Archbishop Bashar Matti Warda receives honorary doctorate for distinguished services

ANKAWA / ERBIL, Iraq – Syriac Chaldean Archbishop of Erbil Mar Bashar Matti Warda on May 15, received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the Franciscan University in Steubenville, United States. Mar Bashar Warda was honored in recognition of his tireless and continuous work in support of persecuted peoples and indigenous minority peoples in Iraq.

Mar Bashar Warda organized aid to tens of thousands Suryaye, Yazidis and other non-Muslim communities fleeing terror organization ISIS’s occupation of the Nineveh Plains and Mosul between 2014-2017.

In 2015, Mar Bashar was the driving force behind the establishment of the Catholic University in Erbil. In 2019, the Catholic University of Erbil and the Franciscan University of Steubenville signed a memorandum of understanding to exchange students and collaborate in educational programs.

I am so grateful to receive this honor on behalf of all the brother bishops, priests, sisters and our wonderful lay people who have worked together to makes this recognition possible. Leaders together. pic.twitter.com/Sgh4GcgyyV

— bishopwarda (@bishopwarda) May 15, 2021

Mar Bashar Matti Warda was born in 1969. After studying at the Chaldean seminary of Saint Peter in Baghdad, he was ordained a priest in 1993. In 1999, he obtained a master degree in theology from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.

In 2007, Archbishop Bashar Warda was appointed as the Patriarchal Vicar of the Archdiocese of Zakho in northern Iraq. After the diocese was merged with the diocese of Amadiyah in 2013, he was elected by the Holy Synod of the Chaldean Catholic Church as the Archbishop of Erbil.