Sitting at the helm of one of the Middle East’s largest Eastern Rite Catholic churches, Iraq’s Cardinal Louis Sako retired on Tuesday, handing responsibility for the Chaldean Catholic Church to new leadership as fighting continues to engulf the region. Sako, 76, said in a statement on the patriarch’s website that he had asked to step down to pursue “prayer, writing, and simple service,” and that Pope Leo XIV granted his request on the same day he proposed it.
Sako said he freely offered his resignation and was leaving “of my own will,” framing the retirement as a transition he initiated rather than one imposed on him. His decision also capped years of public friction with Iraqi political leaders, including a period in which he withdrew from Baghdad after a dispute over whether he was recognized as patriarch.
The Chaldean Catholic Church is in full communion with Rome and is one of the Eastern Rite churches that claims links to the ancient Church of the East, centered in Mesopotamia. It is found in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon as well as among members of the diaspora, and it has faced repeated upheaval as militants and wars have reshaped the region’s security and population.
Sako’s leadership included the traumatic years of the rise of the Islamic State group in Iraq, which devastated the Christian community, according to the account of his tenure. His retirement now arrives at a moment when conflict has expanded beyond Iraq’s borders, and the article said that the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran has spilled into Iraq, where Iran-backed militias have launched dozens of attacks targeting U.S. bases, energy facilities and other targets.
In his statement, Sako said he had preserved the unity of the Chaldean Church’s institutions and had worked to defend the rights of Iraqis and Christians. He added that he hoped his successor would bring “solid theological culture, courage, and wisdom,” and he described a leadership style centered on “renewal, openness, and dialogue,” saying he would respect the successor and “never interfere in his work.”
The political dispute underpinning his tenure resurfaced publicly in July 2023, when Sako withdrew from his Baghdad headquarters and went into self-imposed exile in the Kurdish regional capital for nine months. The statement provided in the report connected that departure to Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid’s revocation of a decree recognizing Sako’s position as patriarch of the Chaldeans, which Rashid characterized as bureaucratic housekeeping that did not diminish Sako’s legal or religious standing, while Sako called it an affront to the church.
Sako later returned to Baghdad in April 2024 after receiving a formal invitation from Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani. The account also said that, at the time of his earlier departure, Sako blamed a campaign against him by Rayan al-Kildani, a fellow Chaldean Christian described as head of the Babylon Movement and founder of a militia called the Babylon Brigades that fought against Islamic State and still patrols much of the Nineveh plains.
The retirement highlights the precarious position of Christians in Iraq after decades of war and the security vacuum that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that unseated Saddam Hussein, the report said. It noted that Iraq’s Christian population has dwindled and that the number is estimated at 150,000 compared with 1.5 million in 2003, with many Christian villages destroyed during Islamic State’s rampage remaining in ruins and their residents scattered.
In 2023, Sako told The Associated Press that he saw protecting Christians’ rights as part of his mandate, saying, “Of course, no one defends Christians other than the church.”