 Mar Shimun who was detained since June 1933 was forced into exile along with his extended family despite initial British reluctance . He was flown to by an RAF plane to Cyprus in 18 Augusts , and later to the United States in 1949 , thus later forcing the head of the Assyrian Church of the East to relocate to Chicago where it remained until 2015 , with the newly consecrated Mar <unk> 3rd returning the patriarchal seat of the Assyrian Church of the East to North Iraq . In 1948 , Mar Shimun met with the representatives of Iraq , Syria and Iran in Washington subsequently calling upon his followers to " live as loyal citizens wherever they resided in the Middle East " relinquishing his role as a temporal leader and the nationalistic role of the church . This left a power vacuum in Assyrian politics that was filled by the Assyrian Universal Alliance in 1968 . 
