H H MAR AWA lll

Mar Awa III is the 122nd Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East. He previously served as the Secretary of the Holy Synod, is one of five trustees of the Assyrian Church of the East Relief Organization (ACERO) and is President of both the Commission on Inter-Church Relations and Educational Development (CIRED), and of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Assyrian Church of the East Youth Association (ACEYA) of the United States of America.

On 6 September 2021, Mar Gewargis III formally stepped down as Catholicos-Patriarch during an Extraordinary Session of the Holy Synod of the Assyrian Church of the East, leaving the Patriarchal See vacant. On 8 September 2021, the Holy Synod elected Mar Awa Royel, Bishop of California and Secretary of the Holy Synod, to succeed Mar Gewargis III as the 122nd Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East.This was a historic decision as Mar Awa would become the first western born Catholicos-Patriarch. He was Consecrated and Enthroned as Catholicos-Patriarch on 13 September 2021, on the Feast of the Holy Cross, in the Cathedral Church of St. John the Baptist in Erbil, Iraq, and assumed the ecclesiastical name Mar Awa III.