This post is part of hand-picked stories from across the web, curated by the editors of the Assyria Post.
"Yet this did not deter Mar Eshai from pursuing the plan to consolidate power in his hands. He publicly attacked efforts to resettle Assyrians in Brazil (out of a fear that Catholic influence would grow), wrote letters to shut down the first Assyrian nationalist school in the Khabur valley of Syria, and denounced his enemies. His newspaper, The Light from the East, published in the United States, served as his personal propaganda arm. In the 4th issue of the newspaper published in March 1949, it launched a scathing attack on noted nationalist Assyrian leader Yusuf Malek, decrying him as a “Chaldean from Bagdad” who had no right to speak for the Assyrian nation without the consent of the Patriarch.5 Even in letters amongst supporters of the Patriarch, Malek was chided as a “Chaldean”, an outsider, who needed to be sidelined, much like previous opponents of the regime.6 Mar Eshai’s opponents began to point to an increasing trend of nearly dictatorial powers being exercised within the Church, along with rumors that if a nephew were born, the Shimun family would continue ruling the Church7, culminating in a split partially encouraged by the Iraqi Government and secondly by disaffected community leaders in 1964."
Read the full article:
Pithyou Mazarnaya
