Mar dinkha iv biography template

On 11 November 1994, a historic meeting took place at the Vatican between the Roman Pontiff, John Paul II, and the Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, Mar Dinkha IV. This meeting was the culmination of a series of dialogues in which Catholic theologians and representatives of the Church of the East met to resolve an ancient misunderstanding that had kept the two churches at a distance for more than 1,500 years. The separation grew from a dispute over the proper use of terminology in describing the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, a dispute that began in the Byzantine Empire with the Council of Ephesus (431 A.D.) and spread to the church in the Persian Empire.

Since the beginning of this dispute, both the Catholic Church and the Church of the East have insisted upon acknowledging the two natures, divine and human, in the person of Jesus Christ. In this they have always been in agreement. However the churches differed in defining the union of those two natures in the one person of Christ. The Western church adopted a modified terminology to describe the incarnation at the Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.), while the Eastern church continued to use terminology of an older period, which in the West was deemed inadequate for the purpose of describing a true metaphysical union of the natures.

The political isolation of the Church of the East, under the dominance of the Persians, Arabs, Mongols and Ottoman Turks, made the resolution of this conflict almost impossible. The separation was not only ecclesial, but geographical, political, cultural and linguistic. The division was greatly exacerbated after the 15th century by the near destruction of the Church in the East and the loss of its educational and monastic institutions that had long supplied it with theologians and scholars. For the past 500 years there has been only limited contact between the leaders of these two ancient churches.

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The Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East – A Short History has been published by Mar Timotheus Metropolitan Memorial Fellowship, Thrissur, India, in honor of and in commemoration of the third pastoral visit of His Holiness Mar Dinkha IV to the Church of the East in India.

The book was formally released by His Grace Mar Youkhana Yosip, Bishop of India and the UAE, on Sunday, 21 November, 2010 at a function held at M.T.M. Auditorium, East Fort, Thrissur, to observe the 9th memorial anniversary of His Grace Mar Timotheus Metropolitan.

His Grace Mar Yosip presented the author, Prof. Ignatius, with the Fellowship’s gold medal, and Prof. (Dr.) Krishnan Nair, President of Thrissur Public Library, presented to him the Fellowship’s Mar Timotheus Metropolitan Memorial Award 2010 for Church Literature.

Dr. Nair addressed the function with an eminently scholarly exposition of the book, while noting the importance of faith in the turbulent world of today. His speech also gave the audience a brilliant assessment of the book and concluded with hearty congratulations to Prof. Ignatius and the Fellowship.

The meeting was also addressed by Rev. Fr. M. A. Charlie; Mr. I. G. Joy, Chairman, the Board of Central Trustees; and Mr. E. T. Paulson, Headmaster of the Sunday School, selected for the third time as the best Sunday School. Dr. C. K. George read the messages of His Holiness Mar Dinkha IV, the Catholicos Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East and His Beatitude Dr. Mar Aprem, Metropolitan of Indian Archdiocese.

The book contains colour photographs of the Church’s Prelates, Patriarchal Insignia and its description, forward by the President of the Fellowship, messages of Catholicos Patriarch His Holiness Mar Dinkha VI and His Beatitude Dr. Mar Aprem Metropolitan and biographical sketch of Catholicos Patriarch His Holiness Mar Dinkha IV. The history portion is divided into seven Chapters (1)

Mesopotamia — from the Greek meaning, “land between the rivers” — is the cradle of civilization. There, the development of agriculture and commerce, law and government, the arts, cities, culture, written language and the division of labor and skilled trades converged, creating the world’s first complex human society. While this cradle roughly corresponds to modern-day Iraq, Mesopotamia included all of the Tigris-Euphrates river system, which extends from eastern Turkey to northeastern Syria and southwestern Iran.

It is less commonly known that Mesopotamia is also the cradle of the Christian faith. In its fertile soil, the seeds of Christianity took root quickly and eventually spread like wildflowers throughout Asia, reaching Afghanistan, China, India and Mongolia.

The Church of the East, the community of faith whose missionaries took the Gospel East via the Silk Road, has all but vanished. Today, a handful of communities — calling themselves Assyrians — survive in India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey. But the head of the church, Mar Dinkha IV, Catholicos-Patriarch of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, leads his community of some 400,000 people not from the Fertile Crescent, but from a Chicago suburb. While more than a third of those who belong to the Church of the East live in North America, the fastest growing Assyrian community is in Australia.

Patrimony. Assyrian Christians consider themselves the descendants of the indigenous Semitic peoples of Mesopotamia: Sumerian, Akkadian, Amorite, Babylonian, Assyrian and Chaldean. The destinies of these peoples and their neighbors to the West — the Jews — are intricately woven together. Based in Nineveh, near the modern Iraqi city of Mosul, the ancient Assyrians waged war on the Israelites, forcing tribute from the king of Judah. The prophet Jeremiah also prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem (587 B.C.) and the subsequent exile of the Jews in