Cardinal Sako, head of Chaldean Church in Iraq, retires as war engulfs the region

ROME — The patriarch of one of the most important Christian churches in the Middle East retired on Tuesday, setting the stage for new leadership as war engulfs the region.

Iraqi Cardinal Louis Sako of the Chaldean Catholic Church said he had asked to retire to pursue “prayer, writing, and simple service,” and that Pope Leo XIV granted his request on the day he had proposed.

Sako, 76, who had occasionally clashed with Iraq’s political leaders, said in a statement that he freely offered his resignation and was leaving “of my own will.”

The Chaldean Catholic Church is one of the nearly two dozen Eastern Rite churches that are in full communion with Rome. It is one of the four that claim links to the ancient Church of the East, located in Mesopotamia, and is today prevalent in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon, as well as in the diaspora.

Sako led the ancient church through the traumatic years of the rise of the Islamic State group in Iraq that devastated the Christian community. His retirement paves the way for a successor to lead the church at a time of new conflict in the region, the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, that