AUGUST 2023

COVER STORY
Left: His Beatitude Mar Louis Raphaël Sako,
patriarch of Iraq’s Chaldean Catholic church,
moments before his enthroning ceremony at St.
Joseph’s Church in central Baghdad, Iraq, in 2013.
Below: Open letter to the Iraqi president.
Fight or Flight
The War Over the Faithful in Iraq
BY SARAH KITTLE
It was mid-July when Iraqi President Abdul Latif
Rashid revoked a decree that gave state recognition
to His Beatitude Mar Louis Raphaël
Sako, the Patriarch of the Chaldean Church. The
decree had given recognition to the patriarch’s appointment
by the Holy See as head of the Chaldean
Church “in Iraq and the world” and thus, “responsible
for the assets of the Church.” Why did Rashid
do that, and what does it mean for Iraq’s dwindling
Christian population?
The Synod of Bishops of the Chaldean Catholic
Church elected Mar Sako to succeed Mar Emmanuel
III Delly as Patriarch of Babylon in February 2013.
Pope Benedict XVI gave his assent to the election
and granted him ecclesiastical communion as required
by the canon law for Eastern-rite Catholic
churches in recognition of their union with the
wider Catholic Church. That same year, Iraq’s thenpresident
Jalal Talabani issued a decree giving state
recognition to Mar Sako as Patriarch of the Chaldean
Church.
PHOTO BY KARIM KADIM/AP
The Revocation
On July 15 of this year, Iraq’s President Abdul Latif
Rashid announced the revocation of the government’s
2013 decree formally recognizing Mar Sako
as Patriarch. Rashid claimed that the decision to
revoke the decree was made to correct a constitutional
error; he says as president, he has no right to
appoint or recognize religious leaders. According to
the press office of the Chaldean Patriarchate, such
proclamations have been issued since Ottoman
times and are still very common ways of recognizing
the legitimacy of the leadership of minority religions
in the region today.
Rashid claims that his revocation does not
change Sako’s status as patriarch since he was duly
elected by the Chaldean Synod and confirmed by
Pope Francis. He further stated his decision was because
the Patriarch’s office is not recognized by the
Iraqi Constitution.
Rashid had recently rejected requests for comparable
decrees from the Patriarchs of the Assyrian
Church and the Old Assyrian Church; notably, these
would be new decrees as opposed to the decade-old
decree that was revoked.
Mar Sako, who has been outspoken about the
Iraqi government’s failure to protect its Christian
population, viewed the revocation as an extension
of the government’s ongoing “deliberate and humiliating
campaign” against him. Others cited complex
political maneuvering within the Iraqi government
and through the leader of the Babylon Movement.
Patriarch Mar Sako emphatically defends his
right as patriarch to administer the affairs of his
community and to have full state recognition.
In a letter to the Iraqi president, His Beatitude said
that he is appealing the decree’s revocation to Iraq’s
judiciary and wrote to Rashid, “I believe the legal advice
that was given to Your Excellency is incorrect and
it wanted to undermine your stature
and the Christian component.”
In response to the revocation,
which Sako the Patriarch called
“unprecedented in the history of
Iraq,” he announced he was leaving
Baghdad to take up residence
in Iraqi Kurdistan. In his statement,
the Patriarch condemned the government’s
silence over what he
described as a campaign against
him. He has “decided to withdraw
from the seat of the patriarchate in
Baghdad,” the statement said, and
would instead settle at one of the
monasteries in Kurdistan, where he
will continue to lead the Chaldean
Catholic Church.
The Faithful’s Response
In a statement issued July 15, Mar
Sako called the president’s action
— which calls into question his
ability to control Church assets in
the country — “unprecedented”
and “unfair.”
20 CHALDEAN NEWS AUGUST 2023