By Baghdadhope
For a bishop of the Assyrian Church of the East joining the Chaldean Church, a Chaldean priest changes his name and is accepted by the Assyrian Church of the East. A few months ago was the turn of Mar Bawai Soro who, suspended in November 2005 by the synod of the Assyrian Church of the East, asked for the full communion with the Catholic church and the union with the Chaldean one. A request strongly supported and welcomed by Mar Sarhad Y. Jammo, bishop of the Chaldean Eparchy of western United States who had repeatedly stressed the need of the union between the two churches, but that is yet to be officially discussed during the synod of the Chaldean church that, according to some unofficial reports, will be held at the beginning of next year.
Now, however, it is the turn of a priest of the Chaldean church of Our Lady Guardian of Plants in Campbellfield, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. Although by now there are not official statements by the hierarchy of the Assyrian Church of the East, increasingly numerous are the testimonies of those who on August 15 assisted in the church of Mart Mariam in Fairfield to Father Faiz Dawood Jarjis’s loyalty oath to the church and its Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV. According to the news spread by several Assyrian sites, Father Faiz, who has now taken the name of Hurmizd Dawood Gewargis, on July 30 sent a letter with the request to join the Assyrian Church of the East to its Australian bishop, Mar Meelis Zaia, and on August 17 he was officially accepted and ordered to serve in the church of Mar Gewargis in Melbourne.
Father Faiz/Hurmizd was born in 1975 in Komane, Iraq, and got a BA in Theology at Babel College. In 2001 he was ordained deacon by the then bishop and now Chaldean Church Patriarch, Mar Emmanuel III Delly, and in 2002 he was ordained priest by the then Chaldean Patriarch Mar Raphael Bedaweed who ordered him to serve in the diocese of Amadhiya led by Mgr. Rabban Al Qas. In 2005 he became a priest of the Church of Our Lady Guardian of Plants in Campbellfield.
Waiting for official statements about this event it can be interesting to note some coincidences that could lead us to think of a period of crisis in the Chaldean church in Australia. The land the was the destination of many Iraqi Christians who fled the embargo and the wars that marked the recent history of the motherland had not, until 2006, a Chaldean bishop, and the care of the community was entrusted since 1978 to the Patriarchal Vicar Mgr. Zouhair Toma. In 2006, following a decision by Pope Benedict XVI the Chaldean Eparchy of Oceania was erected and entrusted to Mgr. Jibrail Kassab, former bishop of Basra.
Last July, during the World Youth Day, the news of this crisis began to be divulged. According to a piece of news by Australian Associated Press immediately published by the Herald Sun on July 6, a mass officiated in the Cathedral of Saint Patrick in Melbourne by the catholic archbishop of the city, Mgr. Denis Hart, was disturbed by two different groups of protestors. One calling for greater involvement of the Pope in the problems of the victims of sexual abuse by priests. The other, formed by faithful of the Chaldean church of Our Lady Guardian of Plants in Campbellfield, asking for the return of their priest, Father Khalid Marogi who, according to the spokesman of the group, was removed from the church without notice.
So far the facts, confirmed by the Archdiocese of Melbourne, the General Vicar of which, Mgr. Les Tomlinson, issued a statement reporting that the Chaldean community representatives discussed the protest at the headquarters of the archbishopric.
But what had happened? What had driven the Chaldean faithful, usually respectful of ecclesiastical authority, to break into a church during a Mass?
In the absence of official statements we can refer to the indiscretions that in those days were a major issue on the Assyrians sites and were also reported by some unofficial Chaldean sources. According to those sources the problems should be traced back to the request made to the Chaldean churches in Melbourne by Mgr. Jibrail Kassab to transfer their funds into a bank account in Sydney, a request that would have found a strong opposition among the priests and the faithful of Melbourne, monthly committed to pay the installments of a loan granted by the Catholic Fund for the properties of the Chaldean churches of the town that, as it is in the case of churches of that rite not in Iraq or in the Middle East, are controlled by the Catholic Church.
A few weeks before the clamorous protest, Mgr. Kassab would have informed the priests in Melbourne of his next visit to discuss the topic, and he would have arrived in the city accompanied by some faithful from Sydney and a lawyer, to find the Church of Our Lady Guardian of Plants empty and closed. After hours of futile waiting Mgr.Kassab would have called the Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart who would have said it was not in the rights of the priests to have such a behaviour. The day, was reported, would have finished with the arrival of the police and of a locksmith who, at the request of the Chaldean bishop, would have forced the locks permitting the entry in the offices of the church, and with a bitter confrontation between Mgr.Kassab and some priests and faithful of the church meanwhile appeared on the scene. Following those events Mgr.Hart would have suspended from all his duties Father Khalid Marogi, one of the priests of the church, a decision that would have caused the protest in the Cathedral of Saint Patrick ended with the delivery of a letter addressed to the Archbishop by the Chaldean faithful asking for the reinstatement of the priest who meanwhile had moved to Sydney.
This is what it is said to have happened. If the use of the conditional tense is mandatory in cases that were not disclosed by official sources, as in this one, it is true that according to a certain source, the Archdiocese of Melbourne, Mgr. Denis Hart withdrew his letter - and it is understood his decision - dated June 27, 2008 “written at the behest of Mgr. Kassab … affecting Father Marogi’s presence at Campbellfield” on the grounds that the issue must be resolved solely between the priest and the bishop who holds authority over the clergy and the faithful of his diocese.
Maybe the visit of Mgr. Kassab in Melbourne was not exactly as it was told, both in its motivation and performance - lawyers, archbishops, police, locksmiths - but it is certain that the same fact that Mgr. Hart disregarded his decision on Father Marogi confirms that it had been actually taken, and that the priest had been relieved from his post.
So talking about the period of crisis of the Chaldean church in Australia does not seem exaggerated or too alarmist: difficult could be the rebirth of a relationship of trust between Mgr. Kassab and Father Marogi and Father Jarjis has become a priest of the Assyrian Church in the East.
What will happen in the future?
