Archdiocese welcomes Syriac Catholic Patriarch

Archbishop Prowse with His Beatitude Ignatius Joseph III Younan, Patriarch of the Syriac Catholic Church.

Aramaic is the language most likely spoken by Jesus, and last week, its ancient sounds echoed in the national capital during a visit by His Beatitude Ignatius Joseph III Younan, Patriarch of the Syriac Catholic Church.

Resident in Beirut, Lebanon, His Beatitude is the global head of the Syriac church and was in Australia on a pastoral visit when he met Archbishop Christopher Prowse at the St Thomas Aquinas Church, Charnwood, in Canberra’s northwest.

During their meeting, the two leaders exchanged messages of goodwill and support for Australia’s Syriac Catholic community, whose numbers have grown significantly in recent years following the flow of refugees fleeing ISIS in Iraq and Syria. 

A highlight during the local visit was the Patriarch and his delegation singing the Our Father in Aramaic Syriac, the liturgical language of the Syriac Church. 

“This is an approximation of the language Jesus himself spoke,” Archbishop Prowse said. “It’s the language he would have first given the Our Father to the Apostles in the church.”

The Syriac Catholic Church, which has roots in Christianity’s earliest days, is one of 23 Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope. 

His Beatitude Ignatius Joseph III Younan has been the Syriac Patriarch since 2009. 

During his visit to Canberra, the Patriarch also celebrated Mass at St Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in O’Connor.

The delegation to Canberra included Rev Bishop Georges Casmoussa, Apostolic Visitor to Syriac Catholics in Western Europe and Australia; Rev Mar Barnaba Yousif Habash, Bishop of Our Lady of Deliverance, USA; and HE Mar Ephrem Yousif Abba, Archbishop of Baghdad.