Patriarch of the Church of the East
The patriarch of the Church of the East (also known as patriarch of the East, patriarch of Babylon, the catholicose of the East or the grand metropolitan of the East)[1][2][3][4] is the patriarch, or leader and head bishop (sometimes referred to as Catholicos or universal leader) of the Church of the East.[2] The position dates to the early centuries of Christianity within the Sassanid Empire, and the Church has been known by a variety of names, including the Church of the East, Nestorian Church, the Persian Church, the Sassanid Church, or East Syrian.[5]
This article is about the history of the patriarchal office. For a list of patriarchs, see List of patriarchs of the Church of the East.
Catholicos–Patriarch of the Church of the East
Seleucia-Ctesiphon (410 – 775)
Baghdad (775 - 1317)[6]
Thomas the Apostle (church tradition)[7]
Papa bar Aggai (as bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon)[8]
Church of Kokhe,[9][10] Veh-Ardashir[11]
Since 1552, rival patriarchal lines were established, traditionalist on one side and pro-Catholic on the other. In modern times, patriarchal succession is claimed from this office to the patriarchal offices of the successor churches: the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Assyrian Church of the East, and the Ancient Church of the East.[12][13]
Early history of the Patriarchate of the East[edit]
The geographic location of the patriarchate was first in Edessa and then transferred to the Persian capital of Seleucia-Ctesiphon in central Mesopotamia during the Roman conquest of Edessa. In the 9th century the patriarchate moved to Baghdad and then through various cities in what was then Assyria (Assuristan/Athura) and is now northern Iraq, south east Turkey and northwest Iran, including, Tabriz, Mosul, and Maragheh on Lake Urmia. Following the Chaldean Catholic Church split from the Assyrian Church, the respective patriarchs of these churches continued to move around northern Iraq. In the 19th century, the patriarchate of the Assyrian Church of the East was in the village of Qudshanis in southeastern Turkey.[14] In the 20th century, the Assyrian patriarch went into exile, relocating to Chicago, Illinois, United States. Another patriarchate, which split off in the 1960s as the Ancient Church of the East, is in Baghdad.
The patriarchate of the Church of the East evolved from the position of the leader of the Christian community in Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the Persian capital. While Christianity had been introduced into Assyria then largely under the rule of the Parthian Empire in the first centuries AD, during the earliest period, leadership was unorganized and there was no established succession. In 280, Papa bar Aggai was consecrated as Bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon by two visiting bishops, Akha d'abuh' of Arbela and Hai-Beël of Susa, thereby establishing the generally recognized succession.[15] Seleucia-Ctesiphon thus became its own episcopal see, and exerted some de facto control over the wider Persian Christian community. Papa's successors began to use the title of Catholicos, a Roman designation probably adopted due to its use by the Catholicos of Armenia, though at first it carried no formal recognition.[16] In 409 the Church of the East received state recognition from the Sassanid Emperor Yazdegerd I, and the Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon was called, at which the church's hierarchy was formalized. Bishop Mar Isaac was the first to be officially styled Catholicos over all of the Christians in Persia. Over the next decades, the Catholicoi adopted the additional title of Patriarch, which eventually became the better known designation.[17]
The conventional list of patriarchs of the Church of the East includes around 130 patriarchs. A number of these patriarchs are legendary, or have been included in the standard lists on dubious evidence according to some historians like Jean Maurice Fiey. According to him, the Church of the East, although separated from the State church of the Roman Empire, was not immune to its fashions. One such fashion was to fill in the inevitable gaps in the historical record to trace a succession of bishops in individual dioceses right back to the 1st century, preferably to an apostolic founder. This fashion found particular favour in the case of the diocese of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. The first bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon for whom incontestable evidence exists was Papa, who was consecrated around 280. During the 6th century ingenious attempts were made to link Papa with Mari, the legendary apostle of Babylonia. The author of the 6th-century Acts of Mari simply ignored the gap of two and a half centuries that separated the two men and declared that Mari had founded the diocese of Seleucia-Ctesiphon shortly before his death and consecrated Papa as his successor. According to Fiey, later writers were more cunning with their inventions. Shahlufa and Ahadabui, two late-3rd-century bishops of Erbil who had played a notable part in the affairs of the church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, were 'converted' retrospectively into early patriarchs. Ahadabui was said to have governed the church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon from 204 to 220, and Shahlufa from 220 to 224. However the Chronicle of Seert, names Shahloopa (Shahlufa) as a Patriarch of the Church of the East.[18] Fiey also claims that, for the 2nd century, three patriarchs were frankly invented: Abris (121–37), Abraham (159–71) and Yaʿqob (190). All three men were declared to be relatives of Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, and given plausible backstories. Fiey also claims these five phantom 'patriarchs' were included in all the later histories of the Church of the East, and by the 12th century their existence was an article of faith for the historian Mari bin Sulaiman. According to Feiy, they are still included by courtesy in the traditional list of patriarchs of the Church of the East, even though most scholars agree that they never existed.[19] However, not all historians and ecclesiastical scholars regard Fiey's opinion to be correct.[20][21][22][23][24]
Uncertain patriarchal succession, 1318–1552[edit]
The patriarch Yahballaha III died in November 1317, probably on Saturday 12 November.[25]
His successor Timothy II, according to the acts of his synod, was consecrated in February 1318. He was still alive in 1328, but probably died two or three years later, to be succeeded after an uncertain interval by Denha II in 1336/7, who himself died in 1381/2.[26] Denha II is known to have been consecrated in Baghdad, thanks to the patronage of the Christian emir Haggi Togai, but may have been normally resident in the Mosul plain village of Karamlish. Three ceremonial contacts between Denha II and the Jacobite church are recorded by the continuator of Bar Hebraeus's Ecclesiastical Chronicle between 1358 and 1364, and on each occasion Denha was living in Karamlish.[27]
Denha II is conventionally believed to have been succeeded by the patriarchs Shemʿon II, Shemʿon III and Eliya IV, but a 15th-century list of patriarchs mentions only a single patriarch named Shemʿon between Denha II and Eliya IV, and is probably to be preferred.[28]
Eliya IV was succeeded by Shemʿon IV at an unknown date in the first half of the 15th century. Eliya's death has conventionally been placed in 1437 but must have been earlier, as a patriarch named Shemʿon is mentioned in a colophon of 1429/30.[29]
Shemʿon IV died on 20 February 1497 and was buried in the monastery of Rabban Hormizd near the Mosul village of Alqosh.[30] He was succeeded by two short-reigned patriarchs: Shemʿon V, first mentioned in a colophon of 1500/1, who died in September 1502 and was buried in the monastery of Mar Awgin; and Eliya V, elected in 1503, who died in 1504 and was buried in the church of Mart Meskinta in Mosul.[29]
Eliya V was succeeded by the patriarch Shemʿon VI (1504–38), who died on 5 August 1538 and was buried in the monastery of Rabban Hormizd.[31] According to the colophon of a contemporary manuscript, the patriarchal throne was still vacant on 19 October 1538.[29]
Shemʿon's brother the metropolitan Ishoʿyahb Bar Mama, who had been natar kursya throughout his reign, is first mentioned as patriarch in a colophon of 1539.[29] Shemʿon VII Ishoʿyahb died on 1 November 1558 and was buried, like his predecessor, in the monastery of Rabban Hormizd near Alqosh.[31] His reign saw the schism of 1552 that resulted in the creation of the Shimun line in 1553.