After all the tragedies and schisms which thinned the church out , no other was as severe as the Assyrian genocide . At this point the Assyrian Church of the East was based in the mountains of Hakkari , and had been since 1681 . During 1915 The Young Turks invaded the region despite their plea of neutrality during the Caucasus Campaign by Russia and their Armenian allies out of fear of an Assyrian independence movement . In response to this , Assyrians of all denominations ( the Assyrian Church of the East , the Chaldean Catholic Church , the Syriac Orthodox Church and Assyrian Protestants ) entered into a war of independence and allied themselves with the United Kingdom , the Russian Empire and the Armenians against the Ottomans and their Islamic Kurdish , Iranian and Arab allies . Despite the odds , the Assyrians fought successfully against the Ottomans and their allies for three years throughout south eastern Turkey , northern Iraq , north western Iran and north eastern Syria until they were abandoned by their allies , the Russian Empire and the First Republic of Armenia , due to the Russian Revolution and the collapse of the Armenian defense , leaving the Assyrians vastly outnumbered , surrounded , and cut off from supplies of ammunition and food . During this period their see at Qodchanis was completely destroyed , and the Turks and their Islamic allies massacred all of the Assyrians in the Hakkari mountains . Those who survived fled into Iran with what remained of the Assyrian defense under Agha Petros , where they were pursued into Iranian territory despite the fact they were fleeing . later on in 1918 , after the murder of their '' de facto '' leader and Patriarch Shimun XIX Benyamin and 150 of his followers during a negotiation , and fearing further massacres at the hands of the Turks and Kurds , most of the survivors fled from Iran into what was to become Iraq by train , seeking protection under the British mandate there , and joined the already existing indigenous Assyrian communities of both Eastern , Orthodox and Catholic rites in the north and formed communities in the cities of Baghdad , Basra , etc
Assyrian genocide
Assyrian genocide
Assyrian Church of the East