"Even if we are facing different waves, we are all in the same boat," said the Patriarch of the Chaldean Church, Cardinal Louis Raphaël Sako, in a renewed call for unity to the four Eastern Churches: the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Eastern Church and the Assyrian Protestant Evangelical Church.

"Unity is the only solution to face the current challenges," stressed the Patriarch in an appeal published through the official communication channels of the Chaldean Patriarchate. “In the profession of its faith,” the text says, “the Church of the East continues for centuries and to this day to pray, despite the divisions: ‘I believe in One, Holy, Catholic (i.e. universal) and Apostolic Church,’ because it is essentially ONE (a word deliberately written in capital letters in the original text, ed.).”

For the cardinal, “the schism is against the will of Christ.” Indeed, “words cannot describe the magnitude of the consequences of the division of the Church of the East into four Churches,” and it is not excluded that “new Churches may emerge in the future.” For now, however, the first three “so-called separate” Churches (the Chaldean, Assyrian and ancient Church of the East) “have a common history, a common tradition, a common rich heritage, a common beauty of art, language and liturgy, and they are close to each other, living in the same geographical area.”

But unity, Patriarch Sako emphasizes, "is not a return to what we were, but a focus on what we should be!" And in order to "heal the wounds of schism and pave the way" to "full communion", at least between the "three Churches", the Cardinal proposes six "ideas for study" for a "new vision" of the Church of the East.

"First and foremost", the Cardinal says, "a comprehensive and practical understanding of the unity sought is needed in order to direct all energies towards the realization of Christ's will to have one Church". "In this sense, we recall the joint declaration of the Roman Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East thirty years ago (November 11, 1994), which aims primarily to create a 'suitable environment' to strengthen dialogue on the path to full communion and full agreement in the doctrine of the faith," said Cardinal Sako, who noted the importance of keeping a distinction between matters concerning faith and morals and those concerning the disciplinary and administrative sphere, so to speak "between faith and morals."

Thirdly, "it is necessary to know the just and complete historical reasons for this division, with all its painful consequences," in order to approach the issue "with openness" and "far from preconceived judgments." The fourth proposal of the Patriarch is to open their own churches and places of worship to the brothers and sisters of the other ecclesial structures that have emerged from the Ancient Church of the East, "so that they can participate effectively in the sacraments recognized by the Catholic Church, since there are no dogmatic questions that stand in the way of unity."

The penultimate point is an invitation to the laity not to be guided by ethnic and nationalist identification, while the last point is an invitation to reflect on the "decline of the Christian population in Iraq." The events, Patriarch Sako stresses, "urge us to act together with evangelical zeal against atheists, the lack of interest in the practice of the faith and the scandal of ecclesial divisions."

"We were proud to be a synodal Church even then," able to "walk together and share responsibility for its mission," the Cardinal concluded, "unlike our situation today! That is why we should look to unity as the only solution to today's challenges."