Metropolitan bishop
In Christian churches with episcopal polity, the rank of metropolitan bishop, or metropolitan, pertains to the diocesan bishop or archbishop of a metropolis. The term referred to the bishop of the chief city of a historical Roman province, whose authority in relation to the other bishops of the province was recognized by the First Council of Nicaea; the bishop of the provincial capital, the metropolitan, enjoyed certain rights over other bishops in the province called suffragan bishops. The term is applied in a similar sense to the bishop of the chief episcopal see of an ecclesiastical province; the head of such a metropolitan see has the rank of archbishop and is therefore called the metropolitan archbishop of the ecclesiastical province. Metropolitan bishops preside over synods of the bishops of their ecclesiastical province, are granted special privileges by canon law and tradition. In some churches, such as the Church of Greece, a metropolis is a rank granted to all episcopal sees, their bishops are all called the title of archbishop being reserved for the primate.
See also: Catholic Church hierarchy and Diocesan bishop In the Latin Church, an ecclesiastical province, composed of several neighbouring dioceses, is headed by a metropolitan, the archbishop of the diocese designated by the Pope. The other bishops are known as suffragan bishops; the metropolitan's powers over dioceses other than his own are limited to supervising observance of faith and ecclesiastical discipline and notifying the Supreme Pontiff of any abuses. The metropolitan has the liturgical privilege of celebrating sacred functions throughout the province, as if he were a bishop in his own diocese, provided only that, if he celebrates in a cathedral church, the diocesan bishop has been informed beforehand; the metropolitan is obliged to request the pallium, a symbol of the power that, in communion with the Church of Rome, he possesses over his ecclesiastical province. This holds if he had the pallium in another metropolitan see, it is the responsibility of the metropolitan, with the consent of the majority of the suffragan bishops, to call a provincial council, decide where to convene it, determine the agenda.
It is his prerogative to preside over the provincial council. No provincial council can be called. All Latin Rite metropolitans are archbishops. Titular archbishops are never metropolitans; as of April 2006, 508 archdioceses were headed by metropolitan archbishops, 27 archbishops lead an extant archdiocese, but were not metropolitans, there were 89 titular archbishops. See Catholic Church hierarchy for the distinctions. In those Eastern Catholic Churches that are headed by a patriarch, metropolitans in charge of ecclesiastical provinces hold a position similar to that of metropolitans in the Latin Church. Among the differences is that Eastern Catholic metropolitans within the territory of the patriarchate are to be ordained and enthroned by the patriarch, who may ordain and enthrone metropolitans of sees outside that territory that are part of his Church. A metropolitan has the right to ordain and enthrone the bishops of his province; the metropolitan is to be commemorated in the liturgies celebrated within his province.
A major archbishop is defined as the metropolitan of a certain see who heads an autonomous Eastern Church not of patriarchal rank. The canon law of such a Church differs only from that regarding a patriarchal Church. Within major archiepiscopal churches, there may be ecclesiastical provinces headed by metropolitan bishops. There are autonomous Eastern Catholic Churches consisting of a single province and headed by a metropolitan. Metropolitans of this kind are to obtain the pallium from the Pope as a sign of his metropolitan authority and of his Church's full communion with the Pope, only after his investment with it can he convoke the Council of Hierarchs and ordain the bishops of his autonomous Church. In his autonomous Church it is for him to ordain and enthrone bishops and his name is to be mentioned after that of the Pope in the liturgy. In the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the title of metropolitan is used variously, in terms of rank and jurisdiction. In terms of rank, in some Eastern Orthodox Churches metropolitans are ranked above archbishops in precedence, while in others that order is reversed.
Primates of autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Churches below patriarchal rank are designated as archbishops. In the Greek Orthodox Churches, archbishops are ranked above metropolitans in precedence; the reverse is true for some Slavic Orthodox Churches and for Romanian Orthodox Church, where metropolitans rank above archbishops and the title can be used for important regional or historical sees. In terms of jurisdiction, there are two basic types of metropolitans in Eastern Orthodox Church: real metropolitans, with actual jurisdiction over their ecclesiastical provinces, honorary metropolitans who
Chicago
Chicago the City of Chicago, is the most populous city in Illinois, as well as the third most populous city in the United States. With an estimated population of 2,716,450, it is the most populous city in the Midwest. Chicago is the principal city of the Chicago metropolitan area referred to as Chicagoland, the county seat of Cook County, the second most populous county in the United States; the metropolitan area, at nearly 10 million people, is the third-largest in the United States, the fourth largest in North America and the third largest metropolitan area in the world by land area. Located on the shores of freshwater Lake Michigan, Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed and grew in the mid-nineteenth century. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless, the city made a concerted effort to rebuild; the construction boom accelerated population growth throughout the following decades, by 1900 Chicago was the fifth largest city in the world.
Chicago made noted contributions to urban planning and zoning standards, including new construction styles, the development of the City Beautiful Movement, the steel-framed skyscraper. Chicago is an international hub for finance, commerce, technology, telecommunications, transportation, it is the site of the creation of the first standardized futures contracts at the Chicago Board of Trade, which today is the largest and most diverse derivatives market gobally, generating 20% of all volume in commodities and financial futures. O'Hare International Airport is the one of the busiest airports in the world, the region has the largest number of U. S. highways and greatest amount of railroad freight. In 2012, Chicago was listed as an alpha global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, it ranked seventh in the entire world in the 2017 Global Cities Index; the Chicago area has one of the highest gross domestic products in the world, generating $680 billion in 2017. In addition, the city has one of the world's most diversified and balanced economies, not being dependent on any one industry, with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce.
Chicago's 58 million domestic and international visitors in 2018, made it the second most visited city in the nation, behind New York City's approximate 65 million visitors. The city ranked first place in the 2018 Time Out City Life Index, a global quality of life survey of 15,000 people in 32 cities. Landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Grant Park, the Museum of Science and Industry, Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicago's culture includes the visual arts, film, comedy and music jazz, soul, hip-hop and electronic dance music including house music. Of the area's many colleges and universities, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, the University of Illinois at Chicago are classified as "highest research" doctoral universities. Chicago has professional sports teams in each of the major professional leagues, including two Major League Baseball teams; the name "Chicago" is derived from a French rendering of the indigenous Miami-Illinois word shikaakwa for a wild relative of the onion, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum and known more as ramps.
The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as "Checagou" was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir. Henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the eponymous wild "garlic" grew abundantly in the area. According to his diary of late September 1687:...when we arrived at the said place called "Chicagou" which, according to what we were able to learn of it, has taken this name because of the quantity of garlic which grows in the forests in this region. The city has had several nicknames throughout its history such as the Windy City, Chi-Town, Second City, the City of the Big Shoulders, which refers to the city's numerous skyscrapers and high-rises. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, who had taken the place of the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples; the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable arrived in the 1780s, he is known as the "Founder of Chicago".
In 1795, following the Northwest Indian War, an area, to be part of Chicago was turned over to the United States for a military post by native tribes in accordance with the Treaty of Greenville. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn and rebuilt; the Ottawa and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis; the Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833. On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people. On June 15, 1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. Receiver of Public Monies; the City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4, 1837, for several decades was the world's fastest-growing city. As the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States.
Chicago's first railway and Chicago Union Railroad, the Illi
Mardin
Mardin is a city and multiple bishopric in southeastern Turkey. The capital of Mardin Province, it is known for the Artuqid architecture of its old city, for its strategic location on a rocky hill near the Tigris River that rises steeply over the flat plains; the territory of Mardin and Karaca Dağ was known as Izalla in the Late Bronze Age, part of a Hurrian kingdom. The city and its surrounds were absorbed into Assyria proper during the Middle Assyrian Empire, again during the Neo Assyrian Empire; the ancient name was rendered as Izalā in Old Persian, during the Achaemenid Empire according to the Behistun Inscription it was still regarded as an integral part of the geo-political entity of Assyria. It survived into the Assyrian Christian period as the name of Mt. Izala, on which in the early 4th century AD stood the monastery of Nisibis, housing seventy monks. In the Roman period, the city itself was known as Marida, from a Syriac/Assyrian Neo-Aramaic language name translating to "fortress".
Between c.150 BC and 250 AD (apart from a brief Roman intervention when it became a part of Assyria it was part of the Neo-Assyrian kingdom of Osroene. In the late 3rd century AD Shapur II conquered Mardin and Osroene into the Sassanid Empire after which the region became part of the province of Assuristan. Byzantine Izala fell to the Seljuks in the 11th century. During the Artuqid period, many of Mardin's historic buildings were constructed, including several mosques, palaces and khans. Mardin served as the capital of one of the two Artuqid branches during the 12th centuries; the lands of the Artukid dynasty fell to the Mongol invasion sometime between 1235 and 1243, but the Artuqids continued to govern as vassals of the Mongol Empire. During the battle of Ain Jalut in 1260, the Artuqid governor revolted against Mongol rule. Hulagu's general and Chupan's ancestor, Koke-Ilge of the Jalayir, stormed the city and Hulegu appointed the rebel's son, al-Nasir, governor of Mardin. Although, Hulagu suspected the latter's loyalty for a while, thereafter the Artuqids remained loyal unlike nomadic Bedouin and Kurd tribes in the south western frontier.
The Mongol Ilkhanids considered them important allies. For this loyalty they showed, Artuqids were given more lands in 1298 and 1304. Mardin passed to the Aq Qoyunlu, a federation of Turkic tribes that controlled territory all the way to the Caspian Sea. During the medieval period, the town became the centre for episcopal sees of Armenian Apostolic, Armenian Catholic, Syriac Catholic, churches, as well as a stronghold of the Syriac Orthodox Church, whose patriarchal see was headquartered in the nearby Saffron Monastery from 1034 to 1924. In 1451 the Kara Koyunlu besieged the castle of Mardin, damaging the city after their failed attempt to take the stronghold. About half a century in 1507, Ismail I of the Safavids succeeded to capture the city and the castle. A few years in 1515, the city yielded to the Ottomans, who were bitter rivals of the Safavid dynasty, though the castle still remained under the control of Ismail I. One year the Ottomans under the leadership of Selim I besieged the city anew and annexed it in 1517.
During this time, Mardin was administered by a governor directly appointed under the Ottoman Sultan's authority. The city experienced a tranquil period under Ottoman rule, without any significant conflicts or plights; this period of peace was halted when the Ottoman Empire came into conflict with the Khedivate of Egypt. During this time the city came under the rule of insurgents associated with the Milli clan. Between 1847 and 1865 the city's population suffered from a notable cholera epidemic, with the exact number of fatalities not known. During World War I Mardin was one of the sites affected by the Armenian Genocide. On the eve of World War I, Mardin was home over 7,500 Armenians. During the armed conflicts and plights caused by the war, many were sent to the camps of Ras al-'Ayn, though some managed to escape to the Sinjar Mountain with help from local Chechens. Kurds and Arabs of Mardin refer to these events as "fırman", while Syriacs call it "seyfo". After the Armistice of Mudros Mardin was one of the Turkish cities, not occupied by the troops of the Allied Powers.
In 1923, with the founding of the Republic of Turkey, Mardin was made the administrative capital of a province named after it. Many Assyrian survivors of the violence on left Mardin for nearby Qamishli in the 1940s after their conscription in the Turkish military became compulsory. Through a passed law in 2012 Mardin became a metropolitan municipality, which took office after the Turkish local elections in 2014. After the last local election, an Assyrian Syriac Orthodox female, Februniye Akyol, is serving as co-mayor of the town. A bishopric of the Assyrian Church of the East was centred on the town when it was part of the Roman province of Assyria, it was a suffragan see of Edessa, the provincial metropolitan see. It became part of the Catholic Church in the late 17th century AD following a breakaway from the Assyrian Church, is the seat of three sees of the Catholic Church: the current Chaldean Catholic Eparchy of Mardin and two titular sees under the ancient name of the town: former Armenian Catholic Archeparchy of Mardin, now Titular see of Mardin only, former Syriac Catholic Eparchy of
Turkey
Turkey the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country located in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe. East Thrace, located in Europe, is separated from Anatolia by the Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorous strait and the Dardanelles. Turkey is bordered by Bulgaria to its northwest. Istanbul is the largest city. 70 to 80 per cent of the country's citizens identify as Turkish. Kurds are the largest minority. At various points in its history, the region has been inhabited by diverse civilizations including the Assyrians, Thracians, Phrygians and Armenians. Hellenization continued into the Byzantine era; the Seljuk Turks began migrating into the area in the 11th century, their victory over the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 symbolizes the start and foundation of Turkey. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, when it disintegrated into small Turkish principalities. Beginning in the late 13th-century, the Ottomans started uniting these Turkish principalities.
After Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453, Ottoman expansion continued under Selim I. During the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent the Ottoman Empire encompassed much of Southeast Europe, West Asia and North Africa and became a world power. In the following centuries the state entered a period of decline with a gradual loss of territories and wars. In an effort to consolidate the weakening social and political foundations of the empire, Mahmut II started a period of modernisation in the early 19th century, bringing reforms in all areas of the state including the military and bureaucracy along with the emancipation of all citizens. In 1913, a coup d'état put the country under the control of the Three Pashas. During World War I, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian and Pontic Greek subjects. Following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states; the Turkish War of Independence, initiated by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his colleagues against occupying Allied Powers, resulted in the abolition of monarchy in 1922 and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, with Atatürk as its first president.
Atatürk enacted numerous reforms, many of which incorporated various aspects of Western thought and customs into the new form of Turkish government. The Kurdish–Turkish conflict, an armed conflict between the Republic of Turkey and Kurdish insurgents, has been active since 1984 in the southeast of the country. Various Kurdish groups demand separation from Turkey to create an independent Kurdistan or to have autonomy and greater political and cultural rights for Kurds in Turkey. Turkey is a charter member of the UN, an early member of NATO, the IMF and the World Bank, a founding member of the OECD, OSCE, BSEC, OIC and G-20. After becoming one of the first members of the Council of Europe in 1949, Turkey became an associate member of the EEC in 1963, joined the EU Customs Union in 1995 and started accession negotiations with the European Union in 2005 which have been stopped by the EU in 2017 due to "Turkey's path toward autocratic rule". Turkey's economy and diplomatic initiatives led to its recognition as a regional power while its location has given it geopolitical and strategic importance throughout history.
Turkey is a secular, unitary parliamentary republic which adopted a presidential system with a referendum in 2017. Turkey's current administration headed by president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of the AKP has enacted measures to increase the influence of Islam, undermine Kemalist policies and freedom of the press; the English name of Turkey means "land of the Turks". Middle English usage of Turkye is evidenced in an early work by Chaucer called The Book of the Duchess; the phrase land of Torke is used in the 15th-century Digby Mysteries. Usages can be found in the Dunbar poems, the 16th century Manipulus Vocabulorum and Francis Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum; the modern spelling "Turkey" dates back to at least 1719. The Turkish name Türkiye was adopted in 1923 under the influence of European usage; the Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world. Various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period.
Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family. In fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated; the European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has been inhabited since at least forty thousand years ago, is known to have been in the Neolithic era by about 6000 BC. Göbekli Tepe is the site of the oldest known man-made religious structure, a temple dating to circa 10,000 BC, while Çatalhöyük is a large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately
Iraq
Iraq the Republic of Iraq, is a country in Western Asia, bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, Kuwait to the southeast, Saudi Arabia to the south, Jordan to the southwest and Syria to the west. The capital, largest city, is Baghdad. Iraq is home to diverse ethnic groups including Arabs, Assyrians, Shabakis, Armenians, Mandeans and Kawliya. Around 95% of the country's 37 million citizens are Muslims, with Christianity, Yarsan and Mandeanism present; the official languages of Iraq are Kurdish. Iraq has a coastline measuring 58 km on the northern Persian Gulf and encompasses the Mesopotamian Alluvial Plain, the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range and the eastern part of the Syrian Desert. Two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run south through Iraq and into the Shatt al-Arab near the Persian Gulf; these rivers provide Iraq with significant amounts of fertile land. The region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers known as Mesopotamia, is referred to as the cradle of civilisation.
It was here that mankind first began to read, create laws and live in cities under an organised government—notably Uruk, from which "Iraq" is derived. The area has been home to successive civilisations since the 6th millennium BC. Iraq was the centre of the Akkadian, Sumerian and Babylonian empires, it was part of the Median, Hellenistic, Sassanid, Rashidun, Abbasid, Mongol, Safavid and Ottoman empires. The country today known as Iraq was a region of the Ottoman Empire until the partition of the Ottoman Empire in the 20th century, it was made up of three provinces, called vilayets in the Ottoman language: Mosul Vilayet, Baghdad Vilayet, Basra Vilayet. In April 1920 the British Mandate of Mesopotamia was created under the authority of the League of Nations. A British-backed monarchy joining these vilayets into one Kingdom was established in 1921 under Faisal I of Iraq; the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq gained independence from the UK in 1932. In 1958, the monarchy was overthrown and the Iraqi Republic created.
Iraq was controlled by the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party from 1968 until 2003. After an invasion by the United States and its allies in 2003, Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party was removed from power, multi-party parliamentary elections were held in 2005; the US presence in Iraq ended in 2011, but the Iraqi insurgency continued and intensified as fighters from the Syrian Civil War spilled into the country. Out of the insurgency came a destructive group calling itself ISIL, which took large parts of the north and west, it has since been defeated. Disputes over the sovereignty of Iraqi Kurdistan continue. A referendum about the full sovereignty of Iraqi Kurdistan was held on 25 September 2017. On 9 December 2017, then-Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory over ISIL after the group lost its territory in Iraq. Iraq is a federal parliamentary republic consisting of one autonomous region; the country's official religion is Islam. Culturally, Iraq has a rich heritage and celebrates the achievements of its past in both pre-Islamic as well as post-Islamic times and is known for its poets.
Its painters and sculptors are among the best in the Arab world, some of them being world-class as well as producing fine handicrafts, including rugs and carpets. Iraq is a founding member of the UN as well as of the Arab League, OIC, Non-Aligned Movement and the IMF; the Arabic name العراق al-ʿIrāq has been in use since before the 6th century. There are several suggested origins for the name. One dates to the Sumerian city of Uruk and is thus of Sumerian origin, as Uruk was the Akkadian name for the Sumerian city of Urug, containing the Sumerian word for "city", UR. An Arabic folk etymology for the name is "well-watered. During the medieval period, there was a region called ʿIrāq ʿArabī for Lower Mesopotamia and ʿIrāq ʿAjamī, for the region now situated in Central and Western Iran; the term included the plain south of the Hamrin Mountains and did not include the northernmost and westernmost parts of the modern territory of Iraq. Prior to the middle of the 19th century, the term Eyraca Arabic was used to describe Iraq.
The term Sawad was used in early Islamic times for the region of the alluvial plain of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, contrasting it with the arid Arabian desert. As an Arabic word, عراق means "hem", "shore", "bank", or "edge", so that the name by folk etymology came to be interpreted as "the escarpment", viz. at the south and east of the Jazira Plateau, which forms the northern and western edge of the "al-Iraq arabi" area. The Arabic pronunciation is. In English, it is either or, the American Heritage Dictionary, the Random House Dictionary; the pronunciation is heard in US media. In accordance with the 2005 Constitution, the official name of the state is the "Republic of Iraq". Between 65,000 BC and 35,000 BC northern Iraq was home to a Neanderthal culture, archaeological remains of which have been discovered at Shanidar Cave This same region is the location of a number of pre-Neolithic cemeteries, dating from 11,000 BC. Since 10,000 BC, Iraq was one of centres of a Caucasoid Neolithic culture (k
Erbil
Erbil spelled Arbil, locally called Hewlêr by the Kurds, is the capital city of Kurdistan and the most populated city in the Kurdish inhabited areas of Iraq. It is located in the center of Iraqi Kurdistan region and north of Iraq, it has about 850,000 inhabitants, Erbil governorate has a permanent population of 2,009,367 as of 2015. Human settlement at Erbil can be dated back to 5th millennium BC, it is one of the oldest continuously inhabited areas in the world. At the heart of the city is the ancient Citadel of Erbil; the earliest historical reference to the region dates to the Third Dynasty of Ur of Sumer, when King Shulgi mentioned the city of Urbilum. The city was conquered by the Assyrians. Erbil became an integral part of the kingdom of Assyria by at least the 21st century BC through to the end of the seventh century BC, after it was captured by the Gutians, it was known in Assyrian annals variously as Urbilim and Arba-ilu. After this it was part of the geopolitical province of Assyria under several empires in turn, including the Median Empire, the Achaemenid Empire, Macedonian Empire, Seleucid Empire, Parthian Empire, Roman Assyria and Sasanian Empire, as well as being the capital of the tributary state of Adiabene between the mid-second century BC and early second century AD.
Following the Muslim conquest of Persia, it no longer remained a unitary region, during the Middle Ages, the city came to be ruled by the Seljuk and Ottoman empires. Erbil's archaeological museum houses a large collection of pre-Islamic artefacts the art of Mesopotamia, is a center for archaeological projects in the area; the city was designated as Arab Tourism Capital 2014 by the Arab Council of Tourism. In July 2014, the Citadel of Arbil was inscribed as a World Heritage site; the city has an ethnically diverse population of Kurds, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Iraqi Turkmens, Yezidis and Mandaeans. It is religiously diverse, with believers of Sunni Islam, Shia Islam, Yezidism, Yarsanism and Mandaeism extant in and around Erbil; the name Erbil was mentioned in Sumerian holy writings of third millennium BC as Urbilum, Urbelum or Urbillum, which appears to originate from Arbilum Later, the Akkadians and Assyrians by a folk etymology rendered the name as arba'ū ilū to mean. The city became a centre for the worship of the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar.
In classical times the city became known from the Syriac form of the name. In Old Persian, the city was called Arbairā. Today, the modern Kurdish name of the city, Hewlêr, appears to be a corruption of the name Arbel by a series of metatheses of consonants; the region in which Erbil lies was under Sumerian domination from c. 3000 BC, until the rise of the Akkadian Empire which united all of the Akkadian Semites and Sumerians of Mesopotamia under one rule. Today the Assyrian people, a Syriac-speaking community who claim descent from Akkadian speakers, endure as a minority in northern Iraq, north east Syria, south east Turkey and north west Iran, their population is estimated to be 3.3 million. The first mention of Erbil in literary sources' comes from the archives of the east Semitic speaking kingdom of Ebla, they record two journeys to Erbil by a messenger from Ebla around 2300 BC. Erridupizir, king of the language isolate speaking kingdom of Gutium, captured the city in 2150 BC; the Neo-Sumerian ruler of Ur, Amar-Sin, sacked Urbilum in his second year, c. 1975 BCErbil was an integral part of Assyria from around 2050 BC, becoming a important city during the Old Assyrian Empire, Middle Assyrian Empire and the Neo Assyrian Empire, until the last of these empires fell between 612–599 BC, however it remained part of Assyria under Persian, Parthian and Sassanid rule until the first half of the 7th century AD.
Under the Median Empire, Cyaxares might have settled a number of people from the Ancient Iranian tribe of Sagartians in the Assyrian cities of Arbela and Arrapha as a reward for their help in the capture of Nineveh. The Persian emperor Cyrus the Great occupied Assyria in 547 BC and established it as an Achaemenid satrapy called in Old Persian Aθurā, with Arbela as the capital; the Battle of Gaugamela, in which Alexander the Great defeated Darius III of Persia in 331 BC, took place 100 kilometres west of Erbil. After the battle, Darius managed to flee to the city, somewhat inaccurately, the confrontation is sometimes known as the "Battle of Arbela". Subsequently, Arbela was part of Alexander's Empire. After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, Arbela became part of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire. Erbil became part of the region disputed between Persia under the Sasanids; the ancient Assyrian kingdom of Adiabene had its centre at Erbil, the town and kingdom are known in Jewish Middle Eastern history for the conversion of the royal family to Judaism.
During the Parthian era to early Sassanid era, Erbil became the capital of the Assyrian state of Adiabene. Its populace gradually converted from the Mesopotamian religion between the 1st and 4th centuries to the Chaldean Catholic Church Christianity, with Pkidha traditionally becoming its first bishop around 104 AD, although the ancient Mesopotamian religion did not die out in the region until the 10th century AD; the metropolitanate of Ḥadyab in Arbela became a centre of eastern Syriac Christianity
Patriarch
The highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Catholic Church, the Church of the East are termed patriarchs. The word is derived from Greek πατριάρχης, meaning "chief or father of a family", a compound of πατριά, meaning "family", ἄρχειν, meaning "to rule". A patriarch was a man who exercised autocratic authority as a pater familias over an extended family; the system of such rule of families by senior males is termed patriarchy. A patriarch has been the logical choice to act as ethnarch of the community identified with his religious confession within a state or empire of a different creed; the term developed an ecclesiastical meaning, within the Christian Church. The office and the ecclesiastical circumscription of a Christian patriarch is termed a patriarchate. Abraham and Jacob are referred to as the three patriarchs of the people of Israel, the period during which they lived is termed the Patriarchal Age; the word patriarch acquired its religious meaning in the Septuagint version of the Bible.
In the Catholic Church, the bishop, head of a particular autonomous Church, known in canon law as a Church sui iuris, is ordinarily a patriarch, though this responsibility can be entrusted to a Major Archbishop, Metropolitan, or other prelate for a number of serious reasons. Since the Council of Nicaea, the bishop of Rome has been recognized as the first among patriarchs; that Council designated three bishops with this'supra-Metropolitan' title: Rome and Antioch. In the Pentarchy formulated by Justinian I, the emperor assigned as a patriarchate to the Bishop of Rome the whole of Christianized Europe, except for the region of Thrace, the areas near Constantinople, along the coast of the Black Sea, he included in this patriarchate the western part of North Africa. The jurisdictions of the other patriarchates extended over Roman Asia, the rest of Africa. Justinian's system was given formal ecclesiastical recognition by the Quinisext Council of 692, which the see of Rome has, not recognized. There were at the time bishops of other apostolic sees that operated with patriarchal authority beyond the borders of the Roman Empire, such as the Catholicos of Selucia-Ctesephon.
Today, the patriarchal heads of Catholic autonomous churches are: The Bishop of Rome, as head of the Latin Catholic Church The Armenian Catholic Patriarch of Cilicia and head of the Armenian Catholic Church, formed 1740, recognised 1742 The Chaldean Catholic Patriarch of Babylon and head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, formed 1552, recognised 1553 The Coptic Catholic Patriarch of Alexandria and head of the Coptic Catholic Church, established 1824 The Maronite Catholic Patriarch of Antioch and all the East and head of the Maronite Catholic Church, established 685 The Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East, of Alexandria and of Jerusalem, head of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. However, differences exist in the mode of accession. Whereas the election of a major archbishop has to be confirmed by the pope before he may take office, no papal confirmation is needed for a newly elected patriarch before he takes office. Rather, a newly-installed patriarch is required to petition the pope as soon as possible for the concession of what is called ecclesiastical communion.
Furthermore, patriarchs who are created cardinals form part of the order of cardinal bishops, whereas major archbishops are only created cardinal priests. Titular patriarchs do not have jurisdiction over other Metropolitan bishops; the title is granted purely as an honor for various historical reasons. They take precedence after the heads of autonomous churches in full communion, whether pope, patriarch, or major archbishop; the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, established 1099. The Patriarch of the East Indies a titular patriarchal see, united to Goa and Daman, established 1886; the Patriarch of Lisbon, established 1716. The Patriarch of Venice, established 1451; the Patriarch of Aquileia – with rival line of succession moved to Grado - dissolved in 1752. The Patriarch of Grado – in 1451 merged with the Bishopric of Castello and Venice to form the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Venice; the Patriarch of the West Indies – a titular patriarchal see, vacant since 1963. The Latin Patriarch of Antioch – title abolished in 1964.
The titular Latin Patriarch of Alexandria – title abolished in 1964. The Latin Patriarch of Constantinople – title abolished in 1964; the Latin Patriarchate of Ethiopia – 1555 to 1663, never effective, only held by Iberian Jesuits The pope can confer the rank of Patriarch withou
