As part of ongoing efforts to assess the situation in Syria and to review the condition of Christians in Holeb (Aleppo), Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Mor Ignatius Aphrem II carried out a series of visits in the city.
As part of their regular consultations aimed at discussing local and regional developments and strengthening cooperation in the interest of the Assyrian people, the Beth Nahrain Patriotic Union (Huyodo Bethnahrin Athroyo, HBA), Assyrian Democratic Movement (ZOWAA), Assyrian Patriotic Party (Atranaya), and Bet Nahrain Democratic Party (BNDP) held a joint meeting in Ankawa, Arba'ilo (Erbil), at the...
Baghdad -- With each passing year, the challenges threatening the Christian presence in Iraq continue to grow. A land that embraced Christianity in its earliest centuries has seen its Christian population subjected to persistent persecution and displacement. Since 2003, the number of Christians has fallen from more than 1.
North Iraq -- Reflecting the scientific and professional excellence of the Assyrian community, particularly in medicine, dentist Mariam Qardagh from Armota, Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), has earned a place among the world's top 100 impactful doctors, Class of 2026.
(AINA) -- The Assyrian people, as one of the indigenous nations of Mesopotamia, face an increasingly coordinated campaign of political, social, and economic marginalization in northern Iraq. This campaign extends beyond neglect and reflects a sustained pattern of interference by the so called Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), aimed at weakening Assyrian political organizations, fragmenting...
Something is happening in northern Iraq that barely registers outside the region -- yet for Assyrians, it is an existential threat. In the village of Bakhetme, more than 1,500 dunams of land have been confiscated and are being transferred to Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and public employees. For the villagers, this is not paperwork or bureaucracy. It is their homes and their future.
Three hundred and fifty years separate us from the last medieval Maronite epigraph, that of Our Lady of Ilige dated 1277 and the new inscription, dated 1628, at Mar Chalita of Ghosta, which marks the beginning of a renaissance that Lebanon was to experience under Ottoman rule.
The emigration of Iraqi Christians is no longer a matter concerning a single community, nor merely a religious or social issue. It has become a serious indicator of the depth of the national crisis Iraq has endured for years.
Los Angeles -- Richard Dimitri, the character actor and comedian best known for playing a pair of twins in Mel Brooks's 1970s television spoof When Things Were Rotten and for memorable supporting turns in films such as Johnny Dangerously and Let It Ride, has died. He was 83.
(AINA) -- The use of the "Christian" label for indigenous peoples in Iraq, particularly in northern Iraq, is not neutral. It carries political, legal, and historical consequences that undermine indigenous identity and collective rights. Religion Is not an indigenous Identity; "Christian" describes a religious belief, not a people, nation, or indigenous group.
Detroit will soon give a permanent nod to one of its long-hidden cultural engines. A new Michigan Historical Marker to be placed along Seven Mile Road will formally identify the strip as Chaldean Town, recognizing the neighborhood that, for much of the 20th century, served as the cultural and economic heart of Detroit's Chaldean community.
A new book titled The Genocide of the Christian Populations in the Ottoman Empire and Its Aftermath (1908--1923), edited by Taner Akçam, Theodosios Kyriakidis, and Kyriakos Chatzikyriakidis, brings together interdisciplinary scholarship examining the destruction of Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian Christian communities during the final decades of the Ottoman Empire and the early Turkish Republic.
(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) -- The Assyrian people, as one of the indigenous nations of Mesopotamia, face an increasingly coordinated campaign of political, social, and economic marginalization in northern Iraq. This campaign extends beyond neglect and reflects a sustained pattern of interference by the so called Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), aimed at weakening Assyrian political organizations, fragmenting...
(AINA) -- The use of the "Christian" label for indigenous peoples in Iraq, particularly in northern Iraq, is not neutral. It carries political, legal, and historical consequences that undermine indigenous identity and collective rights. Religion Is not an indigenous Identity; "Christian" describes a religious belief, not a people, nation, or indigenous group.
Three hundred and fifty years separate us from the last medieval Maronite epigraph, that of Our Lady of Ilige dated 1277 and the new inscription, dated 1628, at Mar Chalita of Ghosta, which marks the beginning of a renaissance that Lebanon was to experience under Ottoman rule.
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.