Copyright ©2011 by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
Distributed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.
1. Members of the Chaldean
Catholic Church. Those from the Ch. of E. who joined the Roman
communion were first called Chaldeans in the brief Benedictus sit Deus of Pope Eugenius IV (1445) in order to
distinguish them from ‘Nestorian’ heretics.
2. A term used in modern times for the ethnic group comprising both Chald.
Catholics and members of the Assyrian Ch. of E. The idea that E.-Syr.
Christians were properly called Chaldeans on account of a historical
connection with the ancient people of that name can be found in 19th-cent.
books by W. Ainsworth, A. H. Layard, and Hormuzd Rassam. This idea was taken
up by P. Nasri (1905) and