi
Rome -- The Churches of the Middle East "are facing a very complicated situation," stemming primarily from a "lack of stability", even if "security has improved." The overall context, however, "remains difficult and full of challenges. That is why the support" of Pope Leo XIV is crucial--vital, in fact, "to prevent the disappearance of Christians from the region.
Chicago (AINA) -- In a lecture sponsored by the Assyrian Cultural Foundation, Dr. Jonathan Valk discussed the modern Assyrian language, also called neo-Aramaic, and the brilliance of the Assyrians in astronomy, mathematics, and recordkeeping. Related: Akkadian Words in Modern Assyrian...
By Barbara Vitello
Former Niles resident and Maine South High School student Atra Asdou, a Lookingglass Theatre Company ensemble member, examines the relationship between Assyrian women and their mothers from the Ottoman Empire to current-day U.S. in the semiautobiographical, adults-only play "Iraq, But Funny.
By Patrick Hudson
Pope Leo XIV must "find good people" to guide his engagement with Eastern Churches, according to the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church. The Pope addressed Catholics from the 23 sui iuris Eastern Churches in communion with Rome gathered at the Vatican for their Jubilee celebration on Wednesday, affirming the need for the universal Church to "cherish" their traditions.
By Michael Gfoeller and Greg Gross
Religious freedom is the heartbeat of America's 249-year history, a principle etched into its founding and vital to its identity. Under the current administration, countering religious persecution abroad must also be a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy.