The Last Assyrian Monk

Mar Iskhaq Khnanishu IX and Monk Younan (1886)

By Bp. Joseph Boyd (Ancient Church of the West) 

This picture was taken in 1886 at Mar Shallita Church, in the Beth-Slotha (summer chapel), the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Assyrian Church of the East in the village of Qudchanis, Hakkâri, and Mar Iskhaq Khnanishu IX of Shemisdin (1844-1918) is pictured, taken in 1886 by Anglican missionary Athelstan Riley (1858-1945). Mar Iskhaq Khnanishu IX was consecrated as Metropolitan in 1884 and served until his death in 1918 during the Assyrian Genocide.  In the background, and holding a cross, is the famous hermit, theologian, poet and prophet Rabban Younan of Tkhuma (1832-1886), who was aged 54 at the time and died soon after this photograph was taken. 

When the Anglican Mission to the Church of the East was first undertaken by Fr. J.F. Coakley in 1887 and chronicled in his “Documents Relating to the History of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Mission to the Assyrian Christians”, the Monk Younan, who was resident in the Patriarchal household, was the last monk in the Church of the East Tradition. 

“Fr. Coakley was an unusual combination of New Testament scholar and mission historian; the language of Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic, provides the link between the two. Formerly of Lancaster University, England, he became the senior lecturer in Near Eastern languages at Harvard. He produced the first study of this Anglo-Catholic, non-proselytizing mission, which worked for educational and theological renewal in the ancient Eastern Church effectively from 1880 to 1915 (eventually closing down in 1938). He was remarkable for his archival detective work, scholarly precision, and appreciative tone.” (From the library summary of the book, circa 1940) 

The Monk Younan left a favorable impression on the venerable Anglican scholar, and he was immortalized as a living encyclopedia of the East Syriac Tradition, known for his childlikeness and sweetness of character. Coakley attributes many patient explanations of services and liturgies to this humble soul. Many of the early translations of East Syriac liturgy, and most of the early doctrinal expositions that we have in English, were a product of Monk Younan’s fruitful dialogue with the Anglican Mission.

While the Assyrian Patriarch and his Metropolitan left a larger-than-life imprint on Assyrian history, this is one of the only known pictures of the simple monk Younan of the Mar Shimun family. He was the last monk in a long, unbroken lineage of Eastern Syriac Monasticism, stemming from the tradition of wandering Mesopotamian holy men who were renowned for their prayer and evangelization of remote villages and distant lands at the end of the 2nd century. Even though monasticism died out amongst the Assyrians as an order for almost a hundred years, under intense persecution of multiple genocides that threatened to completely eradicate the Church of the East in Turkey, Iraq and Iran, the tradition of celibacy and vegetarianism was still practiced in the homes of the hereditary bishops. Now, the full tradition has been revived amongst the Assyrians in California and Arizona, resulting in the establishment of two monastic houses that promise to return the unique ascetical practices of Syriac Christianity to its previous glory within the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. 

May the Lord Jesus Christ hear the prayers of all His saints and martyrs, and especially, of Monk Younan, before His Throne!

Source: Lambeth Palace Archives