Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani issued a decree “to appoint Patriarch Louis Raphaël Sako as Patriarch of the Chaldeans in Iraq and in the world”, restoring his “institutional recognition” rescinded last July. Cardinal Sako had refused to return to Baghdad for almost a year since President Abdul Latif Rashid revoked Decree 147, which recognised the cardinal in legislative terms as head of the Chaldean Catholic Church with responsibility for its endowments.
He moved his residence to Erbil, in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region, returning to the capital briefly in April on the prime minister’s invitation but leaving disappointed that the decree was not restored. A statement from the patriarchate offered “thanks and gratitude to the Christian and Islamic Shiite and Sunni religious authorities…who supported [the patriarch] in the crisis of with-drawing the decree”, as well as international actors including the US State Department.
In a homily during Mass at Baghdad’s Mar Gorgis Church on 12 June to mark his return to the city, Sako said that Chaldean Christians “are one of the colours of the beautiful fabric of Iraq that must be preserved” and defended their historic place in the region.