Shimun XXIII.

Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII. , also Schimun ('Išay Šim'on, born February 26, 1908 in Qudschanis ; † November 6, 1975 in San Jose, California ) was a Catholicos - patriarch of the East Syrian autocephalous "Church of the East" .

Term of office in the Orient

The son of the Assyrian general David d'Mar Shimun (1889–1974) and Esther d'Beth Matran obtained his ecclesiastical office on the path of succession that has become common in the "Church of the East" after the death of his uncles Mar Benyamin Shimun XXI . (1903-1918) and Mar Polos Shimun XXII. (1918-1920).

As a twelve-year-old boy he was born on June 20, 1920 in the refugee camp Baquba near Baghdad by Mar Yosip Khnanisho ( H nanišo ^c ) (1918–1977), " Metropolitan of Rustaqa" and brother of his mother Esther, as well as Mar Zaya Sargis, Bishop of Jilu , ordained patriarch . (Mar Yosip himself became bishop when he was twenty, Mar Zaya Sargis when he was thirteen.) During his minority, Shimun XXIII officiated. with the support of Mar Yosip Khnanisho X. and initially also by Mar Abimalek Timotheus of Malabar (South India, † April 30, 1945). His aunt Surma d'Mar Shimun (1883–1975) and his father David represented and advised him in the political affairs of the office . The most pressing issue was the question of a recognized “homeland” for the Christian Assyrians who had fled or were expelled in Hakkari and / or northern Iraq. This question was discussed several times internationally, for example before the League of Nations in Geneva.

After school and university education in England from 1924 to 1927 , the Patriarch returned to Iraq in 1927 , then under a British mandate , and became politically active. By mediating the mandate power, he turned to the League of Nations with four petitions in 1931/32. In it, on behalf of the Assyrian minority in Iraq, he called for the resettlement to another country, the recognition of the Assyrians as an independent nation, the return of the Hakkari, now in Turkish possession, and / or the consolidation of all Assyrians in Iraq into an autonomous group. His demands were largely rejected, only the settlement of the Assyrians "en unités homogènes", ie in separate places, was promised by Iraq. After the end of the British mandate in 1932, there were bloody attacks on the Christian Assyrians in the now independent Iraq in 1933 (a) because of their previous cooperation with the colonial power and (b) because of their ongoing efforts for autonomy, mainly based on the Ottoman model of connecting ecclesiastical and secular Sovereignty in the person of the Catholicos patriarch ( Millet system ). Only a minority of bishops and notables pleaded for it to be limited to its spiritual powers and for the Assyrians to be integrated into the Iraqi state. On May 28, 1933, the Iraqi government asked the Patriarch to renounce his "pouvoir temporel", the secular power he claimed, in exchange for recognition of his spiritual authority, was rejected by Mar Shimun XIII. on June 3, 1933. He was then arrested in Baghdad on June 29, 1933. At the end of July, several thousand Assyrians were transferred to Syrian territory (under a French mandate) and, from August 4th, Assyrian fighters began fighting with Iraqi troops in Iraq, as well as arson and looting in Assyrian villages by Kurds and Arabs, in which several thousand Assyrians died found (" Semile Massacre "). With the withdrawal of his Iraqi citizenship, Mar Shimun XXIII. Deported with his family via Palestine to Cyprus (under British mandate) in mid-August 1933 and isolated from his church people in Iraq and Syria.

In exile in America

Since June 29, 1940, Mar Shimun XXIII. resident in the USA, first in Chicago , from 1954 in San Francisco , and took US citizenship. His family came to England around 1951 and the USA around 1961.

By 1948, Mar Shimun XXIII. repeatedly politically active; afterwards he concentrated on internal church tasks. For the diaspora parishes in the USA he worked as a diocesan bishop. In 1952, he ordained a bishop in California for the first time since taking office in 1921: Mar Thomas Darmo , Metropolitan of Malabar (South India). Although the spiritual head of a church in the Christian Orient , Mar Shimun spent most of his term in office in the western world. In 1961 he visited India, Iran, Lebanon and Syria (but not Chabur there ). Iraq remained closed to him. On February 13, 1962, he consecrated a new church and a bishop for Iran, the later Catholicos Patriarch Dinkha IV, in Tehran for the first time since the First World War .

In 1964 he adopted the Gregorian calendar for his church, with the consent of Mar Yosip Khnanisho . The opposition of Assyrian calendars , especially in Iraq and India, led in 1968 to the establishment of a counter-patriarchy under Mar Thomas Darmo . The church division was unmistakably promoted by (a) rivalries within the Assyrian community dating back to the 1930s and (b) political intentions of the Iraqi leadership.

In the fall of 1964, Shimun XXIII. at the invitation of Pope Paul VI. Observer to the Second Vatican Council in Rome, including George M. Lamsa († 1975). In 1970 he was allowed to enter Iraq, preached and negotiated in Baghdad, but did not meet the expectations of the government of Iraq and did not move his residence back to the Orient. As a result, in 1972 the government permitted the delayed ordination of the opposing patriarch Addai II, elected in 1970 .

In 1967 Shimun XXIII. in Seattle a first mission parish for converted Americans.

End of office and assassination

After the announcement of a resignation for health reasons by Mar Shimun XXIII. and his surprising marriage to Emama Yokhanan on August 16, 1973 in Seattle, he was elected on September 15, 1973 by a synod of six bishops (Mar Dinkha , Mar Narsai de Baz, Mar Aprim Khamis, Mar Youkhanna Philipos Aziz, Mar Youkhana Oraham u. Mar Daniel Yaqu) in the Maronite Christ the King Monastery near Beirut and laicized, but did not accept the decision. At the beginning of 1975 he ordained two Italians, initially Catholics, then Orthodox priests (jurisdiction unclear), as bishops: Claudio (Bruno) Vettorazzo (1936–1994) for Aquileia and Giovanni Basciu for Sardinia. During ongoing negotiations to resolve the crisis, the Assyrian Christian David Malek Ismail (* 1935), son of Malek Yaqob Ismael of the Upper Tyari tribe, shot him to death on November 6, 1975 in San José for reasons that were not fully understood. Shimun was buried in Turlock Memorial Park. He left behind his forty-year-old widow, Emama Mar Eshai Shimun, and two children. His killer was sentenced to life imprisonment (maximum sentence), but was released after twelve years.

With Shimun's death, the occupation of the patriarchal chair by succession ended. His successor, Mar Dinkha IV , was chosen by election.

Web links

• Short portrait with photos and link to the full files of the trial of David Malek Ismail

literature

• Theodore d'Mar Shimun: The History of the Patriarchal Succession of the d'Mar Shimun Family . Modesto 2008. ISBN 978-1-4363-1219-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ In his 53 years in office, Mar Shimun ordained only five Assyrians as bishops: Mar Thoma Darmo in 1952, Mar Khanania Dinkha in 1962 for Iran, Mar Timotheus in 1962 for India († August 6, 2001), in 1968 Mar Yohannan Abraham and Mar Narsai de Baz .
2. ↑ See Valentina Ciciliot. Il caso Montaner (1967-69). Un conflitto "politico" tra chiesa cattolica e chiesa ortodossa . Tesi di Laurea in Storia, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell'Università degli studi di Venezia - Ca 'Foscari. Anno Accademico 2003-2004; http://montaner.altervista.org/joomla/en/14-docs/7-lo-scisma-di-montaner#_Toc153422197 .

predecessor	Office	successor
Shimun XXII.	Catholicos of the Assyrian Church of the East 1920–1975	Dinkha IV.