Numerous appeals and publications concerning the Assyrian Question, written by the Patriarch and presented to the British Government and various international bodies, highlight him as a writer of distinction.

The volatile political environment and uncertainties for the church caused in 1933 by the independence of Iraq from the British mandate rule forced the patriarch to be exiled to Cyprus, away from the new see in Bebadi.

Prior to Mar Eshai Shimun's intervention, Assyrians living among their Islamic neighbors shared a tenuous relationship that was firmly rooted in mistrust by both sides.

Through direct contact with embassy representatives of the Middle Eastern countries in Washington and at the United Nations Headquarters, he broke down the walls of suspicion and misunderstanding.

This new policy decreed Assyrians and members of the Church of the East all over the world to remain as loyal and faithful citizens of the countries in which they lived, something that had never been done before.

According to Deputy District Attorney Brian Madden, the murder of the patriarch Mar Shimun was the outcome of a plot among church dissidents possibly related to land ownership in the Middle East.

[3] When the church council met in London on 17 October 1976, it elected as patriarch Mar Dinkha IV (who had been bishop of Tehran).