ARZON. – The present-day Chaldean diocese of Séert formerly bore the name of A. The Nestorians also called it Mévadré (“dispersed”), to indicate the scattered tribes that composed II. Under the first patriarch, in 1553, it had a Catholic bishop, and the succession has continued to the present day, with only the interruption of the last three decades of the seventeenth century. This diocese was devastated during the 1914–18 war and has not been reorganized to this day.
BIBL.: J. Tinkdi, L'Eglise Chaldienne cath. martyris et aujourd'hui, excerpted from A. Battandier, Annuaire Pontifical cath., 17 (1914), p. 45 ff. Pietro Sfair