His Excellency Archbishop Bashar Matti Warda CSsR Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Erbil Archbishop Bashar M. Warda, CSsR is the Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Erbil in the Kurdistan Region of Northern Iraq. He joined Saint Peter’s seminary in Baghdad and was ordained as priest in 1993 after which he joined the Redemptorist Order of Flanders. He received his MA in Theology at the Catholic University of Louvain in 1999. In 2009 he was elected as Archbishop of the Archeparchy of Erbil at the Synod of Bishops of the Chaldean Catholic Church, and was consecrated on July 3, 2010 having received the consent of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. As a leading international voice for the persecuted Christians of Northern Iraq, the Archbishop’s present responsibilities extend far beyond his normal peacetime pastoral duties. As de facto chief administrator for the welfare of both the displaced Christians of Mosul and Nineveh Plain, as well as the pastoral leader of his existing Archdiocese, his work over the past four years has included ultimate oversight over food, housing, education, and pastoral care for nearly twenty thousand threatened Christian families. Since the ISIS invasion of Mosul and Nineveh in 2014, the Archbishop has emerged as a global spokesman for the remaining Christians of Iraq. He regularly appears in broadcasts and interviews in major news outlets throughout the world.