Addai Scher

Addai Sher (, ; ), also written Addai Scher, Addaï Scher and Addai Sheir (3 March 1867 – 21 June 1915), was an ethnic Assyrian Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Siirt in Upper Mesopotamia. He was killed by the Ottomans during the 1915 Assyrian genocide.

Early life Addai was born in Shaqlāwa to an ethnic Assyrian family, who were adherents of the Chaldean Catholic Church, on 3 March 1867. His father was the local priest of the village, and he helped him become a teacher of the Syriac language at a young age. The early death of Addai's mother made him concentrate on ascetic life, and he joined the Dominican Seminary in Mosul, Ottoman Iraq, in 1880, where he studied Syriac, Arabic, French, Latin, and Turkish, as well as theology and philosophy. Nine years later, he was appointed a priest and sent back to his hometown of Shaqlāwa, where he once more worked as a teacher in the church's school.

Some Kurds, subjects of Osman, Agha of Tanze, chief of the tribes Hadide and Atamissa, were great friends of the Archbishop and protectors of the Christians and disguised him as a Kurd, getting him away by a secret door of his residence. For some days he remained with his friend the Kurdish Agha, but an Ottoman regiment learning of his flight, attempted to trace him. Knowing that the Kurd chief had concealed him they summoned him to surrender the Archbishop, set fire to his house, and threatened him with death. The Kurdish Agha fled with his family. The Kurds who remained, tired of the struggle, were obliged to indicate the hiding place of the prelate, whom the soldiers seized and killed with eight shots.

The Archbishop remained hidden for several days, but eventually a band of Kurdish mercenaries who worked with the Ottoman Turkish army discovered his hideout. After being captured, a witness described the last hours of Addai Scher's life: