33rd Anniversary of the Consecration of H.H. Mar Dinkha iV

Mar Dinkha IV (Assyrian Neo-Aramaic: ܡܪܝ ܕܢܚܐ ܪܒܝܥܝܐ and Arabic: مار دنخا الرابع‎) is the current Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East. He was born Mar Dinkha Khananya on 15 September 1935, in the village of Darbandokeh (Derbendoki), Iraq, and was baptized in the Church of Mar Qaryaqos located in the village of his birth. He is the fourth in the line of succession to the Bishopric of Urmia.
He 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. 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 August 1957, he was ordained to the priesthood, and appointed to minister Urmia, Iran. Mar Dinkha's priesthood as Metropolitan of Iran and Teheren] reestablished a line of succession which ceased to exist after the 1915 killing of his predecessor. In 1962, Mar Dinkha moved from northern Iraq to Tehran. During his tenure in Iran, he established a seminary and advocated for Assyrian nationalism and ecumenism. Responding to popular demand, Catholicos-Patriarch Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII consecrated Khananya as bishop on 17 October 1968, in the church of Martyr Mar Gewargis in Tehran.
After the assassination of Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII, the Church of the East had an urgent need to restore the leadership. In 1976, the prelates of the church convened in London to elect a new Catholicos Patriarch and chose was Mar Dinkha as the most qualified candidate to fill the post. He was consecrated on 17 October 1976, in the West London Church of St. Barnabas, Ealing. With this consecration, Mar Dinkha IV became the 120th 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 was discontinued with his tenure, allowing any cleric from the Church of the East to be elevated to Catholicos-Patriarch.
Mar Dinkha established headquarters-along with four other houses of worship-in Chicago, Illinois, United States in part due to the instability of the IranIraq War. 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 Shi'a emphasis in Iran created a tense situation for Assyrians in the Middle East. During the reign of Mar Shimun XXIII and Mar Dinkha IV, American membership in the Church of the East has gone from 3,200 in the 1950s to approximately 100,000 in 2008.
In 2005, the Patriarch conducted discussions with President of Iraqi Kurdistan Massoud Barzani on returning to the Apostolic See in northern Iraq and constructing a new residence in Ankawa. On 15 July 2007, Mar Dinkha celebrated 50 years of his priesthood. A ceremony was held at St. George Cathedral 42°0′47″N 87°40′11″W 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, in part because of his emphasis on education-he has a stated goal of only appointing theologians with doctoral degrees to the position of bishop.