Chaldean Catholic Church

The Chaldean Catholic Church is an Eastern Catholic particular church (sui iuris) in full communion with the Holy See and the rest of the Catholic Church, and is headed by the Chaldean Patriarchate. Employing in its liturgy the East Syriac Rite in the Syriac dialect of the Aramaic language, it is part of Syriac Christianity. Headquartered in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Sorrows, Baghdad, Iraq, since 1950, it is headed by the Catholicos-Patriarch Louis Raphaël I Sako. In the late 2010s, it had a membership of 616,639, with a large population in diaspora and its home country of Iraq.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom reports that, according to the Iraqi Christian Foundation, an agency of the Chaldean Catholic Church, approximately 80% of Iraqi Christians are of that church. In its own 2018 Report on Religious Freedom, the United States Department of State put the Chaldean Catholics at approximately 67% of the Christians in Iraq. The 2019 Country Guidance on Iraq of the European Union Agency for Asylum gives the same information as the United States Department of State.

The majority of Chaldean Catholics (Syriac: ܟܲܠܕܵܝܹ̈ܐ ܩܲܬܘܿܠܝܼܩܵܝܹ̈ܐ), today are ethnic Assyrians, also known as Chaldo-Assyrians. In the Assyrian homeland, Chaldean Catholics primarily inhabited villages and cities that are located in what is now modern day Iraq, such as Alqosh, Ankawa, Araden, Baqofah, Batnaya, Karamlesh, Mangesh, Shaqlawa, Tesqopa, Tel Keppe, Dawodiya, Faysh Khabur and Zakho. Other Assyrian communities such as those from southeastern Turkey, as well as a minority in Syria and Iran, also adhere to the church.