Aprim Athniel

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Aprim Athniel ( Syrian ܡܪܝ ܐܦܪܝܡ ܢܬܢܝܐܝܠ), Afram Athnil or Afram Athneil ( Arabic أفرام أثنيل; * December 8, 1963 in al-Hasakah ) is a Syrian priest of the Assyrian Church of the East and since October 3, 1999 Bishop of the Diocese of Syria in the Cathedral of Our Lady of al-Hasakah.

Life

Aprim Athniel was born on December 8, 1963 in al-Hasakah , Syria . He became a deacon on October 18, 1992, and was ordained a priest on November 8, 1992. On October 3, 1999, he was ordained a bishop in the new Assyrian Cathedral of Our Lady in al-Hasakah by the Chicago- based Catholicos Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV and was ordained as the Assyrian Bishop of Syria by Mar Dinkha IV al-Hasakah introduced.

When Daesh (IS) overran all the villages of the Chabur Assyrians at the end of February 2015 , the Assyrian cathedral of al-Hasakah became the port of call for the Assyrian refugees. In a letter to Daesh, Aprim Athniel made it clear that the Assyrian Church of the East was not affiliated with any armed party in the civil war in Syria and that the Christians had no relationship with a “culture of arms”. The Assyrian Sutoro militias formed to defend against Daesh never received support from the church. Assyrians who went to war as soldiers would do so as citizens, but never on behalf of the Church. These statements differ significantly from what the Assyrian Church stood for exactly 100 years earlier when Patriarch Mar Benyamin Shimun XXI. declared war on the Ottoman Empire on May 1, 1915. Bishop Aprim Athniel collected donations for ransom money in the Assyrian congregation locally and worldwide, with which he bought Assyrians kidnapped by Daesh free and thus saved their lives. The ransom of the hostages led to an investigation by the UK's National Terrorism Financial Investigation Unit (NTFIU) in 2019 into whether donations to the Assyrian Church of the East were used to finance Daesh terrorism. Aprim Athniel's representative in southern England, Andy Darmoo, replied that the donations were not used as ransom money, but to support Assyrians in Iraq when the hostages were already free.

The Daesh succeeded in persuading the majority of Christians from Chabur to flee abroad through its terror. A comparison of the various Christian communities in al-Hasakah shows that the Assyrian community led by Aprim Athniel is even more affected by the mass exodus than the other Christian communities in al-Hasakah. While they lost roughly 60% of their members from 2010 to 2019, the number of Assyrian Christians in both the diocese and in the city of al-Hasakah fell by over 90% as a result of the war.

On November 21 and 22, 2019, Bishop Aprim Athniel took part in a joint meeting of a commission with the Roman Catholic Church for theological dialogue in Rome as part of a delegation from the Assyrian Church of the East .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Aprim Athniel. Orthodoxia.ch, accessed on June 23, 2020.
  2. ^ Pope Francis prays for new Assyrian Christian leader amid Middle East tragedy. Catholic news Agency (CNA), Sept. 21, 2015.
  3. ^ Assyrian Bishop writes to the jihadists: our Church does not identify itself with any armed group. Agenzia Fides, March 20, 2015.
  4. ↑ أفرام أثنيل(Afram Athnil): بيان توضيحي من مطرانية كنيسة المشرق الآشورية في سوريا [Declaration by the Diocese of the Assyrian Church of the East in Syria], March 20, 2015.
  5. ↑ Shabo Talay (2008): The New Aramaic Dialects of the Khabur Assyrians in Northeast Syria: Introduction, Phonology and Morphology , pp. 10-17.
  6. ↑ Lori Hinnant: The Syrian bishop who saved 226 Christian hostages from Isis. Assyrian Christian Mar Afram Athneil raises millions of dollars to pay ransom. The Independent, December 6, 2016.
  7. ^ Gaja Pellegrini-Bettoli: Assyrian Christian woman shares story of captivity by Islamic State. In this interview with Al-Monitor, a Christian Assyrian woman recounts her experience of being kidnapped by Islamic State militants. Al-Monitor, July 30, 2015.
  8. ↑ Jamie Prentis: UK terror police investigate if Christian charity paid ransom to ISIS The National, July 14, 2019.
  9. ↑ Otmar Oehring: On the situation and perspectives of Christians in north and north-east Syria. Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Berlin 2019. p. 84.
  10. ↑ Joint Commission for Dialogue Between the Catholic Church Tehological and the Assyrian Church of the East. Assyrian Church, November 25, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Aprim Athniel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Afram Athnil; Afram Athneil
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Syrian Bishop of the Assyrian Church of the East
DATE OF BIRTH December 8, 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH al-Hasakah