St. Marys Catholic Church 4.5.0

St. Mary's Parish is part of the Northern Vicariate and is located in Campbell, California. It serves over 300 Assyrian and Chaldean families from Mesopotamia, who live in the greater Bay Area and as far away as the Monterey Penisula.

This Chaldean Catholic Parish was established in 1981 and was orginally started as a mission at the instruction of H.E. Bishop Mar Ibrahim Ibrahim. The growing Assyrian and Chaldean Catholic community began by holidng biweekly mass throughout the first few years. Father Francis Dawood, (then the pastor of St. Thomas Church in Turlock), was the first priest to serve the mission in the rented Catholic Churches of St. Justine and St. Lucy.

In August 1986, Father Juliano, (an Italian priest of the diocese ofTehran), was appointed by Bishop Ibrahim to look after the mission for a short time, and until Father Francis resumed his responsibility, once again.

In 1987, Father Yoshia Sana, who had just returned from his studies in Rome, was sent by H.E. Mar Ibrahim to minister and serve our community. Shortly thereafter, our ministry developed into a parish under the Name of our Holy Mother Mary and began serving 150 families.

In March 1988, the parish purchased a home in San Jose that was used as a residence for the priest, a rectory, and for various committee meetings, catechism and Bible study. In March 1995 the parish purchased an old church building located at 109 N. First Street in city of Campbell. After a thorough restoration and continued remodeling of the building, today we are blessed and fortunante to have a beautiful church in downtown Campbell.

The Church of St. Mary was consecrated by H.E. Mar Ibrahim Ibrahim, the Bishop of the Chaldean Diocese of St. Thomas in Detroit, on September 23,1996.The Church was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the patron saint of our parish, who through her prayers and intercessions, has always blessed this parish by Her Divine Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, so that we many always give glory to Him and to be able to minister to our people faithfully and in righteousness.

Finally, it was God's will on May 21,2002, that the Holy Father Pope John Paul II accepted the Chaldean Synod's election of Mar Sarhad Y. Jammo and named him as the first bishop of the newly created diocese, our Diocese ol St. Peter the Apostle. By the Grace of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit our pastor, the Bishop, for the past eleven years has been leading us as one strong Diocese, with a reformed service that is united in performance and authentic in worship, maintaining the apostolic tradition of our Eastern Catholic Church of Mesopotamia.

In 2007, our bishop appointed Chorbishop Father Samuel Dinkha as a Co-Pastor with Fr. Sana to serve and minister the growing parish. In September 2011, Fr. Zuhair (Anderawis) Toma was appointed by the bishop to serve the parish, followed by Father Michael Barota, the current pastor of St. Mary's who began his service in July 2012.