Dinkha Khanania was born in Iraq and baptized in the Church of Mar Qaryaqos located in the village of his birth, Darbandokeh. Khanania (also written as "Denkha Kh'nanya") gained his elementary education under the tutorship of his grandfather, Benyamin Soro. In 1947—at the age of eleven—he was entrusted to the care of Mar Yousip Khnanisho, Metropolitan and the Patriarchal representative for all Iraq, the second-highest-ranking ecclesiastic of the Assyrian Church of the East.[2] After two years of study, he was ordained deacon in the church of Mar Youkhana in Harir by Mar Yousip on 12 September 1949. On 15 July 1957, he was ordained to the priesthood, and appointed to minister Urmia, Iran. He was the fourth in the line of succession to the Bishopric of Urmia.
Mar Dinkha's priesthood as Metropolitan of Iran and Tehran[2] reestablished a line of succession which had ceased to exist after the 1915 assassination of his predecessor.[3] In 1962, Mar Dinkha moved from northern Iraq to Tehran.[3] During his tenure in Iran, he established a seminary and advocated for Assyrian nationalism and ecumenism.[2] Responding to popular demand, Catholicos-Patriarch Shimun XXI Eshaiconsecrated Mar Dinkha as bishop on 11 February 1962, in the church of Martyr Mar Gewargis in Tehran.
After the assassination of Mar Shimun XXI Eshai, the Church of the East had an urgent need to restore its leadership. In 1976, the prelates of the church convened in London to elect a new Catholicos Patriarch and chose Mar Dinkha as the most qualified candidate to fill the post.[2] He was consecrated on 17 October 1976, in the West London Church of St. Barnabas, Ealing.[5] With this consecration, Mar Dinkha IV became the successor to the Apostolic see of Seleucia-Ctesiphon (Babylon). He also announced that the hereditary line of succession for the Patriarchy which had existed for 500 years[6] was discontinued with his tenure, allowing any cleric from the Church of the East to be elevated to Catholicos-Patriarch.[7]
Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church Of The East-St. George Cathedral, 7201 N. Ashland Ave Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Dinkha established headquarters—along with four other houses of worship—in Chicago, Illinois, United States, in part due to the instability of the Iran–Iraq War.[5] This conflict as well as Saddam Hussein's policy of Arabization in Iraq, the Gulf War and subsequent sanctions against Iraq intensified the Assyrian diaspora from the region. Meanwhile, the Islamic Revolution and Shia emphasis in Iran created a tense situation for Assyrians in the Middle East.[8] During the reign of Shimun XXI and Dinkha IV, American membership in the Church of the East rose from 3,200 in the 1950s[3] to approximately 100,000 in 2008.[9]
In 2005, the Patriarch conducted discussions with President of Iraqi KurdistanMasoud Barzani on returning to the Apostolic See in northern Iraq and constructing a new residence in Ankawa.[10] On 15 July 2007, Mar Dinkha celebrated 50 years of his priesthood. A ceremony was held at St. George Cathedral in Chicago, where a portion of Ashland Avenue was renamed "His Holiness Mar Dinkha IV Blvd". In 2008, he received an honorary degree from the University of Chicago,[11] in part because of his emphasis on education—he stated a goal of only appointing theologians with doctoral degrees to the position of bishop.[12]
On 29 November 1996, Dinkha signed an agreement of cooperation with the Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldean Catholic Church—Raphael I Bidawid—in Southfield, Michigan[17] and met again on 16 August 1997, to bless an Assyrian church.[12] This "Joint Synodal Decree for Promoting Unity" also established a Joint Commission for Unity which helped draft the 2001 "Guidelines for Admission to the Eucharist between the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Church of the East" that allows Assyrians and Chaldeans to accept the Eucharist from one another.[21] The prior year, Assyrians and Roman Catholics also produced "A Common Statement on Sacramental Life" that assessed the importance of sacraments in both churches.[22] Assyrians have also been allowed to study at Baghdad's Chaldean Catholic College and unmarried deacons and priests can study at Catholic universities in Rome.[12]
Middle Eastern and Syriac ecumenism
The Church of the East has been a member of the World Council of Churches since its 1948 inception and Dinkha used this membership as a vehicle for bi- and multi-lateral ecumenism that would have been impossible prior to its inception.[23] In 1984, the Assyrian Church applied for membership in the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC), but was denied due to objections by the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, whose Patriarch, PopeShenouda III, required the Church of the East to condemn its Church FathersDiodore of Tarsus, Nestorius, and Theodore of Mopsuestia.[23] The dispute between the Assyrians and Copts resulted in a common Christological declaration in 1996, which was later rejected by the Coptic synod.[24] In 1996, the Church of the East was offered membership in the MECC, but declined to join at the time.[25] Discussions for the Church of the East to join the MECC have stalled since 1999.
In September 2006, Mar Dinkha IV paid a historic visit to northern Iraq to give oversight to the churches there and to encourage the president of Iraqi Kurdistan to open a Christian school in Erbil. During this trip, he also met Iraqi PresidentJalal Talabani and Prime MinisterNouri al-Maliki. Dinkha pursued a pragmatic political course, calling on Assyrians to work together with their respective governments. He sought to de-politicize the office of Catholicos-Patriarch and expanded the church's outreach to the youth by including non-Syriac liturgies composed in local languages.[29]
^Bliss, Frederick M. (2007), Catholic and Ecumenical: History and Hope: Why the Catholic Church Is Ecumenical and What She Is Doing About It (2nd ed.), Rowman & Littlefield, p. 59, ISBN978-0-7425-5257-9
Joseph, John (2000), The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East: Encounters with Western Christian Missions, Archaeologists, and Colonial Powers (Hardback), Studies in Christian Mission, vol. 26 (2nd ed.), Brill Publishers, ISBN90-04-11641-9
