Mart Meskinta Chaldean Church
Chaldean Catholic church in Iraq / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mart Meskinta Church, also known as Mart Meskanta, Mart Miskinta, Mart Meskanta, and Saint Meskinta Chaldean Church, is a historic Chaldean Catholic church located in Mosul, Iraq. The church dates originally from the twelfth century but underwent a significant renovation in 1851.[1][2] It experienced damage in 2008 due to the Iraq War and in 2014-2017 due to the war against the Islamic State (ISIS).[3]
Mart Meskinta | |
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Religion | |
Affiliation | Chaldean Catholic Church |
Rite | East Syriac |
Leadership | Chaldean Catholic Patriarchate of Baghdad |
Status | Active |
Location | |
Location | Mosul, Nineveh Governorate, Iraq |
Geographic coordinates | 36°20’18.91″N 43° 7’32.30″E |
The church takes its name from a martyred woman named Meskinta, who reportedly defied the shah of the Sassanian Empire, Yazdegerd II (ruled 438-457 CE), by teaching local children Christianity in a period when Sassanian authorities were trying to impose Zoroastrianism.[4][5] It is the only church in Iraq named after this saint.[3] Following a schism within the Church of the East (a church grounded in Nestorian theology) that began in the sixteenth century, Mart Meskinta became an Eastern Catholic church in a country where an estimated two-thirds of Iraqi Christians are Chaldeans.[6] Since then it has functioned in full communion with the Holy See (the Catholic Church in Rome) while using its own liturgy, the East Syriac Rite, in the Syriac dialect of the Aramaic language.