SYRO-CHALDEAN PATRIARCHATE

SYRO-CHALDEAN PATRIARCHATE. This phrase refers to the “Uniate” or “Chaldean-rite” Church in communion with the papacy and comprising today the majority of Christians within modern Iraq (qq.v.). The Chaldean church is the Uniate doublet of the smaller Assyrian Church (q.v.), and numbers perhaps a quarter million. Its origins as a Uniate body date to 1826.