He was born in Zakho, Iraq, on 4 July 1948 and was ordained a priest in Mosul in 1974. He obtained his doctorate in Oriental Patristics at the Pontifical Oriental Institute and his doctorate in History at the Sorbonne in Paris. He was Rector of the Patriarchal seminary in Baghdad from 1997 to 2002. In 2002, he was appointed Archbishop of the Chaldeans in Kirkuk and received his episcopal consecration on 14 November 2003. On 31 January 2013 he was elected Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon and was granted ecclesiastical communion on 1 February 2013. He was created Cardinal on 28 June 2018. He has written «Ne nous oubliez pas!» (Bayard, 2015) and Al-Kanîsa al-kaldâniyya. Khulâsa târîkhiyya (“The Chaldean Church. A Historical Summary”, Baghdad 2015).
