Who are the Chaldeans? CHALDEAN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION HISTORY RELIGION Chaldeans are Chaldeans are indigenous to Iraq Eastern-rite Catholic, converted by the History spanning 5,500 years dating back to Mesopotamia, Apostle St. Thomas the land between two rivers The Chaldean Church is led by the Patriarch Predate the Arabs, Turks and Kurds of Babylon for the Chaldeans, currently From the Arab world Mar Luis Sako Mar Luis Sako but are not Arabs The Chaldean Catholic Church is in The Chaldean King Nebuchadnezzar full Union with the Roman Catholic created the Hanging Gardens of Church and the Pope is the highest Babylon (one of the Seven Wonders of authority the Ancient World) for his wife Abraham, the Father of three Faiths, was from Ur of Chaldeans 1750 BC DEMOGRAPHICS Hammurabi The King of Ur created Hammurabi’s introduces his Stele, one of the first known codes of Estimated 2,000,000 Chaldean/ Code of Laws law, currently on display at the Louvre Assyrian/Syriac people in the World Estimated 500,000 Chaldeans in the United States Nearly 60% of Chaldean households own one business Two Chaldean Catholic Bishops in the U.S. Francis Kalabat in Michigan and Emanuel Shaleta in California LANGUAGE There are 160, 000 Chaldeans living The Chaldean language— in Southeast Michigan, mostly in called Syriac—is the oldest Macomb and Oakland Counties continuously spoken language in the world Chaldean businesses contribute and a dialect of Aramaic nearly $11 billion to the economy of Southeast Michigan Aramaic, Arabic and Hebrew all share the same alphabet and are all Semitic languages Aramaic is the oldest continuously spoken 3000 BC language and the language Sumerians spoken by Jesus Christ. invent writing Any unauthorized copying, alteration, distribution, transmission, performance, 1900 Chaldeans begin display or other use of this material is prohibited by law without the written immigrating permission from the Chaldean Community Foundation. to the United States.