Raphael I. Bidawid: Patriarch Raphael I. Bidawid, who has died of kidney failure aged 81, was the spiritual leader of the Chaldean Catholics, the largest Christian group in Iraq, whose number include the erstwhile deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz.
The Chaldean Catholics are descended from the 5th-century heretical group, the Nestorians; the church has about 1 million members worldwide, of whom 700,000 are in Iraq.
Bidawid was an ardent critic of western policy towards his country. In the early stages of the 1991 Gulf war, when Saddam Hussein's rhetoric was peppered with threats of jihad against the "Christian" West, he moved to defuse the threats of a backlash against Iraqi Christians by urging westerners to leave Arab soil, and interceding with Saddam to tone down the anti-Christian propaganda.
He was also an outspoken opponent of the economic embargo on Iraq, imposed after Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990. During a 1991 visit to the Vatican, Bidawid accused the Gulf war allies of genocide against the Iraqi people. "These nations should feel pretty guilty. It was a vendetta, a shame for humanity," he said.
Ten years later, in an interview at the Vatican, he remarked that westerners did not realise that an Arab could do without everything except his dignity. "If you touch his dignity, he will be as ferocious as a lion."
Bidawid was criticised in the West as an apologist for Saddam and the Ba'ath Party. His response was that he was only defending his people and his country. He often praised the Iraqi leader for protecting the rights of Christians. "Saddam gives us what we want, listens to us and protects us," he once said.
On the question of Islamic extremists, he also put his faith in the dictator. "They have infiltrated the veins of religious power and are trying to steer it in their direction," he said. "But the government keeps them in check. Saddam is capable; he fools them into being more open in order to uncover them. He will get them."
Two years ago, he saluted the courage of Palestinian suicide bombers, while likening the Israeli government to that of Hitler's Germany.
Born in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, Bidawid was educated at the Dominican Fathers school and the Patriarchal Ecclesiastical College there. At the age of 14, he was sent to Rome to train as a priest; he excelled academically and was the conductor of the choir at the Papal College.
He returned to Iraq in 1948 after being ordained as a priest and taking his doctorates in philosophy, theology and canon law. He was subsequently made assistant rector at the Chaldean seminary in Mosul, where he was responsible for translating the work of Dominican Father Lanza on the history of Mosul from Italian into Arabic. He also created indices for ancient Chaldean manuscripts.
Between 1950 and 1956, Bidawid was chaplain of the Iraq Petroleum Company, before being appointed patriarchal vicar for the diocese of Kirkuk. The following year, he was elected bishop of the Chaldean diocese of Amadiyah, in Iraqi Kurdistan, becoming, at 35, the youngest bishop in the world.
In 1962, he was transferred to the Beirut diocese, where he served for 23 years. In May 1989, the Chaldean bishops elected him patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans; more than 10,000 people attended his enthronement ceremony in Baghdad. Four months later, he received the pallium from Pope John Paul II in recognition of his status.
In 1992, Bidawid formed the Confrère de la Charité to help provide medicine, food and shelter for those severely affected by UN sanctions against Iraq.
A polyglot, he was one of the founders of the Christian Minorities Union in Lebanon, and a champion of the unification of the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church (the two branches separated in 1552).
Patriarch Raphael I. Bidawid: born April 17th, 1922; died July 7th, 2003