ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the consolidation of the Chaldean Catholic community into one cohesive ecclesial body following a period of nearly three centuries of disputes which weakened the patriarchal office. With the unification of the Chaldean factions, the Church became, by the end of the nineteenth century, a strong and ideologically coherent body with a network of schools, religious institutes and a major seminary in Mesopotamia. The chapter concludes with consideration of the effects of the Tanzimat reforms on the status of Christians in the Ottoman Empire and the impact of the Seyfo massacres on the Chaldeans during the First World War. I begin to discuss the path of recovery in the newly formed state of Iraq and highlight the ‘sense of exhaustion’ in communal life with which the Chaldeans were faced by 1921, and I examine the foundation of the Iraqi monarchy under the British mandate.
