Patriarchal Cathedral of the Virgin Mary

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The Patriarchal Cathedral of the Virgin Mary or Mariam al-Adra ( Arabic كاتدرائية مريم العذراء) is a church in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad that was consecrated in 1984. It is the cathedral and seat of the Patriarchate of the Old Assyrian Church of the East in Baghdad (بطريركية كنيسة المشرق القديمة في بغداد).

Location

The Patriarchal Cathedral of the Virgin Mary is located in the Camp Sarah - Hay ar-Riyad district in the east of the Karrada district of Baghdad about 1500 m north of the bank of the Tigris and about 250 m east of Abd-al-Qadir-al-Jaza'iri Square (ساحة عبد القادر الجزائري) at 38 m above sea level.

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 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 To hand over the Old Church of the East under the Patriarch Thomas Darmo, including the Mar-Zaya Cathedral in Karradat Maryam , which has now become the patriarchal seat of the Old Church of the East.

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 building a new patriarchal cathedral according to plans by civil engineer Baba Khochaba. She owned a piece of land in the east of the district of al- Karrada , where since 1970 the Catholicos Patriarch Mar Addai II resided in the premises of the Patriarchate built in 1970. The new Patriarchal Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built here, consecrated in 1984 and since then has served as the cathedral of the Old Church of the East. Even if the church building was spared the consequences of the war, the mass exodus of Christians meant that participation in the services fell from 1200 families in 2003 to 200 families in 2018. This year there were two priests at the church: Ezrya Warda Benyamine and Yokhana Mattie. As the second church in Baghdad, the Church of Mart Schmoni in the Dora district remained from the Old Church of the East, although only a few believers remained there.

architecture

The Patriarchal Cathedral of the Virgin Mary, built of reinforced concrete , has three naves. The interior of the main nave is separated from the two side aisles by semicircular arches with windows. The sanctuary to the east of the building is separated from the nave by a large royal door with two columns and curtains with crosses. Above the choir is a hemispherical vault from which a large candlestick hangs. According to the Assyrian tradition, the church does without icons. A special feature of the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Virgin Mary is that the patriarchate and the apartments of the priests are on the ground floor and the church on the upper floor.

Other facilities

There are also sports halls, rooms for catechesis, a community center and two guest houses on the church grounds.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Pascal Meguesyan: The patriarcal cathedral of the Virgin Mary in Baghdad. Mesopotamia Heritage, April 2017.
  2. ^ Wilhelm Baum, Dietmar W. Winkler: The Church of the East: A Concise History. Routledge-Curzon, London / New York 2003, pp. 143–149. ISBN 9781134430192 .
  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. ↑ Chaldo-Assyrian Churches In Iraq. Assyrian International News Agency (AINA), May 2004, p. 12. Sample List of Churches and Monasteries Destroyed.

Coordinates: 33 ° 18 ′ 18.2 ″  N , 44 ° 27 ′ 10.8 ″  E