Damascus -- Syria said Thursday a suicide bomber who killed a security forces member in Aleppo on New Year's Eve was in the Islamic State group, which planned attacks on churches and gatherings. ISIS recently increased its attacks in areas of Syria controlled by the Damascus authorities, and was blamed for an attack last month in Palmyra that killed three Americans.
The Chaldean patriarch, Cardinal Louis Raphaël Sako, has received threats from Islamic groups based in Iraq and Iran following a misinterpretation of a message delivered during the Christmas Mass, according to Chaldean Press. During the liturgical celebration, the patriarch used the term "normalization" in a spiritual sense, exhorting the faithful to reconcile and live in peace with one another.
For more than a century and a half, Eastern Christian peoples, particularly the Assyrians, have endured massacres, displacement, and structural statelessness. At the same time, their ecclesiastical institutions have survived.
Baghdad -- Iraq's new Parliament convened this week for the first time since the November elections, opening its sixth legislative term with the familiar rituals of state: verses from the Quran, constitutional citations, and solemn oaths sworn in Arabic and Kurdish.
Baghdede, Iraq -- Nineveh Governor Abdul Qader al-Dakhil inaugurated the "Monument of Immortality" last night, Ishtar TV reports. The monument commemorates the victims of the tragic wedding hall fire in Baghdede in 2023. The monument was erected in the courtyard of the Syriac Catholic Archdiocese of Mosul in Baghdede, in the presence of a number of officials and religious and civil society figures.
Mugla, Turkey -- A silver necklace featuring a lion figure and an eight-pointed star, believed to represent the Assyrian goddess Ishtar, has been unearthed during excavations at the ancient city of Amos in Mugla, southwestern Turkey.
(AINA) -- Dr. Sophia Isaac is a scholar, educator, and cultural advocate whose own life reflects the very journey she studies. Born in Urmia, Iran, and brought to the United States as a child before the 1979 Iranian Revolution, she grew up navigating the space between two identities--Assyrian heritage and American life.
Chaldean Press met with U.S. Special Envoy Mark Savaya for an exclusive interview to discuss critical issues facing Iraq's minorities, with a particular focus on the Chaldean [Assyrian] Christian community.
Syriac Christians in Mardin, southeastern Türkiye, marked Christmas with a traditional liturgy at the historic Forty Martyrs Church, highlighting the city's centuries-old culture of religious coexistence.
Coexistence between Muslims and religious minorities, particularly Christians, has a long history in Iran, stretching back centuries. Despite persistent criticism in some Western media outlets over the state of religious freedoms in the Islamic Republic, realities on the ground often present a more complex and nuanced picture than the one commonly portrayed.
The House of Representatives of Cyprus has adopted a resolution condemning the historical massacre of Assyrians in a unanimous vote during its plenary session on Monday, the Cyprus News Agency reports. The measure, put forward by Independent Socialist MP Kostis Efstathiou, formally recognizes and denounces the atrocities suffered by Assyrians.
In a land where civilizations were born, and religions lived side by side long before the borders of modern states were drawn, Iraq's Christian presence endures like an old bell--weathered by centuries, cracked by violence, yet still echoing. Here, where prayer once rose in many languages, Christmas was never a fleeting ritual. It became a memory layered with faith, joy, loss, and survival.
(AINA) -- Dr. Sophia Isaac is a scholar, educator, and cultural advocate whose own life reflects the very journey she studies. Born in Urmia, Iran, and brought to the United States as a child before the 1979 Iranian Revolution, she grew up navigating the space between two identities--Assyrian heritage and American life.
(AINA) -- For three decades the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) has served as one of the most influential and authoritative voices documenting the life, heritage, and challenges of Assyrians and their Syriac-speaking Churches, both in the homeland and the diaspora. AINA is a privately funded, independent news agency founded by Peter Pnuel BetBasoo and Firas Jatou in 1995.
(AINA) -- The Assyrian Arts Institute (AAI) is an organization founded by Nora Betyousef Lacey in 2017 and claims to support Assyrian arts. AAI has sponsored a few events since its founding, including an Assyrian women's choir.
(AINA) -- On July 12 Iraqi president Abdul Latif Rashid repealed the decree recognizing the appointment of Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako as head of the Chaldean Catholic Church and which appointed him to the office of the waqf (وقف), the endowment which oversees all church property. The details of the events leading up to this action are exhaustively covered in this report by MEMRI.
(AINA) -- In contemporary political discourse, the rights of indigenous peoples are too often reduced to numbers--population size, electoral weight, or demographic dominance. For the Assyrian people, this reduction is not only unjust; it is historically illiterate.
(AINA) -- The tragic death of Patriarch Eshai Shimun on November 6, 1975, remains a sombre and defining moment in the history of the Assyrian people. A leader devoted to preserving Assyrian heritage, faith, and identity, he had dedicated decades to guiding his Church and community through difficult times.
Kochi, India -- As the Yuletide spirit fills the air, posters, cutouts and dolls of Santa Claus crop up everywhere, heralding the season of love and sharing. However, not many may know that Santa, the most popular symbol of Christmas, is inspired from and modelled after St Nicholas, a fourth-century bishop from Myra in ancient Turkey known for his generosity and secret gift-giving.
Archaeologists in northern Israel uncover a luxurious Iron Age cremation burial, revealing elite lifestyles, long-distance trade, and Assyrian influence thousands of years ago. For a long time, life in the ancient world has been imagined as harsh, modest, and largely deprived of luxury.