Suraye Patriarchs meet, Mor Aphrem II pays congratulation visit to newly elected Catholicos-Patriarch Mar Awa III Royel

ANKAWA/ERBIL, Iraq – On the third day of his visit to Iraq, Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Mor Ignatius Aphrem II (56) visited his newly elected colleague Mar Awa III Royel, Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, in Erbil. Chicago-born Mar Awa (46) was ordained as the 122nd Catholicos-Patriarch on September 13, 2021, in the Church of Saint John the Baptist in Ankawa. His predecessor Mar Gewargis Sliwa, who relocated the patriarchate to Ankawa from Chicago, stepped down due to health issues.

According to Mor Aphrem II on his official Facebook page, he congratulated Mar Awa III on the occasion of his accession to the throne as Patriarch and they discussed relations between the two Suryaye churches and hoped to cooperate more closely in the service of the people.

Both the Syriac Orthodox as the Assyrian Church of the East use the Syriac language as their liturgical language and follow the West Syriac Rite and the East Syriac Rite respectively.

One way of future cooperation between the two Syriac Churches might be in the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) where the following Syriac churches hold membership: Syriac Orthodox, Syriac Catholic, Syriac Maronite, Syriac Melkite, Syriac Chaldean Catholic churches, and Syriac Protestant denominations.

The current Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East were formerly united in the Church of the East. They are not members of the MECC. Membership of the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East of the Middle East Council of Churches could be beneficial for re-unification of these two Suraye churches. If the two would have been MECC members, the MECC could maybe play a mediating role in re-unification talks. One of the biggest stumbling blocks to the entry of the former Church of the East churches is the dogmatic differences where the Coptic Church – the largest MECC member and a non-Syriac church – in particular draws a red line.

In related news, on Saturday Patriarch Mor Aphrem II also inspected the construction of the Meltho school in Erbil. The new Meltho school was necessitated by the large influx from Mosul of displaced Suraye which found refuge in Ankawa, Erbil, and other parts of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). The school is being built under the direction of Bishop Nicodemus Daoud Sharaf, who accompanied the Patriarch on his inspection visit.

Although some Kurdish leaders pretend to be the patrons of the Suraye (Chaldeans-Syriacs-Assyrians) and facilitate and fund their schools, nothing could be further from the truth. The Suraye are entitled under the constitution to a certain percentage of the KRI and state budget for, among other things, their cultural and educational institutions. The Kurdish leaders can unilaterally decide to not pass on any of these funds from the KRI and state budget to the Chaldeans-Syriacs-Assyrians. Decisive power in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq is in the hands of the ruling Barzani and Talabani clans.