In the name of God, the creator of all creations
Date: 12/26/6765
No: 437
Blessed Metropolitans, Devout Bishops, Noble Priests, Honored Deacons, Beloved Assyrian Organizations, and Faithful Assyrians:
Happy Nissan 6766
With my warmest greetings and respect:
Nature awoke from its deep winter sleep and with it the blossom of the lilies gave news of renewal and preservation. Nature with its beautiful spring blooms gave us the beautiful smell of renewed life. Although nature doesn’t have the awareness of humans nor a philosophical mind, it knows that with the arrival of Nissan, it’s time for change and renewal! As Assyrians, we are blessed to have beautified our lives by believing in Jesus Christ and through our faith gaining eternal life. Resurrection of Christ and the renewal of nature are bonded together and in this month of Nissan we see how this beautiful bond of Christian faith and nature’s renewal create hope and beauty to all mankind.
As evident in Gilgamesh’s long and perilous journey to discover the secret of eternal life, we Assyrians believed in eternal life. With the adaptation of Christianity, we found the river of hope and the light that gives us eternal life in the first century of Christianity. We became missionaries and gave martyrs for our Christian faith; we spread the word of Christ to lowlands and mountains, to cities and country all the way to China and Japan and in the process gave thousands of martyrs for Christ. Today, after 2016 years of Christianity, in the era of science and philosophy, our Assyrian nation is being sacrificed for her Christian faith and Assyrian identity.
The destruction of the historical city of Nimrud displays how much they fear the Assyrian name. Though we don’t have military might nor a country of our own, our historical artifacts causes a trembling with the terrorists which leads them to do everything they can to try to prevent the Assyrian nation from once again ruling over her lands and sitting in her rightful place among the leaders of the world. However, it is clearly written in the Bible that Assyrian will once again rise and there won’t be a change in that! We Assyrian Christians believe that though they may break our ancient artifacts, destroy our heritage sites and burn our holy shrines, however, they can’t make the Lord’s Rod disappear from this world, and we will be standing on resurrection day and they will see the might of Assyria.
My beloved Assyrians, today as we celebrate the beginning of a new year, let us not forget that each one of us is the light of hope for our vigorous nation and it is our duty to ignite our nation’s preservation without failure. Primarily let us remove hatred from our hearts and stop belittling our brothers and sisters. Furthermore, let us extend the hands of friendship and unity to one another in order to achieve our national aspirations with one voice. We at Assyrian Universal Alliance have said and continue to say that without unity we will not achieve anything and have faithfully extended a hand of friendship to all in our community and we have proven this by setting up the meeting of the parties and inviting all of our brothers and sisters.
I would like to once again wish you a happy Assyrian New Year of 6766 and am hopeful that the Lord will bless the world with peace and love and will protect our persecuted Assyrian nation sand save us from this oppression; and that He will give us relief and will create the love of friendship among our political parties and organizations so that instead of hatred, belittling each other, political pride, and personal egoism, they will extend the hand of unity to each other and will work for the benefit of our national interest. The biggest loss that we are experiencing as a nation stems from disobedience to our national cause and selfishness.
Have a blessed and happy new year.
With Respect,
Yonathan Betkolia
Secretary General of Assyrian Universal Alliance