More than 1000 people attended St Hurmizd Cathedral in Sydney yesterday, for a special mass service to commemorate Assyrian saint Mar Yosip Khananisho.    

Reverend Ashur Lazar conducted the service and during his sermon read about the life of the modern day saint.

Assyrians from all church denominations and including Arabs and Kurds are known to have high respect for the saint who is known to perform miracles while he was alive and even after his passing.

A commemoration feast was held at Edessa Reception after the offering of the Eucharist and mass service.

Mar Yosip Khananisho was made Metropolitan of the Assyrian Church of the East in 1918.

In 1933 he was made head of the church in Iraq and all of the Middle East.  In 1973 Mar Yosip Khananisho was in charge of the church worldwide following the assassination of the Patriarch Mar Esha Shimun XXIII, while at the same time the Iraqi government had also officially appointed him the supreme leader of the Assyrian people in the homeland. He passed away in Baghdad Iraq in 1977.