Light from the East (1948–1954) and the De-Territorialization of the Assyrian Church in the East

Abstract

This chapter sketches the history of the later nineteenth and early twentieth century that forms the background of the changes in the mid-twentieth century. It discusses the political, social and ideological ramifications as reflected in the magazine Light from the East. The twentieth century had drastically changed the geographical spread of the Assyrian church of the East: from a closely-knit community that had its center and the majority of its people in a confined triangle in Eastern Turkey, Northern Iraq and Northwestern Iran, it had changed into a collection of small groups shattered over the world with only a small minority left in the original homelands. One way of keeping this de-territorialized community together was the inclusion of news items from everywhere in the world, varying from birth, marriage and death notices, to stories about clerical appointments, building and consecration of church buildings, and patriarchal and metropolitan visits. Keywords: Assyrian church; ideological ramifications; Northern Iraq