Prior to the Catholic missionaries infiltration in the Middle East during the fourteenth century, signs of the persecution of the Church of the East began from the Pope?s office in the Vatican where massacres and persecution were prepared for every corner in the world where France, Portugal and Spain were in control, we can say that not even one Catholic Church was established in the East from Egypt to the Philippines except with pressure, massacres and starvation under the supervision of the Vatican, its Popes and Cardinals. The most prominent of these Churches is the Chaldean Church itself, the characteristics of this had begun in Cyprus when Pope John Paul XXII (1316-1334) gave his instructions to the Patriarch of Jerusalem that ?Nestorians and Jacobites must be eradicated from Cyprus with any means possible? [1]
Two centuries later, the followers of the Church of the East in Cyprus turned into ?Chaldeans? by force during the time of Pope Julius III (1550-1555) which means that the Eastern Catholics specially those who were called by the Pope ?Chaldeans? were mere ?victims of Catholicism? more than being ?Catholics? since Catholicism wasn?t brought through preaching but through terror and humiliation. As a direct example we quote the explorer Henry Layard describing the ugly scene of Catholic ?proselytism? (Chaldeanism) in the north of Iraq as an eye witness in the 1840?s, specifically in the village of Be-Bozeh annexed to Amediya district, Layard said [2] :
"... We continued our advance towards Amediya reaching the Chaldean village of Be-bozeh at the top of a high mountain ? There were ten houses overlooking a deep valley, its inhabitants were all poor, but they warmly welcomed us, they are Nestorian Assyrians, who were forced to convert to Catholicism". Layard continues his account describing what they saw as they reached the village?s Church: "There were pictures in ugly colors of Virgin Mary and Saints on the walls with Latin writing not suitable for this place. I asked them about the pictures, they answered: Following our priest?s death, Archbishop Yousif the Catholic [3] came to us he hung those pictures on the walls and asked us to kneel before them, but we removed the pictures from the walls and the answer of Mahmoud Agha of the Mezzouri kurds, was to order his men to beat us until canes were broken on our legs, that is why we left the pictures on the walls, and we are forced to listen to Archbishop Yousif?s sermons who comes to the village protected by the Kurds ??
Archbishop Youssif Odo and his French colleagues continued this policy (barbering Kurdish leaders) even during his Patriarchate (1847-1878) throughout Assyria (north of Iraq) to the areas of Barwari and Sapna whereby humiliation was used to Catholicize followers of the Church of the East [4] and the descendants of those are known today as "Chaldeans".
This is the "preaching" through which the name ?Chaldean? came and was imposed on a large segment of the Church of the East, thus the Kurds became the angels who evangelized the ancestors of Mar Delly, Sarhad Jammo and Ibrahim Ibrahim with beatings and humiliation, and if today?s Chaldeans clearly understood Layard?s account mentioned above, they would have regained their respect by returning back to their Mother Church, the Church of the East, as did some of the clergy and followers of this denomination, but in anticipation for the conscience of the Catholic intellectuals to awaken we see that some of the descendants of the victims of Catholicism (Chaldeanism) began to backstab their nation even more.
Taken from an article written by Ashur Giwargis ? Beirut, titled: ASSYROPHOBIA
The complete article is available on Nineveh on-line, a highly recommended reading.