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(Assyrian Church) - The Assyrian Church of the East’s St Hurmizd’s Cathedral in Greenfield Park was the site of a major milestone for the Assyrian community and the Archdiocese on Sunday 26 May 2019.
Prelates of the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East gathered to consecrate Reverend Archdeacon Narsai Youkhanis, the bishop-elect for the Church’s diocese of Western Europe to be based in London.
The Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East in Iraq, His Holiness Mar Gewargis III Sliwa was joined by eight other prelates from across the world for the consecration.
Thousands of parishioners and members of local council and parliament attended the official service in the morning.
The church held a celebratory dinner at Edessa Reception in the evening for the newly consecrated bishop, who will be known as His Grace Mar Awraham Youkhanis.
The new bishop, who has been a priest for nine years doing youth work in the local community, will make his way to London in late June to start his work in the church for the Western Europe diocese.
The prelates present for the consecration were:
- His Eminence Mar Meelis Zaia AM, Metropolitan of Australia, New Zealand and Lebanon.
- His Grace Mar Awa Royel, Bishop of California.
- His Grace Mar Youkhanan Yousip, Bishop of India.
- His Grace Mar Awgin Kuriakose, Bishop of India.
- His Grace Mar Narsai Benjamin, Bishop of Iran.
- His Grace Mar Paulus Benjamin, Bishop of Eastern USA.
- His Grace Mar Abrs Youkhanan, Bishop of Erbil and Patriarchal Vicar.
- His Grace Mar Benyamin Elya, Bishop of Victoria and New Zealand.
Posts
Some ethnicities carry their national Church with them wherever they go.
ReplyDeleteThis is either sinful when anybody does it or it's not sinful. Or our paradigm is off and we're not asking the right questions.
The universal tendency over two millenia of Christianity is for different peoples to craft distinctive liturgical forms and prefer them to others, to the point of some groups declining to out-marry and importing their own hierarchs. We are admonished repeatedly that this is a grave, schismatic sin, but the bishops, clergy and congregants continue to do it, over and over.
It's clearly an ethno-nationalist Church, but I'll defer on its theological standing. I don't get the sense these postings (and there are many of them) are to remind us that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek.
ReplyDeleteThe classic example to me is the "Carpatho-Russian" jurisdiction in the US. How many genetic Carpatho-Russians are even left? Are they shipping brides over from the Caucasus?
Like Jerry Seinfeld says, "Not that there's anything wrong with that." Again, the downstream effect of ethnicity and culture on liturgical practice is a universal and historic phenomenon that's outlasted the break-up of the Empire and trans-national migration. But nobody's hauling anybody in front of Councils over it and nobody's stopping Liturgies until we get it sorted out.
They separated early on by defining the Virgin Miriam as the christotolos and not the theotokos. Christ became divine at his baptism as such they are outside of the standard communion of churches. They do use Aramaic in their liturgy
ReplyDeleteWhy would Carpatho-Russians bring brides from the Caucasus? They're Carpatho-Russians, not Caucasian-Russians. Get your geography right before trying to make an argument.
ReplyDeleteHistorically, they were an extremely ethnically diverse church, stretching from Cyprus to China and from Soqotra to the Caucasus, until the Mongols and Tamerlane reduced them to populations in Kurdistan and Kerala. The 'Assyrian' was added under the influence of British missionaries who were trying their best to Anglicanize them, part of which involved making their identity ethnic rather than confessional. Their Indian dioceses don't use that part of the name.
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