Timothaus Shallita

Timothaus Mar Shallita Youwala (born 1936) is Archbishop of the Ancient Holy Apostolic Catholic Church of the East for Germany and all Europe. He currently resides in Mainz-Kastel, Germany.

Refugee aid
For many years, Assyrian refugees have been writing to Timothaus Mar Shallita in search of help from persecution. In 1978, the archbishop lived in the monastery of Pandely in Greece for a few months where he supported about 8,000 Assyrians who had fled to Greece with the help of the United Nations and the Red Cross. He had talked to the Greek government beforehand in order to arrange possible housing and working places for the refugees, who not only fled from Iraq but also from Iran, Lebanon and Syria.

In 1983, he headed to Italy, again to support the approximately 2,000 refugees and to improve their situation. Thereafter, he went to France to continue his mission. In 1991, he arrived in Turkey to visit the ten Assyrian refugees camps accompanied by staff members of the UNHCR. Silopi was one of these camps. Before his arrival, Timothaus Mar Shallita had received a list with the name of over 40,000 refugees, asking him for help. Afterwards, he talked to the Turkish administration and succeeded in gathering the Assyrian refugees into two camps instead of ten and also insisting on accommodation in houses and no longer in tents, as the harsh East Anatolian winter was not far away.

After that, he started negotiations with the ambassadors of many nations. Months before his travel to Turkey, Timothaus Mar Shallita had already informed them about the situation of the Assyrians including the Chaldeans by introducing for the first time this ethnic minority, for most countries did not know that the Assyrians still existed. In these negotiations, he succeeded in talks and thousands of Assyrians were admitted as refugees in European countries.

Literature

 * Verena Fehlmann-Meyer "Church of the East in Europe and America"
 * Writings by Prof. Dr. Donart and Dr. Transchuk
 * Summaries by Sabine Juli