Matti Matti grew up in Ankawa, a Christian enclave outside of Erbil in Iraq's Kurdistan Region. He's witnessed the town change dramatically as Iraq's Christian population has collapsed, from 1.5 million in 2003 to fewer than 150,000 today. As many Assyrians, Chaldeans and Syriacs leave -- terms often used interchangeably -- others like Dilan Adamat have made the decision to return.
Speakers at the sixth annual International Religious Freedom Summit on Monday warned that religious freedom is rapidly deteriorating across several Middle Eastern countries, urging the United States, Western governments, and international bodies to take stronger action.
Esslingen, Germany -- The creativity and excellence of the Assyrian people across all fields of life, artistic, athletic, and scientific, are not confined by geographic or regional boundaries, but stem from the authenticity of this people and their contributions to human civilization since ancient times.
A religious freedom activist warns that the Assyrian Christian community in the Middle East "does not have a chance of survival" and offered sharp words of criticism at the sixth annual International Religious Freedom Summit, saying "the West has repeatedly failed Assyrian Christians.
When The Christian Post published my article, "When Christian worship is a crime: The deadliest era in modern history," it documented a reality many Christians around the world already know firsthand: worship itself has become dangerous. Believers are being targeted not for political activity or violence, but simply for gathering, praying, and living openly as followers of Christ.
In my previous piece, I described my sojourn in New York. This follow up article is about my trip to Phoenix, which also proved successful. Even before I came to the United States on November 19, 2025, I had participated in two webinars in August and September through Zoom held in Phoenix when I was in Melbourne.
Hidden beneath an ancient temple in Assur, Iraq, archaeologists have made a discovery that holds potentially crucial evidence for the cult of Ishtar's origins in the area. The researchers behind the discovery date the temple's foundation to between 2896 BCE and 2702 BCE, saying that it provides crucial evidence for the spread of Mesopotamian ritual practice to northern Iraq and urban life at...
Historian Themistocles Kritikakos offers the first comprehensive comparative study of Armenian, Greek and Assyrian Genocide recognition efforts in 21 century Australia. Published by Palgrave Macmillan as part of the Palgrave Studies in the History of Genocide series, Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian Genocide Recognition in Twenty-First-Century Australia: Memory, Identity, and Cooperation examines...
(AINA) -- The security situation in northern Syria has reached a critical stage. What was previously described as allegations is now substantiated by multiple field reports and security assessments confirming the existence of established tunnel networks linking Syrian territory with both Iraq and Turkey.
Södertälje, Sweden -- Citing concerns about vandalism and desecration, Sweden's cemetery authority has removed the headstone from the grave of Assyrian Salwan Momika, nearly a year after his killing. According to his father, Sabah Momika, the family was shocked after receiving a recent photo of their son's grave showing that the headstone had been replaced with a green sign instructing them to...
Northwestern al-Hasakah countryside (northeastern Syria) saw a notable field development on Wednesday evening, 28 January, as direct clashes and an exchange of shelling broke out between Syrian government forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces ("SDF") on the Tell Tamer axis (in al-Hasakah governorate, northeastern Syria).
At the crossroads of East and West, Turkey, also known as Türkiye, is a secular state and a country many would consider at least semi-Western. And yet few places on earth have seen as drastic a decline in their Christian population. In just one century, Christians went from 20% of Turkey's population to two-tenths of 1%.
(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 security situation in northern Syria has reached a critical stage. What was previously described as allegations is now substantiated by multiple field reports and security assessments confirming the existence of established tunnel networks linking Syrian territory with both Iraq and Turkey.
(AINA) -- Iraq is being dismantled deliberately. This destruction is not the result of fate, historical inevitability, or the diversity of its people. It is the outcome of calculated decisions made by political elites who chose loyalty to power, parties, and foreign patrons over loyalty to the Iraqi nation.
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.