His Beatitude Amel Shamon Nona, the newly elected patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church and a former archbishop of Mosul, Iraq, once shepherded the faithful of the region through the rise of the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014. In an interview this month with Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), which supported Christians in Mosul during that deadly period, Patriarch-elect Nona reflected on his return to the Middle East and his vision for the future of Christianity in the area.
At the time of his election in April, Patriarch-elect Nona had been ministering as bishop of the Eparchy of Saint Thomas the Apostle of Sydney of the Chaldeans, Oceania, since 2015, as Zeale News previously reported. As his installation approaches on May 29, he explained in a May 7 ACN report how his outlook as patriarch will be informed by his previous experience as archbishop of Mosul.
“It was a very difficult but defining time,” Patriarch-elect Nona said. “Being a bishop in a city in constant danger, where every week or month, someone was killed, left a deep mark on me. But it also taught me that the faith of our people is their true anchor. Despite everything, they kept their hope alive.”
“To suffer for being a faithful believer certainly deepens your way of looking at life,” he added. “That is the best contribution of our people: they suffered immensely, yet they have this deep, unshakable belief that their lives must be full of faith and Christian principles. That is the hope I carry into this new mission.”
Because the rise of ISIS caused the displacement of thousands, Patriarch-elect Nona told ACN that he hopes to build a bridge for young Chaldeans seeking their roots, identity, and faith after being born abroad.
Speaking about bridge-building for the Church in Iraq and those who suffered the diaspora, he said, “The original home of our Church is in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq, but today, the majority of our people live in the diaspora. Having lived both realities – the agony of Mosul and the life of a shepherd in Australia – I know it is not easy, but it is not impossible.”
Patriarch-elect Nona’s installation will take place at St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Baghdad, according to ACN. He said that as the new patriarch, his message to the international community, in the context of how many wars have afflicted the Middle East in recent years, is that people in the region are like those in anywhere else in the world, desiring peace. He stressed that war cannot be normalized.
“The desire of all of us is to see a Middle East at peace. We cannot accept that every year, there is a new war in this or that country,” he said. “The people in the Middle East, like everywhere else, want to live in serenity.”
“What we ask of the international community is simply respect: respect for our peoples and for our sovereignty, so that we can live without the constant threat of war,” he continued. “We want to look at our young people and tell them, ‘You have a future,’ but for that, we need the world to stop turning our land into a constant battlefield.”
The patriarch-elect also offered a point of hope and encouragement for the faithful, reflecting on why he chose “Do not be afraid, just believe,” from chapter five of the Gospel of Mark, as his motto.
“We may have reasons to be afraid, but if we live our faith as the Lord wants, we can live with those fears while remaining full of faith,” he said. “That is my belief for our people: we move forward not because the danger is gone, but because our belief is stronger.”