Joseph Audo

Patriarch Joseph VI. Audo (photo from a picture collection of the council members 1870)

Joseph Audo (also Audu or Oddo ) (* 1790 in Alqosh , † March 14, 1878 in Mosul ) was named Joseph VI. Audo Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldean Catholic Church .

Life

In 1814 he entered the monastery of Rabban Hormizd near Alqosh as a monk and was ordained a priest there . On March 25, 1825, the patriarchal administrator Augustinus Hindi donated him in competition with Yohannan VIII Hormizd the episcopal ordination for the Chaldean eparchy Mosul . From 1833 to 1847 he held the office of Metropolitan of Amadiyah . After the resignation of Patriarch Nikolaus Zaya he was enthroned on July 28, 1847 as his successor and on September 11, 1848 by Pope Pius IX. confirmed as the new "Patriarch of Babylon".

Competing jurisdictions

At the beginning of the 19th century there were two jurisdictions within the Chaldean Catholic Church. On one side stood the “Patriarchate of Diyarbakir ” of the “Joseph Line”, headed by the patriarchal administrator Augustinus Hindi , supported by the Rabban Hormizd monastery. On the other side stood the traditional Patriarchate of Babylon ("Elijah Line"), whose Catholic wing was directed by Yohannan Hormizd , first as Patriarchal Administrator and finally as "Patriarch of Babylon". Joseph Audo was a follower of Augustine Hindi ("Patriarch Joseph V"), for a long time opponent of Yohannan Hormizd and was one of the critics of his successor Nikolaus Zaya, who was appointed by Rome . When Nikolaus Zaya resigned from the patriarchal office, Rome appointed Joseph Audo as his successor.

Joseph Audo as patriarch

Under the new patriarch, the Chaldean Catholic Church experienced an upswing in terms of both personnel and organization. Audo improved the training of priests and with the financial help of the Vatican was able to set up a seminary in the Notre Dame monastery near Alqosh and a Syrian-Chaldean seminary in Mosul.

At the First Vatican Council from 1869 to 1870 Patriarch Joseph VI counted. Audo, like almost all Eastern Church participants, to the council minority, which rejected the dogmatization of infallibility and the primacy of jurisdiction of the Roman pope. It was not until 1877 that Joseph Audo made a declaration of loyalty to the Holy See .

The conflict with Rome over India

The Catholic Thomas Christians of the East Syrian rite were subordinate to all Latin ordinaries in the 19th century, either to the Portuguese Padroado Bishops in Cochin or to the Apostolic (= papal) administrators in Verapoly . But some of them had been trying for a long time to appoint a bishop of eastern church origin. The Chaldean patriarch Yōhannan Hormizd sent them several Chaldean Catholic priests as early as the 1820s.

As patriarch in the succession of the early church Catholic of Seleukia-Ctesiphon , Joseph Audo saw himself as the head of all Catholics of the East Syrian rite . In 1861 he sent the Chaldean bishop Thoma Rocos to India, without consulting Rome, in order to reconnect the local Syro-Malabar Thomas Christians , who originally belonged to the same rite but did not have bishops of their own rite, with the historical mother church and to reunite them to assist against the increased Latinization by the responsible Vicar Apostolic Bernardine Baccinelli . As a result, most of the Syro-Malabars left Bishop Baccinelli and submitted to the Chaldean Bishop Rocos. Of 154 parishes, only 38 remained loyal to ecclesiastical authority, which was legitimate from the Roman point of view. Its spokesman, the respected religious priest Kuriakose Elias Chavara , requested and received support from Pope Pius IX. with a letter of September 5, 1861. Chavara stood behind the Roman instructions and submitted to Baccinelli, who appointed him vicar general with special powers for the Syro-Malabar communities. Bishop Rocos, ordered back by Patriarch Joseph Audo by order of the Pope, returned to Mosul in 1862, whereupon the schism largely disappeared. The remaining minority received through the Assyrian Catholicos Shimun XX. with the Indian Mar Abdisho Thondanatta a local bishop, who was not well received by the Catholic Thomas Christians because of his non-Catholic episcopal ordination. The Roman Congregation for the Dissemination of the Faith decided in 1865 against the claims of the Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon to jurisdiction over the Indian members of his rite.

In his encyclical Quae in patriarchatu , Pope Pius IX. 1872 dealt extensively with the Indian jurisdiction controversies. Joseph Audo initially insisted on his positions; he also refused to ordain candidates nominated by Rome for the Chaldean Catholic Church without his consent, and it took years to change his attitude. In 1874 Audo sent another bishop, this time Elias Mellus , to India, who was active on site from 1874 to 1882 and established a friendly agreement with Mar Abdisho Thondanatta. Bishop Mellus, who was ordered back to Mesopotamia, did not submit to Rome until 1889 and received in 1893, under Pope Leo XIII. , the Chaldean Catholic Diocese of Mardin in Turkey. Some of his Indian followers - called Mellusians - did not follow him, but gathered around Mar Abdisho Thondanatta († 1900). In 1907/08 he received a successor in Mar Abimalek Timotheus who formed the Indian metropolis of the autocephalous Assyrian Church of the East from this group , known locally as the "Chaldean Syrian Church". Their Metropolitan Thomas Darmo (1903-1969) settled in 1968 in Iraq as the counter-patriarch of Catholicos Shimun XXIII. order and founded the old calendar Old Church of the East , which is still independent today . Since then, however, your Indian metropolis has reunited with the general "Assyrian Church of the East". The Catholic Syro-Malabars acquired local bishops in the 20th century and today, under a major archbishop, form an independent (“sui juris”) church in community with the Roman Pope.

Others

The Patriarch Joseph Audo's nephew Thomas Audo (1855-1918) was a well-known Semitist and Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Urmia , his brother Israel Audo (1859-1941) Archbishop of Mardin .

Web links

• Entry on Joseph Audo on catholic-hierarchy.org ; accessed on August 16, 2016.
• Patriarchal See of Babylon, in: Giga-Catholic Information

Individual evidence

1. ↑ On Bishop Thomas Rocos or Rokos

predecessor	Office	successor
Nikolaus Zaya	Patriarch of Babylon 1848–1878	Eliyya XIV. Abbo-Alyonan