Mar Zaya Cathedral

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The Cathedral of Saint Zaya or Mar Zaya ( Arabic كاتدرائية مار زياor Arabic كنيسة مار زيا) was a church in the Iraqi capital Baghdad in the Karradat Maryam district that was consecrated in 1959 and demolished in 1985. Built as the cathedral of the Diocese of Baghdad of the Assyrian Church of the East , it was occupied by the Old Church of the East in 1968 after the Assyrian schism and used as their patriarchal cathedral . Shortly before its demolition, the new Patriarchal Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary opened in the east of the Karrada district . As a replacement for the destroyed church, a new Mar-Zaya church was built in the Dora district in the 1980s .

Location

The church was located in the Karradat Maryam district within the al-Karch district on the west side of the Tigris , directly north of its great loop in Baghdad and north across the Karrada district on the other side of the river. Under Saddam Hussein , government buildings were erected here after being demolished in the 1980s, and today it is the so-called Green Zone .

history

In contrast to the Catholic Chaldeans , who had constituted themselves through a schism of the Assyrians in the 16th century and were now united with Rome, the Assyrian Church of the East was practically no longer present in Baghdad at the beginning of the 20th century. This changed with the genocide of the Syrian Christians in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War , when tens of thousands of Assyrians came to what is now Iraq through mass exodus - the members of the Assyrian Church in particular from the Hakkâri region .

In the Karradat Maryam district on the west bank of the Tigris, the Assyrians of Baghdad built their new main church in the 1950s, which was consecrated in 1959. In 1964 there was another schism among the Assyrians in Baghdad: the patriarch Shimun XXIII, who lived in Chicago . The proposed reforms, including the adoption of the Gregorian calendar , were rejected by some of the Assyrians living in Iraq, and Mar Thomas Darmo , Metropolitan of the Church of the East in India based in Thrissur , opposed the reforms. In 1968 Thomas Darmo was elected as the opposing patriarch, who in contrast to Shimun XXIII. chose Baghdad as the patriarchal seat. Shortly after General Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr became president of Iraq through a coup on July 17, 1968, he sent police units in Baghdad to occupy several Assyrian churches in the city - against the violent protests of the Assyrian Church of the East - and them the Old Church of the East to be handed over to the Patriarch Thomas Darmo, including the Mar-Zaya Cathedral, which has now become the patriarchal seat of the Old Church of the East. After his death in 1969, Mar Thoma Darmo was buried in the Mar-Zaya Cathedral.

In the 1980s, Saddam Hussein's government completely redesigned the Karradat Maryam area to create a new government district. Church land was also expropriated for this purpose. The Mar Zaya Cathedral, the largest Assyrian church in Baghdad, was destroyed in early 1985. In the meantime, however, the Old Church of the East had already started construction of the new Patriarchal Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary , which was consecrated in 1984. As compensation for the destroyed church, the Old Church of the East in the Dora district received a replacement plot of land, where a new Mar-Zaya church was built in the 1980s . This became orphaned by the al-Qaida terror in the years from 2003 and the subsequent exodus of Christians. For the first time in a long time, a service took place on January 6, 2010.

architecture

The Mar-Zaya Cathedral was a three-aisled church, the main nave of which was covered with a gable roof. In the east, above the altar, there was a round dome on a drum with windows and a round cross-section. On the west side was the arched entrance and on either side of the main nave there was a four-story bell tower with a rectangular cross-section and decorations on the roof in the Babylonian style .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Wilhelm Baum, Dietmar W. Winkler: The Church of the East: A Concise History. Routledge-Curzon, London / New York 2003, pp. 143–149. ISBN 9781134430192 .
  2. ^ The Church of the East since 1914. IE Coakley, Department of Near Eastern Languages ​​and Civilizations, Harvard University. Bulletin John Ryland Library, p. 188.
  3. ^ Mar Aprem: The history of the Assyrian church of the east in the twentieth century with special reference to the Syriac literature in Kerala. Mahatma Gandhi University, October 20, 2000, uploaded August 12, 2010. Chapter V. Period of sufferings 1933-1975 - From the period of exile of Patriarch Mar Eshai Shimun in Cyprus till his assassination in 1975 , p. 222, The Split Of 1968 .
  4. ^ Mar Aprem: From Baghdad to Chicago. Mar Narsai Press, Trichur (Kerala) 1985 (Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute), p. 25.
  5. ↑ Chaldo-Assyrian Churches In Iraq. Assyrian International News Agency (AINA), May 2004, p. 12. Sample List of Churches and Monasteries Destroyed.
  6. ↑ Pascal Meguesyan: The patriarcal cathedral of the Virgin Mary in Baghdad. Mesopotamia Heritage, April 2017.
  7. ^ Inga Rogg: Rare bells ringing in Dora. Neue Zürcher Zeitung , January 11, 2010.
  8. ↑ Compare picture Mar Zaya Karadat Maryam - Baghdad on https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Public-Figure/St-Mar-Zaya-919918894716374/

Coordinates: 33 ° 18 ′ 58.9 ″  N , 44 ° 23 ′ 23.1 ″  E