Gewargis III

Mar Gewargis III (; born Warda Daniel Sliwa, ) served as the 121st Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East. On 18 September 2015, the Holy Synod of the Assyrian Church of the East elected Mar Gewargis Sliwa to succeed the late Mar Dinkha IV as the head of the Church. On 27 September 2015, he was formally consecrated and enthroned as Catholicos-Patriarch. Early life Warda Daniel Sliwa was born on 23 November 1941, in Habbaniya, Iraq, to Daniel and Mariam Sliwa. In 1964, he matriculated from the School of Education, a federated college of the University of Baghdad. Following this, he taught English in various schools in Iraq for the next thirteen years. During a visit to the United States he was called by the Catholicos-Patriarch, Mar Dinkha IV, to serve the Assyrian Church of the East in the ordained ministry. After training in the rites and theology of the Church, he was ordained to the diaconate on 13 April 1980, and on 8 June 1980 he was ordained to the priesthood. Warda Daniel Sliwa continued to serve and train within the Church, until he was nominated by Catholicos-Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV and the hierarchy of the Assyrian Church of the East to assume the rank of Metropolitan for Baghdad and all Iraq. Thus, he would eventually succeed the Metropolitan Mar Yosip Khnanisho, who had died in 1977. On Pentecost Sunday, 7 June 1981, Rev. Sliwa was consecrated as Metropolitan of Baghdad and all Iraq by Mar Dinkha IV, with the assistance of Mar Aprim Khamis, in the Cathedral Church of St. George, Chicago. The new Metropolitan was given the ecclesiastical name Mar Gewargis III.