Shimun XIX Benyamin


Mar Shimun XIX Benyamin was a Catholicos Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East.

Life

He was born in 1887 in the village of Qochanis in the Hakkari Province, Ottoman Empire. His father was Eshai, a brother of Shimun XVIII Rubil, and his mother was Asyat, daughter of Kambar from Iyl. He had six siblings: Isaiah, Zaya, Paulos, David, Hormizd, Surma. His brother Hormizd was later killed while studying in Istanbul during the Deportation of Armenian intellectuals on 24 April 1915.
He was consecrated a Metropolitan on March 1, 1903 by his uncle, the Catholicos Patriarch, who died on March 16, 1903. He was eighteen years old when he succeeded to the position and occupied the patriarchal See of Seleucia-Ctesiphon at Qudchanis for 15 years. In March 1918, Mar Benyamin along with 150 of his bodyguards were assassinated by Simko Shikak, a Kurdish agha, in the town of Salmas under a truce flag.

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