What is the Chaldean Church - Part 1

Between Iraq and a Hard Place

Between Iraq and a Hard Place: Episode 51

Here's a rough transcript!

Hannah: Welcome to Between Iraq and a Hard Place. I'm Hannah.

Colleen: And I'm Colleen.

Hannah: And we're going to tell you about our life in Iraq.

Colleen: It's going to be fun.

Hannah: I hope so.

Colleen: As promised, this episode is going to be about the Chaldean Church.

Hannah: That's right. I forgot we gave a teaser about it.

Colleen: Yes, we did.

Hannah: I even just edited that, and I forgot.

Colleen: And it's not even going to be just one episode.

Hannah: Oh, no. We're talking about thousands of years of church history condensed into podcast format. So we're talking at least two episodes, maybe three.

Colleen: We'll see how many questions I have for you along the way since you did all the work for this one.

Hannah: Oh, it's going to be good. Yeah. And I got turned on to this by a question from John, who's a Chaldean living in America, whose parents immigrated to America a while ago. So he was born and raised in the US and he wanted to know the state of the Chaldean Church presently. And I thought most Americans don't know what we mean when we say Chaldean Church or Chaldean Christians. So how do I explain that in a way that can tell them what's happening now? And it turned into this whole research project.

Colleen: You went down the rabbit hole.

Hannah: So many rabbit holes and bunny trails outside the rabbit holes. But I think I've got it. I think I've got it locked in. So, a little bit of church history and then a lot of church history and then some more church history. And then what's happening with Christians in Iraq now.

Colleen: But like not the same church history that most Western Americans normally have.

Hannah: Right. OK, so let's start there. We're going to work backwards because I a little bit believe that history should be taught in reverse order.

Colleen: Oh.

Hannah: Rather than from the past to the present. I really think we should teach from the present to the past. I think it would be more interesting. It's a philosophy of my life. So we're going to start with a touch point. Basically, in Christianity, in Western Christianity, we know about two branches, big general branches, which are?

Colleen: Protestants and Catholics.

Hannah: Protestants and Catholics. And that started with?

Colleen: The Reformation.

Hannah: And what's the guy's name with the Reformation?

Colleen: Martin Luther

Hannah: Martin Luther. OK, everybody knows about the Reformation, Catholic, Protestant. Most people also know that like the Roman Catholic Church, which is how we're going to refer to that church from this point on, the Roman Catholic Church, separated at some point from maybe there are two different churches, but the one that's not Roman Catholic, no one in America knows the history of that church.

Colleen: Right.

Hannah: So if we walk back from the Protestant Reformation, which happened in the 16th century, we walk all the way back to the 11th century. We have what's called the Great Schism,

Colleen: The Great Schism.

Hannah: The Great Schism. And that is when the Great Church split into two two main branches, the Catholic Church. So you had your Roman Catholic Church, which kind of shortly thereafter splits into the Protestant church in church history timeline. So you got your Roman Catholic Church and then you have your Eastern Orthodox Church. So Eastern Orthodox is…

Colleen: an earlier split?

Hannah: An earlier split. Yes. And what it basically means is that the Roman Catholic Church kind of took Europe and west and the Eastern Orthodox Church kind of took Greece, Turkey east. Kind of. So if you take a step back before even that, we're going to get to the first real big church split in church history.

Colleen: OK, when was this?

Hannah: This was four hundred and thirty one.

Colleen: OK, so fifth century.

Hannah: Fifth century. OK, so this is the first big one. And this is after Constantine and Charlemagne and all those people established Christianity as part of government. So the church gets together and they have this big council called the Council of Ephesus. And I think some of us know about some of the other councils that happened that like firmed in place the canon of scripture and stuff like that. So in this council of Ephesus, the church sits down and they say, there's this guy named Nestorian. All right, dude named Nestorian. Who we're pretty sure he is an apostate, like he is teaching things that are heresy. He's a heretic, pretty sure he's a heretic and the things that an Nestorian was teaching. So there's this thing called the hypostatic union.

Colleen: Great. That's a lot of syllables, Hannah.

Hannah: It's a lot of syllables. This is a little bit intense Bible college theology here. So the hypostatic union basically means, this is what the church has believed for centuries. This was the the falling out hypostatic union is that Christ is fully God and fully man joined in one person.

Colleen: OK, ok.

Hannah: That's the hyp ostatic union. Nestorian said no, he can't be both. He's either fully man or he's fully God. He cannot be both of those things.

Colleen: That would be a bit of a problem.

Hannah: And so the church goes, no, no, no, no, you're out. When Nestorian leaves, he takes a big branch of the church with him, which calls itself the Church of the East.

Colleen: OK.

Hannah: We're going to jump forward several hundred years.

Colleen: Before before we jump forward, though, he is essentially kicked out of what was at that time you were calling the great church?

Hannah: The great church.

Colleen: And he and his followers who are where?

Hannah: Middle Eastern, primarily.

Colleen: Middle Eastern and Central Asia.

Hannah: Yeah.

Colleen: OK. They all decide to follow Nestorius. And the people who were still at the Council of Ephesus create what became the Roman Catholic Church down the road.

Hannah: I mean, both the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Colleen: So that's still it's pre- Great Church.

Hannah: The great church is what it's known as. Yes. OK, so you have the Great Church. It goes on splits in a Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, splits into Protestant, Roman Catholic, Protestants do all kinds of things. And thus church history is born. So this is like really the big the first big… hmmm problem. OK, I just want to get this out of the way now because it doesn't fit in the rest of my timeline. This issue with Nestorias turns out big miscommunication and possibly some language barriers, possibly some letters lost in transit. He didn't really believe that the hypostatic union wasn't true.

Colleen: So in some ways, he was kicked out for something that maybe he didn't actually believe.

Hannah: Right.

Colleen: But enough hurt feelings, enough problems, and probably break is real.

Hannah: Probably politics are probably involved in there somewhere as of 1992…

Colleen: Oh!

Hannah: So centuries later…

Colleen: Indeed!

Hannah: Pope John Paul, the second and patriarch Dinka the fourth, got back together and said, hey, there was a miscommunication. Sorry that happened. Are we cool? And they are! So Nestorius is no longer really considered a heretic by the Roman Catholic Church.

Colleen: Oh, so it's a joining rather than a splitting. That's new!

Hannah: The Church of the East, as has been taken off of the Catholic bad list. They're friends again.

Colleen: They're friends again.

Hannah: So, you know, it only took multiple centuries for them to be all right with each other

Colleen: Several hundred years later.

Hannah: Hoooee! OK, so let's talk about the C hurch of the East. The Church of the East is not Eastern Orthodoxy. The Church of the East splits before Eastern Orthodoxy does. And according to church history and I think even the Roman Catholic Church would agree with this at this point. It has its roots, was begun by the apostle Thomas in the 1st century. You remember…

Colleen: Wasn't he the one who went to India, theoretically?

Hannah: Yeah. He gets there eventually. He starts out by going up from Palestine, that area up into Iraq, which is why we're talking about the Chaldean Church, because it's in Iraq. He goes up into Iraq, specifically into the Mosul, Nineveh area, makes a couple of disciples plants to church, then moves on. So Saint Thomas's church planting spreads from there all the way across into India and even into China. He makes his way east pretty rapidly. We're not going to talk about all of that, except to say that there are some St. Thomas churches still in India. The ones in China and farther kind of got wiped out. And the ones in India, held on for a while. Well, still, and they kind of fall in the same category as the Chaldean Church does.

Colleen: OK.

Hannah: We'll get there. So, yes, he moves. He keeps moving east. It expanded in the sixth century. So they sent missionaries from that central Mosul area out and grew the church pretty big actually in the sixth century. It went from the Mediterranean Sea across Central Asia into India and China, like we just said.

Colleen: Yeah, I remember reading something about in China, this pillar from I think that time period, with a bunch of, like, biblical writings on it. And everyone's like, this is old. How did this get to be here so long ago?

Hannah: Well, there were believers in China at that time. And then there's a decline in the church, specifically in the Middle East. In part, there's I don't know if you've ever heard of the Mongol horde.

Colleen: Mm hmm.

Hannah: They come through and wipe a lot of things out.

Colleen: Yeah.

Hannah: They're bad news, for a lot of people.

Colleen: Yes.

Hannah: But specifically in the Middle East, you start to have the rise of the Ottoman Empire. And there is specifically a ruler named Timur.

Colleen: OK.

Hannah: Have you heard of Timur before?

Colleen: No.

Hannah: He's apparently fairly famous Turkish. He's Turko Mongol. So you Turks and Mongols together in one person. I imagine he's very fighty. So he does a lot to diminish the church. It stays pretty strong in Mosul, in the Nineveh area. They stay very faithful. They're pretty well established. They're not going anywhere. So that's the 14th century. OK, in 1552, there is a three way split.

Colleen: Ooooh.

Hannah: It really is more of a two way split. And then one of those two branches also splits in half, later. This is where it gets complicated. Everything up to now has been easy.

Colleen: Yeah, well, once you start splitting into more than two parts, it gets a little more complicated.

Hannah: It's true. So we're still the Church of the East, still got the Church of the East. We're going to split now. They call it the schism of 1552, we already used the word schism. So I'm going to call it a split. And we split off into a couple of different things. Here's why: up to this point, the patriarchy of the church so kind of like their version of the pope has been hereditary.

Colleen: Oh. Rather than appointed or elected or anything like that.

Hannah: But because they hold the same ideas of celibacy in their priesthood, it's not passed father son, because they don't have father son.

Colleen: Oh. They don't have father son.

Hannah: It's past uncle nephew.

Colleen: Really. That's interesting. I don't think I've ever heard of anybody doing it that way.

Hannah: I know! My mind was blown.

Colleen: What if your brothers don't have kids or what if you don't have brothers or sisters or you'd like wow!

Hannah: This is the problem that they ran into because it gets passed down this way. They ran out of eligible heirs to the patriarchy, because it started to be that like you had your patriarch. But his oldest nephew was 11 years old, but he's about to die. Do you put an 11 year old in charge of the whole church? That don't seem right.

Colleen: Yeah, that kind of makes the whole system fall apart a bit, doesn't it?

Hannah: OK, and that's what happens to (I'm going to butcher this name, but please stay with me). There are a lot of complicated names. Shem'on the 7th. OK, that's kind of his title. Kind of like Pope John Paul the second. It's not his real name. So Shem'on the 7th is known as Isho'yahb.

Colleen: All right.

Hannah: He made two controversial appointments for his heirs. You're going to understand why.

Colleen: You're seeing the confused look on my face. I'm like, wait a second, two?

Hannah: You can't have two, OK? First, he appoints his 12 year old nephew.

Colleen: Which, you know, maybe traditional, but like, is problematic, because he's 12.

Hannah: Right. Everybody kind of goes he is 12. Not to be unfeeling about this, but the problem is solved because the 12 year old nephew dies.

Colleen: Hmm.

Hannah: So the heir dies.

Colleen: Was he assassinated?

Hannah: I don't know. There are not really clear records, probably disease.

Colleen: OK, I mean, a lot of people died then of diseases.

Hannah: So he then appoints his 15 year old nephew, whose name is Eliya.

Colleen: Why didn't you point the 15 year old nephew to begin with?

Hannah: Maybe he's a little further away. Maybe it's his sister's son instead of his brother's son.

Colleen: All right.

Hannah: I don't really know. It's the next best nephew. Maybe he liked him less.

Colleen: I mean, 15 year olds can be a little trying.

Hannah: Sure. And 12 year olds can't be?

Colleen: No, 12 year, 12 year olds can be, too.

Colleen: If you listen to our podcast for a while, you know that Hannah and I both raise support, as does our ministry. If you would like to help out with any of that, please head over to ServantGroup.org/donate and you can give! Thanks.

Hannah: So now we have Eliya, you know, remember the name Eliya… who becomes known as Patriarch Eliya and he's either the sixth one or the seventh one. It depends on how you count the Eliya's.

Colleen: OK, but I feel like counting should be pretty straightforward: one, two, three…

Hannah: It should be, but like there are some like was this guy really known as Eliya? Was he known as something else? This guy was only there for like a year. Do we really count him?

Colleen: So Patriarch Eliya, the sixth or seventh.

Hannah: We're going to call him the seventh because we hate to leave anyone out.

Hannah: OK, Patrick Eliya the 7th and he began the Eliya line of patriarchs.

Colleen: So he got all of his nephews to be named Eliya? So that they could be more Eliyas?

Hannah: All of the subsequent patriarchs after him in that line aren't necessarily… mmm. They are named after him. That's their title. Instead of Shem'on the 7th, we get Eliya the 8th.

Colleen: All right.

Hannah: The seat of that line of power is in Al Qosh.

Colleen: OK!

Hannah: You've been to Al Qosh.

Colleen: I've been to Al Qosh! Lots of times!

Hannah: I've been to Al Qosh. What's the big thing in Al Qosh that we go to?

Colleen: The monastery.

Hannah: Yeah. That monastery has been there since the?

Colleen: Six hundreds? Or 5th century?

Hannah: Mm hmm. Yeah. Really early on.

Colleen: Or four hundred?

Hannah: Yeah. It's been there for a long way,

Colleen: Like way, way, way back.

Hannah: Long time. Yeah. It's kind of always been the seat of some of the power. It's yeah. It's like the school for the priests that then go out. There are a lot of Christian towns. This is one of those bunny trails that I got on we're gonna have to do a whole separate episode on Christian towns in Iraq because it's very interesting. But we don't have time because it's not about church history, it's just about history, history.

Colleen: OK!

Hannah: OK, so both of these appointments, the 12 year old who died, the 15 year old who did not die, made him really unpopular.

Colleen: Right.

Hannah: People were like, they're young.

Colleen: They're young. They can't leave the church.

Hannah: Right. We don't want them to be in charge. And then in addition to this, Shem'on the seventh also got accused of allowing his priests to have concubines.

Colleen: All right. Problem if celibacy is your key.

Hannah: He sold clerical posts. So like, you couldn't necessarily earn the place that you wanted, you had to buy it.

Colleen: Money, money,

Hannah: It's a little bit of corruption. And then the other thing he was accused of, which is vague, is living intemperately.

Colleen: Oh.

Hannah: I suppose we're allowed to leave that open to interpretation.

Colleen: But perhaps alcohol, concubines…

Hannah: Big feasts… not really being the leader…

Colleen: Loud music late at night….

Hannah: Yeah, not being the leader that he should be. I'm sure he had a rock and roll band,

Colleen: Right. Electric guitar and all.

Hannah: Electric guitar and all. Yes. So people are upset. They don't like theEliya line. They don't like Shem'on the seventh.

Colleen: They don't trust his judgment.

Hannah: And so three of the Christian districts rebel against this appointment and they say, forget it, we don't want him in leadership. Instead, we want this monk from Al Q osh, which is the patriarchal seat. He is going to be the new patriarch. And they named him Shimun, not Shem'on. Shimun the eighth.

Colleen: OK, were there other Shimuns?

Hannah: Apparently so. But his name is Yohanna Sulaqa. So he, Shimun the eighth, starts the Shimun line.

Colleen: So now we've got the Shimun line separate from the Eliya line.

Hannah: So they say, we want this guy. He's going to be our patriarch. Forget you Eliya line, get out of our face.

Colleen: OK.

Hannah: They run into this problem. There is no bishop of appropriate rank who was available to consecrate Shimun the 8th as patriarch. So he couldn't be patriarch because he couldn't be consecrated into that place? Probably because all the bishops were like, no, we're going to stick with the Eliya line. That seems the right thing to do.

Colleen: OK, I feel like this is something they should have planned for.

Hannah: Yeah. I mean, people do a lot of things in anger that are not well planned out.

Colleen: This is true.

Hannah: So in addition to all of these church of these people, there are some Franciscan monks.

Colleen: From the Roman Catholic Church?

Hannah: Yeah, and these Franciscan monks who have been working to try to convert all of these people back to Catholicism.

Colleen: Right.

Hannah: They go, we have a solution for you.

Colleen: Uh huh?

Hannah: You want him to be consecrated?

Colleen: Sure. Yeah.

Hannah: Send him to Rome. Pope Julius the third will consecrate him. You get consecrated by the pope. That means that, like, you really are in charge.

Colleen: There you go.

Hannah: Sulaqa travels to Rome, which is a big trip from Mosul to Rome.

Colleen: True.

Hannah: In the fifteen fifties.

Colleen: Right.

Hannah: He meets with Pope Julius, the third. Pope Julius the third goes, you seem like a really great Catholic, I'm going to consecrate you as the patriarch of Mosul. Which means that according to the Catholic Church, he is the spiritual head of the Mosul region of northern Iraq at this point. So that happens in 1553. So it takes him about a year from the rebellion to getting consecrated by the pope.

Colleen: All right. That's a long time to have your whole church in limbo, but OK.

Hannah: It is. But you got to do what you gotta do. This consecration causes a permanent break between the Catholic Church and the Church of the East.

Colleen: Because the people who got consecrated are no longer considered part of the Church of the East, they are considered Roman Catholic,

Hannah: Sort of. The church of the East would consider them Roman Catholic at this point. OK, so the Church of the East keeps going Church of the East. This new Catholickly Church of the East branch says we're not really Roman Catholic and we're going to get into why they're not really Roman Catholic. We're not Church of the East. We are the Chaldean Church. Let me take a little moment to explain. Chaldean does not indicate their ethnicity. Chaldean is an ethnicity-- ancient people group.

Colleen: Right. But Babylonians and Chaldeans from Scripture.

Hannah: Right. But the Chaldean Catholics aren't necessarily from that ethnic background. It's just the name that the Roman Catholic Church gave them to distinguish them from the Church of the East.

Colleen: Because they're not Roman…

Hannah: Because they're not Roman, they're not Church of the East. Iraq as a country didn't exist at that point. So they're like, well, you're an Chaldean Babylonian. We don't really want to call you the Babylonian church. That's sketchy. We'll call you Chaldean, OK? Not not a not an ethnic name at that point.

Colleen: Right.

Hannah: Even now, I would say not really ethnic. OK, it's a church tradition for sure, and we'll get back into like there's some mingling that happens. We have the Chaldean Church, Church of the East, Roman Catholic Church.

Colleen: Right.

Hannah: We have the Eliya line and the Shimun line. We got to go back to Salaqa because he…

Colleen: Took the trip to Rome and back.

Hannah: He takes the trip to Rome. He also gets recognized by the Ottoman Empire as an independent Chaldean patriarch. OK, and this is kind of important because the Ottoman Empire recognized the Church of the East as kind of "people of the book" sort of thing. They were protected under the Ottoman Empire from persecution somewhat, somewhat. So in order for the Chaldean Church to also be considered legitimate, they need to be recognized by the Ottoman Empire. I suspect the Pope, Julius, kind of leans on the Ottoman Empire a little bit and is like, hey, recognize this guy, because I recognized him. Or the Ottoman Empire went, we want to keep the Roman Catholics happy so they leave us alone. So we're going to recognize this new Chaldean patriarch and the Ottoman Empire is the empire in control of northern Iraq at this point?

Colleen: Right.

Hannah: OK, Salaqa returns to Mosul and starts appointing bishops in the Chaldean church because he doesn't want to run into this problem again, where whoever he appoints to take over from him can't be consecrated.

Colleen: Right. So it sounds like maybe he's trying to set up things to be sustainable and continue.

Hannah: Right. Yeah, absolutely. Not everyone obviously is on board with the Chaldean Church.

Colleen: No, of course not.

Hannah: A lot of anger. So Salaqa gets invited to Amedi.

Colleen: Also a place I've been! A beautiful kind of tabletop city, ancient old gates and roads and like, beautiful,.

Hannah: Historically Christian village. OK, so he gets invited to Amedi by the governor of Amedi, who puts him in prison.

Colleen: What!??

Hannah: And then puts him to death in 1555.

Colleen: What??! The dude's only been in power for like two years.

Hannah: Yep. Because surprise the Amedi government supported the Eliya line not the Shimun line and considered Salaqa a heretic.

Colleen: Why did he go?

Hannah: Probably because the governor was like, so come and tell me about this new church. Let's let's dialogue about this.

Colleen: Uh huh. Sneaky!

Hannah: I will say. There is some debate about what actually happened at Amedi.

Colleen: OK, there's always two sides to every story.

Hannah: There are always two sides to every story. The Chaldean Church is going to stick with "the Salaqa was assassinated", and the Church of the East is going to be like "I mean, he just came in and died and he just happened to die while he was there." Or perhaps he committed a crime. And that's why. We'll never know. There's not really a good counter story.

Colleen: Yeah.

Hannah: Which happens. But he had set up a successor whose name was Abdisho the fourth.

Colleen: Was he related? Was he a nephew?

Hannah: No. That was the whole thing was they wanted the hereditary line thing to be done.

Colleen: I think… I mean, it sounds kind of like a good plan, although it does leave things more open to potential conflict.

Hannah: It does. Which happens.

Colleen: Oh, no kidding!!

Hannah: Wait to see the future past.

Colleen: I mean, I feel like history repeats itself, all of these things.

Hannah: It does. OK, so we got the two the two lines.

Colleen: Eliya, Shimun.

Hannah: Yeah. The Church of the East, the Chaldean Church. OK, in 1672-- so one hundred and twent- ish years later the Chaldean Church has kind of wandered away from the Roman Catholic Church.

Colleen: Right.

Hannah: Like they've kind of gotten out of touch with them, kind of said you don't really need you anymore.

Colleen: We just needed you to consecrate us that one time. And now we got it, right?

Hannah: We don't want to follow your leadership anymore. OK, so that's Shimun the 13th that does that. OK, in the Shimun line, his name is Dinka. He, in 1672, renounced his realm entirely and says we don't need Rome anymore. We are our own church. We're not going to follow you. And this branch officially becomes known as the Assyrian Church of the East, but not until 1972.

Colleen: OK,

Hannah: Three hundred years later. So now you have a Church of the East, no Roman Catholic connection at all. Chaldean Church still wants to be associated with Rome. And then the Assyrian Church of the East who was associated with Rome and then said, no, forget it, we're done.

Colleen: OK, so this is kind of our second little split here.

Hannah: Right. But that's the Shimun line. So you have the Eliya line, that is the Church of the East, the Shimunn line starts the Chaldean Church and then splits off into the Assyrian church.

Colleen: Right.

Hannah: But then the little stays with the Chaldean Church and the Catholic Church is known as the Josephite line.

Colleen: OK!

Hannah: Because it was led by Joseph the first and he stayed with Rome, continued to carry on the Chaldean Church traditions.

Colleen: Are all three of these still based out of, like Al Qosh and Mosul?

Hannah: Yeah, all out of northern Iraq.

Colleen: So complicated and difficult.

Hannah: The Chaldean church would claim Mosul as their seat, but probably most of their power comes from Al Qosh.

Colleen: OK, I mean, Al Qosh is very close to Mosul.

Hannah: Right. And we'll find out a little bit more what happens to the Church of the East Line in the next episode.

Colleen: Next episode!

Hannah: Dun dun dun.

Colleen: We'd love to hear from you! You can find us at Servant Group International on Facebook or Instagram, and you should check out our blog and complete transcripts over at servantgroup.org.

Hannah: And it's really helpful for us if you share our podcast or leave a review on whatever platform you listen to this podcast on, it helps us know that people are listening and you can let us know what you want to hear next.

Both: Thanks for listening.