About & Leadership
About
Learn the story of Mar Gewargis Cathedral, the saint whose name it bears, and the clergy and committee serving the parish today.
History
From a 1926 Chicago church to a diocesan cathedral.
The building now known as Mar Gewargis Cathedral was originally built in 1926. In 1979, His Holiness Mar Dinkha IV commissioned a committee to seek a church building that could serve the Assyrian Church of the East community in Chicago.
The church was consecrated in 1981 and named Mar Gewargis, or Saint George. It became the Diocese Cathedral and a center for liturgies, weddings, baptisms, ordinations, family milestones, and parish gatherings across Chicagoland.
The parish history also records the sacrifice of the early community: the property was purchased for $400,000 and the loan was paid in two years through the commitment of parish families.
1926
The original church structure is built in Chicago.
1979
Mar Dinkha IV commissions the search for a new church building.
1981
The church is consecrated as Mar Gewargis Cathedral.
2012
Mar Paulus Benjamin is consecrated bishop at the cathedral on May 27.
2015
The cathedral hosts the funeral of His Holiness Mar Dinkha IV.
Mar Gewargis
The triumphant martyr honored by East and West.
Mar Gewargis, known widely as Saint George, is remembered as a Christian martyr from the early fourth century. The parish story connects his courage, generosity, and confession of faith with the life of the cathedral that bears his name.
In the Assyrian Church of the East, his feast is honored on April 24 and again on the first Monday of November, a second observance associated with cathedral dedication.
Diocese of the Eastern United States of America
His Grace Mar Paulus Benjamin
Bishop Mar Paulus Benjamin serves as Bishop of the Eastern United States, a member of the Holy Synod, and Chairman of the Assyrian Church of the East Relief Organization USA.
He was ordained a deacon in 1984, later completed theological studies in Rome, was ordained priest at Saint George Cathedral in Chicago on September 13, 2001, and was elevated to bishop at Mar Gewargis Cathedral on Pentecost Sunday, May 27, 2012.
Clergy & Committee
Parish and diocesan contacts.
Leadership contacts from the current Mar Gewargis Cathedral clergy and committee page, grouped into a compact directory.
His Holiness Mar Awa III Royel
Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East
His Grace Mar Paulus Benjamin
Bishop, Diocese of the Eastern USA
Parish Priest
[email protected]
Fredrik Gabriel
[email protected]
Johnson Canon
[email protected]
Ashour Lazar
[email protected]
Ninos Shimshon
[email protected]
Wilson Yonan
[email protected]
Katherine Lazar
[email protected]
Nohra Kana
[email protected]Statement of Faith
Statement of Faith
The teaching of the Church of the East is based on the faith of the universal Church as set forth in the Nicene Creed. The mystery of the Holy Trinity and the mystery of the Incarnation are central to its teaching.
The church believes in One Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It also believes and teaches that the Only-begotten Son of God, God the Word, became incarnate for us men and for our salvation and became man. The same God the Word, begotten of His Father before all worlds without beginning according to his divinity, was begotten of a mother without a father in the last times according to his humanity, in a body of flesh, with a rational, intelligent, and immortal soul which He took from the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary and united to himself, making it his very own at the moment of conception. The humanity which He took for his own was assumed by God the Word, who was, thenceforth and for ever, the personal subject of the divine and human natures. His divine and human natures retain their own properties, faculties, and operations unconfusedly, immutably, undividedly, and inseparably.
Therefore, because the divinity and humanity are united in the Person of the same and only Son of God and Lord Jesus Christ, the Church of the East rejects any teaching which suggests that Christ is an “ordinary man” whom God the Word inhabited, like the righteous men and the prophets of old. The Church of the East further rejects any teaching that explicitly or implicitly suggests that there are two Sons, or two Lords, or two Christs in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, but we confess one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The same, through his passion, death, burial, and resurrection, redeemed humanity from the bondage of sin and death, and secured the hope of resurrection and new life for all who put their faith in Him, to whom, with His Father and the Holy Spirit, belongs confession, worship, and adoration unto ages of ages.
Amen.