In the shadow of the Sayfo (sword): Learning from Assyrian Christianity
Photograph by Mar Sharb via Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.
Nathan Perrin
Long before I was fully invested in Palestinian solidarity, I studied Syriac Orthodoxy and Assyrian Christianity for my master’s thesis. Specifically, I read various accounts of the genocide they experienced at the turn of the 20th century. I ended up studying the Assyrians after doing work with Community Peacemaker Teams in northern Iraq (or Iraqi Kurdistan). My faith was forever transformed through encountering Assyrian Christianity in its own context.
In 1915, the Ottoman Empire launched a mass campaign of genocide against Syriac-speaking (Assyrian and Chaldean) Christians. This coincided with the Armenian genocide; however, there is evidence that Ottoman forces and Kurdish rebels targeted Assyrians specifically. Approximately 75% of the Assyrian population was killed in the genocide. They refer to that event as Sayfo, or “Year of the Sword.” They face continual persecution to this day in Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria.
I currently write for a nonprofit called Rinyo that seeks to uplift and celebrate Assyrian identity. I write as a Western Christian who is also a fiction writer and screenwriter. One of the opportunities for growth I face is the internal work I have to do as I help craft the stories, mainly audience awareness.
White evangelicals, by and large, love the idea of supporting persecuted Christians — yet they continually support policies that endanger them. There is also a unique history of persecution of Assyrian Christians by Western evangelical missionaries. When the missionaries first came to the Near East, they believed that the Assyrians were “just another form of Muslim” — so they treated them accordingly. One friend shared with me that his grandfather was given $100, on top of the aid he needed, to convert to evangelical Christianity.
Another friend told me that once, when he stayed up late reading the Bible as a child, his mother came in, shook her head, and said: “Be careful you don’t become like those evangelicals.” The reason for this warning is the fact that evangelicals notoriously took advantage of Assyrians historically. There is a deep-seated mistrust of white evangelicalism in Assyrian communities to this day.
The 2003 war in Iraq endangered the Assyrian Christian population, with increased attacks by extremist Islamist groups happening since Saddam’s regime fell. They are targeted continually both for their faith and misunderstandings about their identity. I believe it’s not a coincidence that the recent attacks on Mar Elias Church coincide with the rising risk of war with Iraq and Iran again. Every time the West commits atrocities in the Middle East, the Assyrians and other religious minorities pay the steepest price.
As Western Christians, we must approach Eastern Christian traditions with humility. These communities have much to teach us – but that learning begins with genuine respect and relationship.
If we pray for persecuted Christians on Sunday, we cannot ignore when our politics support regimes or rhetoric that make their lives more dangerous. Also, unlike the Palestinian Christians, whose theologians have eloquently described the horrors of persecution, no theologian has yet systematized a formal Assyrian liberation theology. (However, the lived experiences of persecution, displacement, and resilience among Assyrian Christians, as well as emerging theological reflections on identity and justice, provide a rich foundation for developing one. Scholars, activists, and leaders such as Racho Donef, Hannibal Alkhas, and clergy within the Assyrian Church of the East have contributed historical, cultural, and pastoral perspectives that could serve as building blocks for a distinctly Assyrian liberatory theology.)
For the time being, conservative evangelical pastors can unfortunately get away with praying for persecuted Christians in the Middle East without naming them or acknowledging how their own political and theological commitments may contribute to the very persecution they lament.
So it is up to folks like us to bring their stories alive through whatever ways we can, because evangelicals will always tune them out — even though many Assyrian Christians have direct lineages to first century Christians. When I’ve shared their stories in more conservative-leaning churches, their experiences were ignored. Some people in those churches would even say the Assyrian Christians, with their many different traditions and denominations that predate the Reformation, were not really “saved.” Through conservative evangelical lens, the Assyrians often aren’t seen as Christians because it’s a religion they are born into over a religion that’s chosen. Little do they know that this is the case for many native Christian communities around the world! Long before it became associated with Europe and the West, the church was rooted in places like Ethiopia, Mesopotamia, and India.
The best way to support the Assyrians is to sit down and listen to their experiences and take the time to understand the delicate balance of geopolitics. Importantly, as Western Christians, we must approach Eastern Christian traditions with humility. These communities have much to teach us — but that learning begins with genuine respect and relationship.[1] As a global war is looming on the horizon, remember the stories of Assyrian Christians and get to know them in your own neighborhood or through books. Their stories of survival are inspirational, and they have much to teach us about how to live peacefully and morally in a chaotic time; a lesson we desperately need to learn.[2]
Nathan Perrin (he/him/his) is a writer and Anabaptist pastor in Chicagoland. He holds an MA in Quaker Studies and is a doctoral student studying Christian Community Development at Northern Seminary. His doctorate work centers on creating a writing program for nonprofits and churches to use to help under-resourced communities process trauma. His work has been published in the Dillydoun Review, Bangalore Review, Collateral Journal, Esoterica Magazine, etc. His forthcoming novella Memories of Green Rivers will be released in winter 2026 by Running Wild Press. He is also a screenwriter. For more information, visit www.nathanperrinwriter.com
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
[1]Perrin, N. (2019). “The Peace of Christ: Peacemaking in Syriac Orthodoxy and Historic Quakerism” (capstone project), Northern Seminary. Unpublished.
[2]Perrin, N. (2019). “The Peace of Christ: Peacemaking in Syriac Orthodoxy and Historic Quakerism” (recorded symposium). Barclay College, May 4. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BOAvJvM6Vw (accessed June 24, 2025.)
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