Patr. Eshai was consecrated as a boy of eleven after the death of his uncle
Mar Shemʿon Pawlos. The consecration took place on 20 June 1920 at the
Baʿqūba refugee camp near [
Baghdad
](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Baghdad). (In recent
Church sources his birthday is usually given as 26 Feb. 1908, making him
twelve at the time of his consecration.) After some schooling in England
(1924–7) Mar Shemʿon returned to [
Mosul
](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Mosul) and assumed the
role of the
Patr.
patr.
as civil head of his people. He demanded that the League
of Nations make special arrangements for the [Assyrians](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Assyrians) after
the end of the British Mandate in Iraq in 1932, but this demand failed, and
after confrontation with the new government he was deported with his family
to Cyprus in 1933. In 1940 he went to the USA, settling first in [
Chicago
](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Chicago)
and later (1954) in San Francisco. In 1948 he at last let go of the idea of
the ‘temporal power’ of the
Patr.
patr.
and began a policy of rebuilding the
church in all the countries where its members were now dispersed. In 1964 he
and Metropolitan Mar Yosip Ḥenanishoʿ issued a ‘synodical letter’ dictating,
among other reforms, the adoption of the Gregorian calendar. This was
resented especially by some in Iraq, and in 1968 a schism ensued under Mar
[
Toma
Darmo
](https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Darmo-Toma). In 1973 Mar Shemʿon married, an action which, though not
strictly uncanonical, threw the church into confusion. Before his status
could be settled, he was murdered in Nov. 1975 by a disaffected nationalist.
Eshai (Mar Shemʿon XXIII; but XXI in sources before 1940) was the last of
the hereditary patriarchs of the Ch. of E.