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The Assyrian people or Assyrians, also known as Chaldeans, Syrians, or Syriacs,
are a distinct ethnic group of the Middle East, whose roots reach to ancient Mesopotamia.
contributor and date unknown
Article 64, Section 2 of the Iranian Constitution says:
"The Zoroastrians and Jews will each elect one representative; Assyrian and
Chaldean Christians will jointly elect one representative; and Armenian
Christians in the north and those in the south of the country will each elect
one representative."
Nathan Lamm, 03 April 2003
As I understand it, both Assyrians and Chaldeans are Christians and both use
Syriac as their liturgical language. Assyrians are members of the Assyrian
Church of the East, often referred to as the Nestorian Church, which is
completely separate and independent of any other church. Chaldeans in the Iraqi
and Iranian context are from the same historic community and use the same
liturgy but have accepted the doctrines and authority of the Roman Catholic
church -they are what is known as a "uniate" church, i.e., an eastern church in
union with Rome. They are sometimes called Chaldean Catholics. If that's enough
for you, stop here. If you want to peel the onion back one more layer, read on.
This all gets pretty complicated, but there are basically four groups of "Eastern"
churches:
- the Orthodox...those who accept the doctrines defined by the seven ecumenical
councils that took place between 325 and 787 A.D. and are in communion with the
Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.
- the Nestorians or Assyrians...those churches mostly in Syria and eastward to
India who split with the Orthodox mainstream at the Council of Ephesus in 431
over a now-obscure point concerning how the human and divine natures of Jesus
Christ were mixed in one person. The Assyrian Church is totally independent of
any other church.
- the Monophysites...the churches that split with the orthodox mainstream over
another now-obscure point about the combination of Christ's human and divine
natures at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The Monophysite churches are the
Coptic, Armenian (Gregorian), Ethiopian, and Syrian (Jacobite). To confuse
things, these churches consider themselves orthodox ("right-believing") and
often use that word as part of their official names. There is no hierarchy
uniting all the Monophysite churches, but they are all in communion with each
other, I believe.
- the Uniates...offshoots of various and sundry of the above three groups who at
different times agreed to accept the authority of the Pope and the doctrines of
the Roman Catholic church. This includes the Maronites, Syrian Catholics, Coptic
Catholics, Melkite Catholics, Chaldeans, and others.
Joe McMillan, 03 April 2003
The Assyrians claim descent from the old Assyrian Empire, and until the 1st
World War lived in Southeast Turkey around the city of Urfa (formerly Edessa), a
former holy Christian city, because its first king Abgar I had received a letter
of Jesus Christ himself. They adopted Nestorianism as their religion, but
retained their war-loving qualities, and after WWI formed a regiment for the
British, which mainly fought the Turkmens of northern Iraq. This made them less
liked by the Turks, and the whole Assyrian community fled to Iraq, Syria and in
the Russo-Persian frontier area. At present they live a "hidden" existence - the
Olympic Champion on the Heptathlon, Gada Shaoua, was an Assyrian from northeast
Syria, who did not want to discuss her descent with journalists, for fear of
endangering her family.
In the Middle East Nestorianism is associated with the Assyrians, but there are
still pockets of Nestorians along the Silk Road (not many, though). I read
somewhere that there is even a small community of them in Mongolia, discovered
by some enterprising traveller. After that discovery they literally hid
themselves and have never been heard of since. The Nestorians left a lasting
monument in Xian (China), the Xian stone.
The Chaldeans are also a group of Armenian Churches. "Hald" was another name for
Armenians, and the first to make that mistake (mistaking Chaldeans for Chaldeans)
was Xenophon (c. 400 BC), who had Chaldeans living on the heights of the Taurus
Mountains in present-day Eastern Anatolia. The Armenians were experts in
religious hair-splitting and it is not known how many different kinds of
Armenian Churches (or "sects") there are.
Regarding Armenians in Persia/Iran: there was a big colony in Isphahan in Fars
(South Iran), as well as in Iranian Azerbeidzhan. As they were, and probably
still are mainly interested in trade, they are apparently referred to as
Armenians from the South and from the North.
Jarig Bakker, 03 April 2003
I must respectfully disagree- as Joe had said the Chaldean Church is a Syriac
group, not Armenian- and an offshot of the Church of the East, the Nestorians,
not of the Armenian or Gregorian Church, a Monophysite body.
See http://i-cias.com/e.o/index.htm
and
http://i-cias.com/e.o/east_rite.htm (under Chaldean Catholics, Nestorians);
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03559a.htm and
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05230a.htm; and
http://www.opuslibani.org.lb/church/chaldean/ehistory.htm .
It is possible that you are referring to confusion arising from the earlier use
of the term Chaldean- which referred to the Neo- Babylonian civilization of the
6th and 7th centuries BCE. The current Chaldean Church took its name from them,
but there is no direct connection between the two groups.
It was the earlier Chaldeans who were sometimes confused with the Haldians, not
the present-day Chaldeans. Further, the Haldians, who were also knowns as
Urartians or Vannic, were not the Armenians themselves, but their predecessors
in the lands of historic Armenia (although the Armenians do claim a great deal
of cultural and ethnic continuity with them).
Ned Smith, 03 April 2003
The Assyrian flag consists of a golden circle at the center which represents the sun. By its exploding and leaping flames it generates
heat and light to sustain the earth and all it's living things. The four pointed star surrounding the sun symbolizes the land, its light
blue color means tranquility.
The wavy stripes extending from the center to the four corners of the flag are the three major rivers of our homeland, namely the Tigris, Euphrates and Zawa. The dark blue represents the Euphrates which stands for the Assyrian word prat ("Per-U-Ta"), meaning "abundance." The red stripes represent the Tigris; its blood red hue stands for courage, glory and pride. The white lines in between the two great rivers is Zawa, its white color stands for tranquility and peace. Some interpret the red, white and blue stripes as the highways that will take the scattered Assyrians back to their ancestral homeland.
Above the blue star is the image of the Assyrian god Assur, who is guarding the country, the flag, and the nation it represents. On top of the flagstaff is the standard of King Sargon I, who established the first Assyrian empire. During ancient times this insignia stood by the king's side to let everyone know his whereabouts.
Peter BetBasoo, 29 Aug 1995
The flag was designed by the Assyrian Universal Alliance in 1968. All elements in the design come from symbols from Assyrian reliefs.
As to the present usage, it is universally accepted by Assyrians and those non-Assyrians who recognize the Assyrian nation (most Arabs do
not).
Peter BetBasoo, 30 Aug 1995
I've seen a picture of a group of Assyrians in Chicago; they're waving the
this flag, but both the circle in the center (with a bit more white around it)
and the symbol at the top are both in gold, or dark yellow.
Nathan Lamm, 03 April 2003
Last Friday's "Israel HaYom" newspaper had a feature article on Assyrian
Christians. The cover picture showed someone waving a flag which combined a
number of symbols we've seen before: A purple flag with the bird symbol in
white, a centered circle with the four-pointed compass and wavy lines, and
Aramaic writing above and below.
You can see it at
http://digital-edition.israelhayom.co.il/Olive/ODE/Israel/Default.aspx?pageno=1;
(go to page "P1").
Nachum Lamm, 12 October 2014
![[Variant Assyrian Flag]](../images/x/xo-assyr2.gif)
image by unknown
Here
one can see an Assyrian flag with the Sargon emblem in gold/turqouise instead of the red we show.
Eugene Ipavec, 16 Oct 2007
Also, it is very easy to find photos of a variant with the emblem in gold and
white – see photos: 1,
2,
3, 4.
Note also the central disk in at least one photo is gold instead of orange-red.
It may be that there is no one standard version for these details.
Ned Smith, 20 Oct 2007
Flaggenmitteilung [fmL] #93
reports a variant with a dark yellow star and a central disk blue
with a white border.
Jaume Ollé, 26 Dec 1999
image by Jakub Grombíř, 17 Apr 2011
Wikipedia
shows a flag of a short-lived independent Assyrian state during/after WWI:
red with white orthodox cross and a small white canton with green dot -
unlike the white flag with blue cross we mention.
Jakub Grombíř, 17 April 2011
I have added to the Catalan Wikipedia
the flags of Assyria and also flags of
Assyrian political parties (near the bottom of the page.) The flag of 1920 is a
reconstruction; its cross appeared in slightly different
feature in Francia Vexilla, where it is also a reconstruction.
The flag mentioned by Jakub Grombíř was not a national flag, but a military flag.
Jaume Ollé, 17 April 2011
The Flag Report presented recently another Assyrian flag, yellow with
the Sargon emblem in gold and red in the center. It seems to be the Assyrian flag
used in the de facto independent Kurdistan (as shown on Kurdish TV), and
perhaps also in Iraq, if permitted.
contributor and date unknown
![[Muslim Assyrian Minority]](../images/x/xo-assyr!75.gif) 1:2image by António Martins-Tuválkin, 08 May 2009 |
![[Muslim Assyrian Minority]](../images/x/xo-assyr!7b.gif) 8:15image by António Martins-Tuválkin, 30 Apr 2010 |
Smith [smi75c] reports a flag for the Assyrians,
but does note give any reference about its origin. The flag is vertically divided
purple-yellow-green, with white crescent and star in the upper hoist, pointing towards lower fly.
Jaume Ollé, 26 Dec 1999
Nations Without States: A Historical Dictionary of Contemporary National Movements ([[mnh96]]) by James Minahan (1996, Greenwood Press) covers Assyria on pages 247-248:
A small minority of the Assyrians, around 1%, has converted to Islam, but remains Assyrian in culture and language...The flag of the Muslim Assyrian minority is a vertical tricolor of violet, yellow and green, bearing a white crescent moon and five-pointed star on the upper hoist.
Ned Smith, 12 Feb 2001
Minahan includes a «black and white line drawing of its flag»,
meaning the only color information is the word "violet" in the text.
Assuming that this book shares a common (primary?) source with Smith,
the brown variant is an error.
In the illustration in [smi75b], the violet shade is lighter, but the print
quality of this specific stripe is fairly poor. Moreover, the crescent
has less prominent points on Smith's drawing. Apart from these, the image
on the book shows the shade of yellow as “dark”
(Y+), ratio is 8:15, and the purple panel slightly more narrow than the other two;
I ignore that and expand the image to 1+1+1 stripes,
counting on overcutting in the pasteboard, but the position of the crescent-and-star,
at the same distance off both edges of the corner,
made me cautious and so the right image is an accurate (I hope) rendition
of the illustration in [smi75b], while the left image is an idealization of it.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 08 May 2009 and 30 Apr 2010
image by Ivan Sache
This flag was in use by the Assyrian American Federation prior to 1975 when
it dropped for the current Assyrian flag. The three stars represented the Assyrian,
Chaldean, and Syriac names of our nation.
contributor and date unknown
That is incorrect – the stars actually represent the three main churches
of the Assyrian nation, including the Church of the East,
Chaldean Catholic Church, and the Syriac Orthodox Church.
A. M., 04 May 2009
I have found a website with that variant, so that may have been the source.
It is at http://tinyurl.com/5vcve.
Ned Smith, 15 February 2012
Since that is a secondary source and the website of the Chaldeans online
seems to be a primary one, I'm more inclined to trust the latter than the former.
The explanation that seems to me more consistent to what is written in
Assyrian-American websites about this is that the assyrians in America were or
are trying to push their own designs as the flags of the Assyrians worldwide. I
can't be certain of this, of course, but that's the feeling I'm getting.
Jorge Candeias, 16 February 2012
I am also more inclined to trust it because the illustration of the magazine
cover is indeed a primary source. Further- and I know this point is
totally inconsequential as far as hard evidence goes-my subjective aesthetic
sense tells me that the purplish-magenta/white/red design is just more likely to
have been designed than the orangish/pink/white/red. Unless orangish-pink has
some special significance in Assyrian culture, who would have picked that?
But still, it would be nice to get a second primary source to confirm the colors;
magazine inks can be inaccurate.
I am not even certain that the illustration from the magazine is a primary
source as to colors after all. After looking at it again it seemed that possibly
the original illustration may have been a simple B&W line drawing, and the color
added when it was posted on the web.
I'm afraid I don't see the distinction you are making between the two websites-
Chaldeans Online does not consider either the old or new Assyrian flag theirs-
their flag is the one shown at
http://www.chaldeansonline.net/chald.html nor do they say that they
themselves are Assyrians, rather they evidently consider the Assyrians as just
another component of their greater Chaldean Nation.*
The other website, www.auf.nu , is an Assyrian site as far as I can tell [not
being able to read Swedish]. So I do not see why we should necessarily give
greater credence to the Chaldean site as a primary source [although as a matter
of fact my hunch is that they are correct in this particular case] In any case,
regardless of origins, I would not consider either site a primary source unless
we knew that the people who put the information there had actually seen a
pre-1975 AAF flag- and we don't know that do we?
*I hope we have not sparked a major NFR on this tangent- the relationship
between Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, and/or Aramaics. From what I have seen,
it is irresolvable and anything we might post to the website will surely tick
off somebody or other in a major way. The community?/communities? cannot agree
among itself?/themselves? and so my own advice is to ignore the issue and just
study their flags until they reach their own consensus.
Ned Smith, 16 February 2012
I'm not going to go into that swampy region of what's Assyrian and what's
Chaldean, but at the bottom of this very page you mention there are two links to
"One
Nation-Two Names..The Chaldean/Assyrian Dilemma" and "The
Chaldeans/Assyrians Under the Arab Baath Regime of Iraq", among others, that
IMHO make less than evident that they don't consider Assyria and Chaldea the
same thing, if not historically then at least at the present time.
In any case, you're right in one thing: if the www.auf.nu website is indeed an
Assyrian website (not knowing a word of Swedish, I don't know), then the level
of "secondarity" between the two is the same. And that's a pity:
complicates matters...
Jorge
Candeias, 16 February 2012
I think we do have primary evidence now- an explanation of the flag's
symbolism form the American Assyrian National Federation itself.
http://aanf.org/history.html :
"The purple, white and red colors are the colors of the flag-denoting loyalty,
purity and determination respectively -- the red also being reminiscent of the
sacrificial blood shed by the Assyrian patriots and Christian martyrs."
So the image you found is indeed correct, and the one on FOTW should be modified
accordingly.
Ned Smith, 16 February 2012
image located by Estebn Rivera, 14 November 2023
There are two images one with a flag waver, one with description, posted recently on the FOTW Facebook page of what seems to be an Assyrian flag although not one I've seen previously and in a strikingly different purple colour. I suspect that this may be a flag of a political party. Apologies if this Is already recorded.
Jason Saber, 21 February 2015
This is the flag of ADM - Zowaa Demoqrataya Aturaya (Assyrian Democratic
Movement), an Assyrian political party.Zowaa mean "The Movement" in Aramean.
Created in 1979, after 1982 the party was in the armed struggle. In 1991
collaborated with the regional Kurdistan provisional government. In 2002 US
recognized it as an Iraqi opposition party and received financial support.
Zowaa participated in all elections in Iraq and Kurdistan obtaining some
representation. You can see info and flags in
http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moviment_Democràtic_Assiri
Jaume Ollé, 22 February 2015
The Assyrian Democratic Movement was founded on April 12, 1979 after several
meetings held in secrecy in Kirkuk, Mosul and Baghdad. The party was established
among various smaller cultural-political and student groups such as the Assyrian
Brothers, with the hope of fulfilling the political objectives of the Assyrian
people in Iraq, in response to the oppressive brutality of the Ba'ath regime and
its attempts to forcibly expropriate ethnic Assyrians from their native lands.
Sources:
https://www.zowaa.org and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_Democratic_Movement
Esteban
Rivera, 14 November 2023
