The late bishop Yuhanon Dolabani, who passed away November 2, 1969, played a crucial role in preserving the endangered Assyrian language and inspired several Assyrian patriots to encourage unity within the divided Assyrian Nation. Dolabani was author to 59 books and several translations of historic and religious literature. His poems from the time in Adana Assyrian Orphanage in 1920s clearly showed Assyrian national pride and a wish of a free Assyria. But when the Assyrian case was neglected by the great powers of the time, Dolabani’s superiors ordered him to stop writing about Assyrian patriotism in order to appease Turkish and Arab rulers where Assyrians lived.
We also honor his colleague Boulos Behman’s 50th anniversary of passing away. Behnam was a philosopher and author to 24 books who enriched the Assyrian litteratur. He died too young and left his chuch and nation in sorrow.
Guests are Father Gabriel Barqasho, a former pupil to Dolabani in early 1960s, and Sardanapal Asaad whose father, Gabriel Asaad, was a pupil of Dolabani in Adana and later composed many of the nationalistic poems of Dolabani.