Biography of His Beatitude Patriarch Mar Paul III Nona, Patriarch of the Chaldean Church

Birth: 1 November 1967, Alqosh, Nineveh, Iraq.

Priestly Ordination: 11 January 1991, Baghdad.

 

2000–2005: Studied in Rome, where he obtained a Doctorate in Anthropological Theology from the Pontifical Lateran University.

 

2005–2010: Appointed parish priest of Alqosh. He also studied Anthropology at Babel College of Philosophy and Theology. He was subsequently appointed Vicar General of the Chaldean Eparchy of Alqosh.

 

Episcopal Ordination: 8 January 2010, at the age of 42, becoming the youngest Chaldean Archbishop in the world.

 

He was installed as Archbishop of the Chaldean Archdiocese of Mosul and served from 2010 to 2014, after receiving the approval of Pope Benedict XVI for his election on 13 November 2009, following the martyrdom of Archbishop Mar Paulos Faraj Rahho in early 2008.

 

At the beginning of 2014, he left Mosul with all the displaced persons from the city due to the ISIS invasion and relocated to Erbil.

 

On 7 March 2015, he was installed as Bishop of the Chaldean Eparchy of St Thomas the Apostle in Australia and New Zealand.

 

He speaks several languages: Chaldean (Syriac), Arabic, Italian, and English.

 

His Beatitude is known for the depth of his theological thought, his pastoral closeness to his people, and his courage in bearing witness to the faith amid trials, carrying a message of hope in the heart of suffering, and embodying the image of the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep.

 

Publications:

• The Word of God in Human Narratives (2007)
• 100 Questions on Love (2008)
• Reflections on Chaldean Liturgical Prayer (2011)
• Way of the Cross (2012)
• Family and Society (2018)
• A Believer’s Journey in the Scriptures (2020)
• Sunday of Nature: A Theological Study of the Liturgical Prayer of the Fifth Sunday of Summer (2024)