Dinkha IV.

Catholicos Dinkha IV (2008)

Mar Dinkha IV. Khanania, Arabic مار دنخا, DMG Mār Dinchā , Syriac ܡܪܝ ܕܢܚܐ ܪܒܝܥܝܐ(Born September 15, 1935 in Derbenduk (Darbandoki), Iraq ; † March 26, 2015 in Rochester , Minnesota ) was a Catholicos - Patriarch of the "Holy Catholic Apostolic Assyrian Church of the East" .

Life

Mar Dinkha IV (baptismal name Khanania) was the son of Andreas Soro (1907-1999) and his wife Panna († 1968), descendant of a family of 17 bishops of his church by inheritance (uncle - nephew), most recently his in Urmia (Iran) active great-uncle, the martyr bishop Mar Dinkha von Tis († February 23, 1915 near Urmia). He belonged to the Assyrian Nochiya tribe .

Khanania was prepared in the traditional way for the assumption of the episcopate (mother renouncing meat during pregnancy, vegetarian diet from youth). He learned from 1947 with Mar Yosip Khnanisho (1914-1977), the metropolitan and representative of the Catholicos Patriarch in Iraq, was ordained a deacon in Harir in 1949 , a priest in 1957 and worked from 1958 as a pastor in Abadan (Iran) and Tehran . At the suggestion of his congregation, Catholicos patriarch Shimun XXIII consecrated him there . († November 6, 1975) on February 11, 1962 to the Metropolitan of Tehran and all of Iran, the first in Iran since the First World War . On October 17, 1976, he was enthroned as Shimun's successor by six (including two controversial Italian) bishops or bishops representatives in the Anglican Barnabas Church in Ealing near London . The head of the electoral synod and main consecrator was Metropolitan Mar Timothy of Malabar and India († August 6, 2001). Mar Dinkha IV was considered to be the 120th holder of the cathedra of Seleukia-Ctesiphon ("Babylon"). Initially residing in Tehran, he has been based in the USA since 1984.

In Mar Addai II he had an opposing patriarch in Iraq, represented in Germany by Timotheus Mar Shallita .

Act

Through visits to the Soviet Union in 1981 and 1988, Mar Dinkha IV ended the isolation of the Assyrian community there from the mother church which had been ongoing since 1920.

On November 11, 1994, Catholicos Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV and the Roman Catholic Pope John Paul II signed a joint declaration on Christology , which establishes the unity of both churches in faith in Christ.

In November 1995 Mar Dinkha IV. After three decades, the 1964 through the disputes between Mar Thomas Darmo and Catholicos-Patriarch Shimun XXIII. end the split in the Assyrian Church in India. Attempts to reach an agreement with the rival Catholicos patriarch Addai II were unsuccessful until his death.

In the winter of 2005/2006, Mar Dinkha IV fell out with his “ecumenical bishop” Mar Bawai Soro (civil Ashur Soro) and removed him from the office of bishop. Mar Bawai Soro and his followers joined the Chaldean Catholic Sister Church in 2008 . The long-term consequences of the disputes are currently uncertain.

literature

• Mar Aprem: Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV. The Man and his Message . Mar Narsai Press, Trichur, Kerala, India, 2004. ISBN 81-902205-0-0 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Holy Synod Announcement: Passing of Catholicos- Patriarch ( Memento of October 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive )

predecessor	Office	successor
Shimun XXIII.	Catholicos of the Assyrian Church of the East 1976–2015	Gewargis III.