See also
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cathedrals in Iraq .
This is a list of cathedrals in Iraq sorted by denomination.
Cathedrals of the Chaldean and Syriac Catholic Churches in Iraq: [1]
The Syriac Catholic Church is an Eastern Catholic Christian jurisdiction originating in the Levant that uses the West Syriac Rite liturgy and has many practices and rites in common with the Syriac Orthodox Church. Being one of the twenty-three Eastern Catholic Churches, the Syriac Catholic Church is a self-governed sui iuris particular church, while it is in full communion with the Holy See and with the entirety of the Catholic Church.
The Chaldean Catholic Church is an Eastern Catholic particular church in full communion with the Holy See and the rest of the Catholic Church, and is headed by the Chaldean Patriarchate. Employing in its liturgy the East Syriac Rite in the Syriac dialect of the Aramaic language, it is part of Syriac Christianity. Headquartered in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Sorrows, Baghdad, Iraq, since 1950, it is headed by the Catholicos-Patriarch Louis Raphaël I Sako. In 2010, it had a membership of 490,371, of whom 310,235 (63.27%) lived in the Middle East.
The Catholic Church in Syria is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome.
There are over 300,000 Catholics living in Iraq, just 0.95% of the total population. The Catholics of Iraq follow several different rites, but most are members of the Chaldean Catholic Church. There are 17 currently active dioceses and eparchies in Iraq.
The Chaldean Catholic Archeparchy of Mosul is a diocese of the Chaldean Catholic Church, located in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Its followers are ethnic Chaldeans and speakers of Aramaic. The diocese comprises the city of Mosul. The territory is subdivided in 12 parishes. The diocese of Mosul was elevated to Archeparchy of Mosul on February 14, 1967 by Pope Paul VI. The ordinary was Mar Paulos Faraj Rahho until his death in early 2008. He was succeeded in November 2009 by Archbishop-elect Emil Shimoun Nona, who until his election and ratification had been a professor of anthropology at Babel College and a pastor and vicar general in the eparchy of Alqosh. As of 2012 the Papal Nuncio was Archbishop Francis Assisi Chullikatt, whose Apostolic Nunciature is the entire state of Iraq.
The Christians of Iraq are considered to be one of the oldest continuous Christian communities in the world. The vast majority of Iraqi Christians are indigenous Eastern Aramaic-speaking ethnic Assyrians who are descent from ancient Assyria, and follow the Syriac Christian tradition. Some are also known by the name of their religious denomination as well as their ethnic identity, such as Chaldo-Assyrians, Chaldean Catholics or Syriacs. Non-Assyrian Iraqi Christians are largely Arab Christians and Armenians, and a very small minority of Kurdish, Shabaks and Iraqi Turkmen Christians. Most present-day Iraqi Christians are ethnically, linguistically, historically and genetically distinct from Kurds, Arabs, Iranians, Turks and Turkmens. Regardless of religious affiliation the Eastern Aramaic speaking Christians of Iraq and its surroundings are one genetically homogeneous people. They identify themselves as being a separate people, of different origins and with a distinct history of their own harking back to ancient Assyria and Mesopotamia. Christian Assyrians also have communities in northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and northwestern Iran as well as in the wider worldwide Assyrian diaspora.
Chaldean Catholics, also known as Chaldeans, Chaldo-Assyrians or Assyro-Chaldeans, are ethnic Assyrian adherents of the Chaldean Catholic Church, which originates from the historic Church of the East.
Paulos Faraj Rahho was a Chaldean Catholic prelate who served as the Archeparch of Mosul in the northern part of Iraq from 2001 until his death in 2008 at the hands of terrorists.
Dioceses of the Church of the East after 1552 were dioceses of the Church of the East and its subsequent branches, both traditionalist and pro-Catholic.
The Chaldean Catholic Archeparchy of Kirkuk is an archeparchy of the Chaldean Catholic Church in communion with the Pope in Rome. The archeparchy was created in the early years of the nineteenth century. Its present ordinary, Archbishop Yousif Thomas Mirkis, was consecrated in 2014.
Yousif Behnam Habash is an Iraqi-born bishop of the Syriac Catholic Church. Since 2010, he has been the Eparch of Our Lady of Deliverance of Newark.
The Syriac Catholic Church, established in the second half of the 17th century as an Eastern Catholic offshoot of the Syriac Orthodox Church, had around a dozen dioceses in the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries. Three of these dioceses were ruined during the First World War in the Assyrian and Armenian massacres, and the 20th century also saw the growth of an important Syriac Catholic diaspora in America, Europe and Australasia. As of 2012 the Syriac Catholic Church has fifteen dioceses, mostly in the Middle East, and four patriarchal vicariates for the diaspora communities.
The Chaldean Catholic Eparchy (Diocese) of Saint Thomas the Apostle U.S.A. is the sole eparchy of the Chaldean Catholic Church sui iuris for the eastern half of the United States and is exempt, i.e. immediately subject to the Holy See, not part of an ecclesiastical province.
The Chaldean Catholic Archeparchy of Basra is a non-metropolitan Archeparchy of the Chaldean Catholic Church in southern Iraq.
The Syriac Catholic Archeparchy of Mosul is a Syriac Catholic Church ecclesiastical territory or archeparchy in northern Iraq. It is not a metropolitan see and is immediately exempt to the Syriac Catholic Patriarch of Antioch and the Roman Congregation for the Oriental Churches, and not part of any ecclesiastical province. Its cathedral is the Syriac Catholic Cathedral in the episcopal see of Mosul.
Archbishop Mgr. Yousif Thomas Mirkis, is the Archbishop of Chaldean Catholic Archeparchy of Kirkuk-Sulaimaniya whose cathedral, St Paul's, was repeatedly bombed and rebuilt by Islamic State in the early 2000s. He announced a policy of starting a new university in Iraq, and has been described as a both a journalist and a human rights activist; he organised the purchase of Kituk's first Ultrasound system.
