Another Issue With ACOE in Toronto

Enki

Enki

Active member
Hey guys,

I hate to be a SH*T disturber but I can't get over my frustration and had to vent some place. What better place then here no?  :giggle:

August 7th as you know is our Genocide awareness day. I just wanted to understand, maybe Robert can answer because he's so entrentech in ACOE politics, why is Mar Emannuel holding a "mamla" (speach) on this day when he could be attending the rememberance ceremony? I mean, Abouna Stephanos is even attending and he's from the Syriac Orthodox Church. He'll probably be the ONLY person (besides myself) from that Church who's attending the event PLUS he's doing a speach. Why then wont the leader of our "national" church in Canada not attend? Instead, he's doing his own little thing.

I find it insulting to our martyers and to all those that have dedicated their entire lives to the Assyrian cause.

These are the small things that can make or break an individual. The actions taken by H.G Mar Emannuel are clearly of poor taste and in no disrespect to him, but I hope he gets a VERY small turn out. 0 is the number I'm looking for.

Did he forget it was the Genocide Awareness Day? Or did he just wish to ignore it to "avoid" political interference? If its the later, why then was he at the conference held by Yonadam Kanna?

I'm really confused and disturbed by our church. I seriously hope this Mar Bawai issue sheds some light on these small things so that change can come and things of this poor taste can finally be eliminated within our blessed church and community.

God Bless our martyers and may we NEVER forget their sacrifices! For our church and for our omta!
Amen!
 
WhosYourBaghdaddy? said:
Yet another feeble attempt at nitpicking. What next?
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Feeble???  The truth can never be feeble or even branded as nitpicking.  What is feeble are certain peoples' RESPONSE and REACTION to the truth, as you have demonstrated for us on AVN.  In addition, Nitpicking are those who attempt to ostracize our community's shepherds who share and reveal the TRUTH.  My friend, in the above post you attempted to wisk away truth and utterly brand it as useless, but in the end you not only wisked away your own opinion you revealed to us how blind one's logic can be.

Matthew 15:14
Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.

For how long should our community be kept in the dark under the ACOE rock at the will of these righteous leaders?

Matthew 23:13
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.

TRUTH

  • [*]The popular August 7th Assyrian Chaldean Syriac Genocide Awarness is held annually and hosted by the Assyrian Chaldean Syriac Student Union of Canada
    [br]
    [*]HG Mar Emmanuel of Canada, either from creativity or stubborness, has instead planned a "Speech" to give during August 7th separately from this annually held unified Genocide Awareness function

Why would H.G. attempt to divert attention and attendance from the popular annual Assyrian Genocide Awareness?  Will this be the First Annual HG Mar Emmaneual Martyr Speach?

Since I do not have much information regarding ACOE Canada interference politics, can some of our Canadian AVNers inform me if there is any bad water between the united organizations running Genocide Awareness and the ACOE Canada Diocese?

However, this is truly despicable, where an elder of a church in competing and not attempting to work with the youth, the future of our Nation!!

First its glorifying the Kurds, now its separation from our Nation's educational, cultural, and humanitarian organizations.  How can any such entity claim to be Nationalistic?? Nationalistic are those who carry on the work of our Martyrs and live by the true nationalistic rule of "What Would Our Martyrs Do?"  This is how you honor them, not by holding a speech separately from our unified organizations sponsored one.

They have divided and insulted our community by the name of Jesus, now they will attempt to separate and compete with youth factions by the name of our Martyrs.

When will our poor nation wake up and stop blinking to these church leaders!

God Bless!!
 
riza o shourba said:
Hey guys,

I hate to be a SH*T disturber but I can't get over my frustration and had to vent some place. What better place then here no?  :giggle:

August 7th as you know is our Genocide awareness day. I just wanted to understand, maybe Robert can answer because he's so entrentech in ACOE politics, why is Mar Emannuel holding a "mamla" (speach) on this day when he could be attending the rememberance ceremony? I mean, Abouna Stephanos is even attending and he's from the Syriac Orthodox Church. He'll probably be the ONLY person (besides myself) from that Church who's attending the event PLUS he's doing a speach. Why then wont the leader of our "national" church in Canada not attend? Instead, he's doing his own little thing.

I find it insulting to our martyers and to all those that have dedicated their entire lives to the Assyrian cause.

These are the small things that can make or break an individual. The actions taken by H.G Mar Emannuel are clearly of poor taste and in no disrespect to him, but I hope he gets a VERY small turn out. 0 is the number I'm looking for.

Did he forget it was the Genocide Awareness Day? Or did he just wish to ignore it to "avoid" political interference? If its the later, why then was he at the conference held by Yonadam Kanna?

I'm really confused and disturbed by our church. I seriously hope this Mar Bawai issue sheds some light on these small things so that change can come and things of this poor taste can finally be eliminated within our blessed church and community.

God Bless our martyers and may we NEVER forget their sacrifices! For our church and for our omta!
Amen!
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Do you know what the speech is about?  Maybe it is in honor of the Martyrs?  If that's true, I'm sure they'll be some sort of Church representation, and they are trying to hold multiple events in honor of the day, but that's just a guess.  Or maybe he'll be at both?
 
From what I could understand, and believe me its very little when Mar Emannuel speaks (ask the congregation they'll agree with me), its about church affairs. Althought, once again, I could be mistaken.

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Baghdaddy,

Its not a "feeble attempt at nitpicking". Common sence tells me this action is wrong. For instance, lets use your common sence in a scenario.

If you are wearing a black shirt and someone tells you its white would you agree with them?

Same with this. Its as clear as black and white. I'm POSITIVE Mar Emannuel could have schedualed his speach on Aug. 6th after Mass. Maybe in the evening or if the hall was booked then, why not host it the following weekend. Is it THAT important that he has to do it Aug. 7th?

You may say it IS about Martyers. Alright then, why isn't he doing the speach at the main rememberance ceremony? Just use common sence and not pick sides because of.....whatever your reasons are for picking sides.

I'm not one to choose sides first of all. I just state, from what I hear, my opinions on the matters. If ACOE and Mar Emannuel were right, this post would be dedicated to his speach and I'd encourage many to attend. Unfortunatly, it isn't.

Oh and believe me, if I dont agree with Mar Bawai, I'd post about that too. Check some of my earlier posts.

----------------

Joe,

Once again, beautifully put. Thanks for clearing it up! Looking forward to meeting you at Convention!
 
i wonder what His Holiness Mar Benyamin Shimun (nora il sandooqeh) would be looking down and thinking if he read this post. to know that he gave his life as Patriach, his brother and hundreds of his closest friends for the sake of the Church. now that is being returned with political bickering and personal motives.
 
khimos said:
i wonder what His Holiness Mar Benyamin Shimun (nora il sandooqeh) would be looking down and thinking if he read this post. to know that he gave his life as Patriach, his brother and hundreds of his closest friends for the sake of the Church. now that is being returned with political bickering and personal motives.
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Please don't jump to conclusions, let's wait and see what's exactly going on first.
 
While pamphlets are being distributed in Baghdad warning all Assyrians to evacuate their homes or they will be killed, we have nothing better to do than resume rounds of who is holier, mar bawai or mar dinkha.

Way to go  :wavetowel:
 
Had said:
While pamphlets are being distributed in Baghdad warning all Assyrians to evacuate their homes or they will be killed, we have nothing better to do than resume rounds of who is holier, mar bawai or mar dinkha.

Way to go  :wavetowel:
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what are you doing to help people in baghdad ? enlighten us all
 
The least we can do is not eat away at each other with these controversial subjects, and focus on some bigger threats.

Even if I'm doing something to help them, I won't tell you, its personal.  But all this energy and dedication to reveal the misadventures of this priest or that priest and taking them to court can  be used to petition and take our more dangerous enemies to court.  If you still don't know what I mean, I can't enlighten you further.

But honestly, if a news story about a mass killing of our people doesn't move you, for sure my stupid post won't either.
 
Had,

Belive you/me my blood boils when I hear about the coming court case with Mar Bawai and Mar Dinkha. My blood still boils when I recall the LAST court case. I mean how can "holy" men sit in a court room bashing each other while their churchs were being bombed back in the mother land?

To me its disgusting. Unfortunatly, its through situations like these that we can bring this change. Weather we like it or not, our old generation grew up with the muslim mentality and arab way of life. Their culture was heavily influenced by it and thus they act the same.

Our newer/western generation grew up in a civilized, democratic lifestyle where we adopted acceptance and values which unfortunatly, our elders may not share. Our higher education and our higher standers and way of life in the west (and Australia) allow us to make those truthful yet critical comments which you, myself, and many others make every day.

We no longer live in Iraq/Syria/Iran where we have to keep our mouth shut and accept things, even if we dont agree with it, for the fear of being killed/beaten/jailed. We have the rights and freedoms (but above all, education) to be critical of the actions made by our "leaders".

Look at congress and all the western governments. We critisize our leaders ALL the time from issues ranging from Gay marrage to Iraq war to climate control. We critisized Bill Clinton for having an affair with Monica Lewinski and nearly impeached him for his own PERSONAL affairs.

We do this because we're able to and we only seek the best. We critisize our church not to tarnish its legondary great name, but rather in the hopes that they'll understand our frustration with their horrible decision making and their thoughless actions to be able to regain and relive those glory years.

I'm sure Mar Emannuel has a perfectly good explanation for his speach and I do intend on getting to the bottom of it to see his reason for having the event on this day.

But once again, without this constructive critisizm (from both sides) we can't grow and we can't improve ourselves. The key word in that last sentence by the way was constructive ;)

Cheers to you my friend for bringing up this EXCELLENT point. It shows us your concerns for the Assyrians not just in your region, but all over the world. I hope you do keep up all of your efforts, in any shape or form, to further the Assyrian cause.

My respects,
Anki
 
riza o shourba,

"Look at congress and all the western governments. We critisize our leaders ALL the time from issues ranging from Gay marrage to Iraq war to climate control."
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See we finally agree on something. But so far I have not see anyone "from that camp" criticize ALL our leaders. Why is that? Ask Danavi, he knows. When people from that side of the fence REPEATEDLY criticize someone, bring back issues that have been discussed to death and desperately try hard to find small faults in someone (when there are HUGE flaws in them and their churches that they turn a blind eye too), it is nitpicking! It looks even more like nitpicking when you jump to conclusions based on little to no evidence. Maybe this does not apply so much to you Riza as you may have made an innocent mistake jumping to a conclusion, but I?ve seen you starting to shift from a neutral respectful individual (who once criticized ACOE, Mar Bawai and all our church leaders for a lot of our mess) to another ?Mar Bawai supporters club? stereotype that bashes everything ACOE related and is blind to everything else.

Until this changes, everything that camp says will be taken with a grain of salt as it clearly has it's own agenda. The biblical quotes in every post are not fooling anyone (especially when they are taken heavily out of context at times and are not even taken seriously by the person doing the quoting!). Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Just an example of a smart and respectfull individual, look at Senalko. He has on a number of occasions criticized a number of churches (especially ACOE lately) and yet I still have the utmost respect for the man (even if I do not agree with everything he says), because I know he is fair, honest and a TRUE Christian who does not write things for his own personal or political gains.

End of the day, I will repeat again, you (and I?m not singling out you riza) are free to follow anyone or anything you wish, but do it civilly. You are also free to criticize anyone or anything you wish, but do it in a FAIR, UNBIASED and respectful manner without turning a blind eye to those who are clearly in the wrong yet share your political or personal beliefs. And most importantly, lead people by example, without being hypocrites and hiding behind the ?i?m not a bishop? or ?I?m allowed to make [repeated] mistakes? rhetoric ? because no one will take you seriously!
 
Great post Baghdaddy!

Leading by example and being fair would hopefully allow for better dialogue and more understanding by both sides.

I hope we can all stop the continuous attacks.



 
Sheyno said:
Great post Baghdaddy!

Leading by example and being fair would hopefully allow for better dialogue and more understanding by both sides.

I hope we can all stop the continuous attacks.
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Nice Sheyno!

For once I agree with you, now you understand why I have been investing so much time alarming others on how the Church Leaders of my COE have swayed away from that fundamental Christian rule.

Neither was it leading by example or being fair by pardoning a zinya bishop in 2001, or the excommunication of a canon-abiding bishop in 2005, or the reinstatement of a molester priest (twicely removed before by Mar Gewargis and Mar Odisho), or the notorious False Teacher of the Law clip acted by none other than Qasha Antwon, or the physical insults spewed by Mar Meelis on Sargon Dadesho TV, or even the injustice that is still surrounding the Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII assasination of not only his person but of his dignity

Why attempt to kill and discredit the messenger, when the message albeit being awful and notorius, is coming straight from the pens and tongues of the Leaders of the ACOE?

See, I told you we are all on the same side!

God Bless!!  :bigarmhug:
 
Riza o Shourba,

You have to be fair in what you're saying and writing.If I remember correctly it was the year before last when the 01st Assyrian Genocide Awareness Day was held in down town Toronto.The invitation then was sent to the other clergy from the other denominations but they refused to attend,and there was only one priest from the ACOE who had participated in that commemoration, while Mar Emanuel had participated in the other function at Humber College.

Why didn't you then comment on how those other clergy refused to attend that ceremony...Was it because the button only carried the Assyrian name which they all dread and fear or was it because of their sick mentalities denying their Assyrian roots and sticking to their either Arab or kurdish identities which they are so proud of while the Assyrian name which is a crown on their heads they refuse and cast aside.


http://www.ankawa.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=50198.0;id=66722;image

The above link is this year's ad. to the Assyrian Awareness Day...Now father stephanos or any other clergy want to attend ??? Why because the denominational names Syrian"syriac" and chaldean are mentioned side by side the Assyrian because they think of them as being "national" names ???

Let me tell you something Dr. David Perley who was a memeber of the syrian "syriac" orthodox church but who was an Assyrian nationalist had never mentioned his national name after his denominational name,neither did Naoum Faiq, or Fardi Nazha and many many others who were all Assyrian nationalists and belonged to the syrian "syriac" denomination,Yusuf Malek was of the chaldean denomination and he never brought up his denominational name over his nationality as an Assyrian.


Now every one wants to bend over in the name of "unity" while we keep seeing them back stabbing the Assyrians every chance they get.

Those who believe that they are Assyrians whether they are from the syrian "syriac" orthodox,catholic,chaldean or any other denomination they could careless about what their churches say and they will still attend an Assyrian function.

I feel sorry for those who don't read arabic otherwise you would have read for yourselves what those who claim that they are chaldeans or arameans say about the Assyrians and the Assyrian nationality in their hatred filled articles then the bending over would have ended.
 
Baghdady and Nina,

I believe I am fair in my posts. Baghdady you mentioned how I was critical of all before no matter who they were. I still am if you want to believe it or not. But when someone does something right, I will say so. The reason I've been giving the impression I'm "on the Mar Bawai bandwagon" is because of the lecture I attended last week. His speach was excellent and his vision was my dream. A united church. A united people.

Granted, I still feel in the end he will split our church. That part is still bugging me. Simply put, two things can only come of this. 1 is either we unite as one (or 2) churchs from the 3 major ones we are (Chaldean, Seventh, Nestorian) or 2 he does his own thing and joins the seventh which have been the most accepting of his views.

As a memeber of the SYRIAC orthodox church and the Church of the East, I dont think I'd want to join a third church no matter who my pastor is. Having said this, I wouldn't give up my Church of the East status. However, many will. Many dont care what church they belong to because A CHURCH IS NOT YOUR NATIONAL IDENTITY. A church is simply a way for you to connect with Christ and your path to heaven (my understanding anyway). Your national identity you get from birth, BEFORE you're baptized as a christian.

Sorry if I do sound bias at times Baghdaddy and choosing Mar Bawai's side, but when I hear good things from the ACOE and Mar Emannuel (which I seriously haven't heard at all lately) I will support that as well. I simply support anything thats good and when something bad is done, I will bring it out to the public.

To Nina,

Dr. David Perley, Naoum Faiq, Fardi Nazha, Yusuf Malek, all of these great men were true Assyrian Nationalist in every sence. They understood the difference between being of the Syriac Church and being Assyrian. They were all, and here's the key word, EDUCATED people. Unfortunatly today, our form of "educated" people take their history lessons from their own sources. Kindof like that movie "The King and I" where the student's form of education was that their country was the largest in the world and that the King invented everything.

They listen to what they want to hear.

But having said this, how do you know we're Assyrian and not Chaldean or "Syriac"? To make a long answer short, you were raised Assyrian. Your parents told you you were an Assyrian. They told you the language you spoke was a form of Assyrian. They also told you about your history and where Assyria was.

But what if they changed the word "Assyrian" to "Chaldean"? You would then have been lead to believe that you were a Chaldean. Simply because, a parent is the one person you can trust in this world as a minor and even now as an adult.

The problem now is their reluctance to change and learn the difference between the two. As leaders of our generation, we need to be able to work with the self proclaimed "Chaldeans" and "Syriacs" and teach them about their national identity. This takes me back to the issue I have with the whole "Assyrian Chaldean Syriac" unified name. Its a seriously flawed way of thinking doing nothing more than instilling in their minds that yes, they are indeed a seperate ETHNIC identity and not just a religious one. Because if it was a religious title, it should be "Nestorian Chaldean Syriac's of Assyria" or something like that"

To answer your question about the first (and only) Assyrian Genocide Awareness Day which was held in the beautiful Downtown Toronto in 2004. First of all, I wasn't a very active member on this site. Secondly, we were VERY critical of our churchs for their lack of attendance. But having said that, we should be the ones blamed for it. Why were we not able to bring them? We did not capitalize on what we could have done to bring them.

I dont even think the Chaldean bishop even met with us. We had left that to Zowaa to try to get them to join in. I personally spoke with the Syriac Bishop and his reason for not attending was because he didn't want to get the church involved in politics. When I told him that hundreds of his priests and bishops like himselved died by the sword for the cross he wears around his neck, he got frustrated and I was asked to leave.

The point is, these people are not educated in what the word ASSYRIAN means. This is what we need to teach not only them, but those that call themselves ASSYRIAN as well because many of them, believe it or not, don't know what it means either.
 
riza o shourba said:
The problem now is their reluctance to change and learn the difference between the two. As leaders of our generation, we need to be able to work with the self proclaimed "Chaldeans" and "Syriacs" and teach them about their national identity. This takes me back to the issue I have with the whole "Assyrian Chaldean Syriac" unified name. Its a seriously flawed way of thinking doing nothing more than instilling in their minds that yes, they are indeed a seperate ETHNIC identity and not just a religious one. Because if it was a religious title, it should be "Nestorian Chaldean Syriac's of Assyria" or something like that"
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Riza, I totally agree with you on this 110%.  The title you suggested has made more sense to me than anything I've read in these forums in a very long time.

In all honesty, that's a flat out ingenious opinion (and I'm not being sarcastic).  :victory:
 
khimos said:
i wonder what His Holiness Mar Benyamin Shimun (nora il sandooqeh) would be looking down and thinking if he read this post. to know that he gave his life as Patriach, his brother and hundreds of his closest friends for the sake of the Church. now that is being returned with political bickering and personal motives.
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Mar Benyamin Shimon himself was a political figure and the church was alwys in politics (In fact more then then now), so your statement does not make any sense.
 
Xpander said:
khimos said:
i wonder what His Holiness Mar Benyamin Shimun (nora il sandooqeh) would be looking down and thinking if he read this post. to know that he gave his life as Patriach, his brother and hundreds of his closest friends for the sake of the Church. now that is being returned with .
Click to expand...

Mar Benyamin Shimon himself was a political figure and the church was alwys in politics (In fact more then then now), so your statement does not make any sense.
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Xpander,

There were ZERO Assyrian political parties or groups during the time of Mar Binyamin Shimun (nora al sandooqeh).  The only politicking our Martyred Patriarch involved himself was defending his Church and faithful nation from atrocious attacks against them.  If there were political parties and strong movements, be assured that this truly Christian Patriarch (gave up his brother and his life for Christianity) would not get involved as some Patriarchs are getting involved in petty politics currently.

Thus he had worked with General Agha Putros in protecting and defending our millat from harm and Islamification.  Hardly could be branded as "political bickering and personal motives" especially when he and his young brother became sacrifical lambs for our Church and Nation!!

God Bless!!

 
Senator_Danavi said:
Xpander,

There were ZERO Assyrian political parties or groups during the time of Mar Binyamin Shimun (nora al sandooqeh).  The only politicking our Martyred Patriarch involved himself was defending his Church and faithful nation from atrocious attacks against them.  If there were political parties and strong movements, be assured that this truly Christian Patriarch (gave up his brother and his life for Christianity) would not get involved as some Patriarchs are getting involved in petty politics currently.

Thus he had worked with General Agha Putros in protecting and defending our millat from harm and Islamification.  Hardly could be branded as "political bickering and personal motives" especially when he and his young brother became sacrifical lambs for our Church and Nation!!

God Bless!!
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Just because there was no politic parties it does't mean the Patriach was not a political person, in fact Mar Benyamin Shimon was probably more involved in politics then our modern church leaders...

This needs a little reading, you have to understand how the church always led our people in the past, read on how our great grandparents lived in Hakkari and Urmia and how the Patriach (Church) was always the head of them and was always involved in politics.

The structure was that the Patriach was the leader, the Matran was right behind him, and then came the Tribal rulers "Maleks", this is how it was in those days, the fact is Agha Potrus was the first national leader we ever had in those days (Sadly people did't follow him), and sadly Mar Benyamin Shimon did't follow him and work with him as well because had Mar Benyamin Shimon listened to him in the first place the assassination by Simko would have not happened.

So as you see political affairs in our church in the past has always existed, to say our church had no politics in it is really absurd if you ask me.
 
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