The Assyrian Church of the East

Denomination·Founded 431 CE·est. 323,300 by the World Council of Churches figure; other estimates run to 400,000, and war and emigration have made counting harder since 2014.

Judaism → Christianity → The Church of the East → The Assyrian Church of the East

Assyrian Church of the East — Diocese of Western EuropeAssyrian Church of the East — Diocese of California

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Story of The Assyrian Church of the East

Simele, August 1933.

Weeks after Iraq's independence, Iraqi army units under Bakr Sidqi killed Assyrian villagers across the Dohuk district; the League of Nations investigated and at least six hundred people, probably many more, were dead. The patriarch, Mar Shimun, was stripped of Iraqi nationality and expelled, and the patriarchate spent the next eight decades in exile — Cyprus, then Chicago. The church commemorates it every 7 August as Assyrian Martyrs Day.

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Where it is toldSurvivor testimony, the League of Nations record, and the annual commemoration each 7 August
Who appearsThe Assyrian villagers of the Dohuk district, and the Iraqi army under Bakr Sidqi
What it teachesThat the twentieth century nearly finished what the fourteenth started
Understanding it — context, not catechism: how this passage is held

The Simele massacre followed the collapse of Assyrian hopes for autonomy in the new Iraqi state and a border clash in which an armed Assyrian group was involved. What followed was directed at unarmed villagers: the League of Nations recorded the destruction of dozens of villages across the Dohuk district. The commonly cited figure is six hundred killed at Simele itself, with total deaths across the district put by various accounts in the low thousands. Bakr Sidqi was feted in Baghdad and went on to lead a coup in 1936. Assyrian Martyrs Day, 7 August, is observed by the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East and the Chaldean and Syriac communities alike, and Iraq has never formally acknowledged the events.

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