Malankara Research
Research and reflections on the ancient Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church of Malankara, Kerala
The Catholicate and the Maphrianate: their origins and progress
Christianity and its foundations
The Syrian Orthodox Church, like other orthodox Churches, is identifiable by its roots or fundamentals of two kinds. The first is the truth of the salvific Incarnation of Christ and His teachings, in which she has a historical continuity that can be traced back to the Apostles. This ‘deposit of truth’, also called ‘Holy Tradition’, was passed down from one generation to the next, which the Church believes is ‘the pillar and ground of the truth’.[1]
The orthodox Churches honour another root, and that is the apostolic continuity through its bishops. The New Testament Scriptures make it clear that from the very beginning, the Holy Apostles appointed individuals responsible for wider areas who functioned as ‘apostolic representatives’, and were called ‘bishops’ or ‘episcopoi’ in Greek, with ‘presbyters’ and ‘deacons’ as functionaries below them. The writings of the early Church Fathers St. Ignatius (Antioch’s 3rd patriarch and martyr, 107AD) and St. Irenaeus of Lyons (d.202AD) show that these offices existed everywhere in the early Church, even when Christianity was an illegal and persecuted religion.[2] This Apostolic Succession provided ‘a physical and tangible link as well as a spiritual link with the ancient Jewish-Christian Church’.[3] The importance of these two, the ‘Holy Tradition’ that the Holy Apostles taught by word of mouth, and the institution of episcopacy that is the vehicle for its transmission, is evident from this, as these two came before the Scriptures were ever written down and disseminated. These two form the foundation of the Church.
[1] 1Timothy 3:15.
[2] See St. Ignatius: Epistle to the Trallians, Ch. II and III. Christian classics Ethereal Library. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.v.iv.iii.html
[3] Bernstein 2008:185.
The Early Church
There is a general assumption that the Early Church was a loosely banded together group of Christians, and that only after the Council of Nicaea convened by Emperor Constantine in 325 did it become an ordered Church. However, one of the notable features of the Early Church is that in 325 it was already a hierarchically ordered institution, and already it was governed by rules and regulations. It was guided firstly by the Didache or Doctrine of the Apostles believed to have been written in the 1st century, which included teachings on Christian life, liturgical instructions (including how to perform a baptism, how to conduct the divine service or Holy Qurbana on Sundays), prayer, and practices (including fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays). It also had the writings of the early Church Fathers, and together these texts contained instructions on how the various levels of the community or “Church” (or “ecclesia”=assembly of the faithful) were to conduct themselves, naming bishops, presbyters, deacons and laymen as its hierarchy.
The detailed contents of this and other authentic early writings show clearly a picture of the interior life of early Church, the moral values it held, the practices it observed, and the hierarchical structure and form of government under which it was organised.[1] Most likely by the late 2nd century the fundamental tenets of faith and the governing hierarchy were already established. As medieval scholars like Bar Hebraeus and modern ones like Abdel Ahab have noted, by the end of the 3rd century, the Church was already well-defined into the ‘dioceses’ of Antioch, Alexandria and Rome.[2] The senior bishops of these cities, representing the Holy Apostles, were referred to as ‘Patriarchs’ or Holy Fathers, the broad division of their territory were designated as ‘Sees’, and each had bishops governing local regions and Presbyters (or Chorepiscopus) and deacons leading parochial communities. What Nicaea accomplished was to reaffirm these, remove false teachings, and give imperial dignity to the faith and structure of this Church.[3]
In matters of faith and doctrine, the Church had three defences, namely, the Scriptural Canon, the Creed, and the principle of Apostolic Succession to protect itself from heresies, and to preserve its true and ‘orthodox’ faith.[4] According to Mar Athanasius “the father of orthodoxy”, the orthodox faith was ‘that which the Lord gave, the apostles preached, and the fathers have preserved; upon this the church is founded, and he who departs from this faith can no longer be called a Christian.’ So, while in earlier times heresies were examined and rejected by regional councils, from Nicaea onwards they were settled by Universal Councils summoned by Emperors. Before Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire, excommunication was the most serious punishment for those who deviated from the true faith. But after this, by the order of the Emperors those who preached other doctrines were punished more severely. They were banished to remote regions or put under house-arrest or in extreme cases put to death, because all offences against the Church were regarded as offences against the Emperor. As a result, from then onwards the Church was well-equipped to examine, reject and punish heresies whenever they occurred.
It was in this way that the heresy of Arius was recognised, debated, and condemned by the Council of Nicaea in 325.[5]
[1] See: www.earlychristianwritings.com A Handbook of Patrology, Section 5 The Didache.
[2] Constantinople and Jerusalem were added in the Second and Third Councils
[3] ‘In short,’ says Patriarch Yacoub III (formerly Ramban Abdel Ahad), ‘these first three centuries were glorious period of setting up institutions, of building-up, of struggle, of witnessing, spreading of the Gospel, and of the codification of Doctrine and discipline’ (Patriarch Yacoub III, Ante-Nicene Church Fathers 1948:549). In distant Kerala too, the institutions set up by St. Thomas such as hereditary priesthood, the Gospel, the veneration of the cross, the absence of icons and statues etc. appear to have largely withstood the test of time, testifying to the power of the teachings given to them by the Apostle and his appointed later teachers. While in the Roman Empire, Christianity and its institutions were strengthened by the conversion of the Emperor, in Kerala the Christian faith was reinforced and an ecclesiastical life introduced by the arrival of successive Syriac-speaking bishops from 345 AD onwards with the arrival of Knai Thoma and party.
[4] Schaff 1910:118:1290.
[5] Arius was a Presbyter (a married priest) in Alexandria, and he taught that Christ was a creation of God, and was not himself God.
The beginnings of the Church in Mesopotamia
By the 4th century, Christianity had spread along the trade-routes from southern Palestine and Alexandria along the Red Sea as far south as Ethiopia, and these communities were governed by the Patriarch of Alexandria. Similarly, after St Thomas had passed through Mesopotamia on his way to India and his brother Thaddeus had converted King Abgar of Edessa, Christianity spread rapidly in northern Mesopotamia, from where it spread south-east along the rivers Euphrates and Tigris to the Persian Gulf. It was the custom of these early Mesopotamian Christians to send their candidates to Antioch for consecration as bishops, this great area beyond the frontiers of the Roman Empire thus coming under the governance of the Patriarchs of Antioch. Although very little is known of the early religious practices in the region of Mesopotamia, the fact that they also received the teachings of St. Ephrem the Syrian (d.373), Jacob of Nisibis (d. mid 4th c.) etc., [1] etc., indicate their unity with Antioch.
The Church in the Mesopotamian region was governed by Metropolitans in the Persian capital city of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. It was called the Church of the East, and already enjoyed a certain level of autonomy, which came about as a result of a terrible event in the late 3rd century. Seleucia had sent two candidates to Antioch for the selection and consecration of one of them as their Metropolitan, at a time when the enmity between the Roman and Persian Empires was more pronounced. They arrived in Antioch and were staying at a Christian’s house when, suspecting that they were Persian spies, the Roman soldiers surrounded the house. One of them (Aahudabooyi) escaped and ran away to Jerusalem, but the other (Kaamisho) and their host were captured and crucified in front of the church by the Roman authorities.
Later, the Patriarch of Antioch sent letters to the Metropolitan of Jerusalem to consecrate Ahoodabooyi and send him back to Seleucia, which was duly done. The bishops of the region also sent Seleucia a letter which stated that when their metropolitans died, they ‘need not come to Antioch to receive the consecrational anointing any more’. The Seleucians were to choose his successor and consecrate him themselves, because they said: ‘we have witnessed the terrible and painful sight of two Church Fathers hanging on two crosses naked’.[2] His title was to be the ‘Catholicos’ and ‘Great Metropolitan of the East’, the Greek word ‘Catholicos’ meaning ‘governor’.
Although autonomy was granted to the Church of the East in this way, Antioch continued to be its source of authority and guidance in spiritual and ecclesiastical matters. Seleucian Great Metropolitans were not permitted to change the Canons of the Church or to add or subtract anything from it. They were the ‘suffragan metropolitans’ of Antioch, and in assemblies occupied the seat of honour next after the Patriarch of Jerusalem to the right of the Patriarch of Antioch, because according to the Canons of the Great Councils, there could only be four Patriarchates.
[1] Loosley 2012: 79,91.
[2] This letter can be seen in the Appendix 4 of Bar Hebraya (Malayalam trans. by Chediath and Appassery.)
Nestorian heresy and schism in the Universal Church
It was under the circumstances briefly outlined above, that another heresy arose in the Universal Church, taught by Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople. According to him, Christ had two natures, divine and human, and these natures and persons were loosely united. Nestorius taught that at His birth, Christ was only a human, and that only Christ the human died on the cross because God could not suffer and die. These teachings caused a great controversy and confusion in the Church, especially as Nestorius further taught that Mary could not be designated as ‘Mother of God’ but only as ‘Mother of Christ’ because she gave birth to Christ the man. These teachings were examined and rejected at the Council of Ephesus in 431, and Nestorius was expelled from his post, but a vigorous debate about what exactly the nature and person of the Incarnated Christ was continued for the next 20 years.
As a result, another Council was called in Chalcedon in 451, where the argument only became worse. The Church rejected Nestorius’ teaching as ‘extreme dyophytism’ (that Christ was two-natures and two-persons), and he was exiled to Egypt. The Churches of Alexandria and Antioch argued that in the Incarnated Christ, His human and divine persons were united in a way unfathomable to humans, and that from that moment his divine and human natures were inseparable, and that without any room for error or confusion, He was One Person and One Nature. The Churches of Rome and Constantinople on the other hand argued that in Christ the properties of each nature were preserved. But Antioch and Alexandria saw this as conceding too much to Nestorius, it being only a half-way position. However, Rome and Constantinople’s position was the final outcome of the Council of Chalcedon, and it came to be known as the ‘Chalcedonian Formula’. This caused a great schism in the Church, with the ‘Chalcedonians’, that is, Rome and Constantinople on one side, and the ‘Anti-Chalcedonians’, that is, Alexandria and Antioch, on the other, irrevocably opposed to each other.
The Church of the East breaks away
The Church of the East was a signatory to the Canons passed at all the first three Councils, including that of Ephesus in 431 where Nestorius and his teachings were rejected. However, after Chalcedon in 451 when Nestorius was sent into exile, this Church began to deviate from all the other Churches. The second half of the 5th century was a turbulent period for the Church of the East, when for various reasons such as political rivalries between Rome and Persia and personal ambitions that persuaded its leaders to act in defiance of authority, its stability and even its existence were threatened. This period was marked by frequent expulsions and imprisonment of successive Catholicoi, acts of sabotage and treachery by bishops, and it suffered punitive actions by the mercurial Persian Emperors.
In the last quarter of the 5th century, many of the leading malpans in the famous Syrian School of Edessa in the Roman Empire were Nestorian sympathisers, including bishops Magnus, Narse and Acacius. Rejecting the Edessan pronunciation of Syriac, Joseph Hussoye, Head of the School, adopted what came to be known as the Eastern pronunciation in around 470, creating a division. One of the champions of Nestorianism in Persia was Barsauma, an earlier student of the School and now the powerful Metropolitan of Nisibis. When Acacius became the Catholicos-Patriarch in Seleucia in 485, he was unable to resist the threats and persuasion of Barsauma and his ally, the Metropolitan Narse. Acacius called two synods (in 485 and 486)[1] where the teachings of Nestorius and Theodore of Mopsuestia and their ‘extreme dyophytism’ (the doctrine of two-person and two-natures of Christ, the designation of the Mother of God only as the ‘Mother of Christ’ etc.) were fully adopted by the Church of the East.
When these developments were noted by Antioch, they took strong measures to erase the heresy of Nestorianism. The miaphysite-supporting Emperor Zeno with the help of Metropolitan Philoxenos of Mabug and Metropolitan Rabbula of Edessa ordered the closure of the School of Edessa in 489. The Nestorian sympathisers were expelled and excommunicated, and all their heretical books burnt. But rather than erasing Nestorius’ teachings, what these measures accomplished was to drive them to safer areas. The malpans and students from Roman Edessa retreated south, and Barsauma re-opened for them a school in Persian Nisibis, which then became the centre of Nestorianism in the East, championing the dyophysite teachings of Nestorius and Theodore of Mopsuestia. In this manner the Church of the East severed itself doctrinally and ecclesiastically from Antioch by a gradual process that began in 431 and was brought to a completion in 486. During this time it secured the support and patronage of the Persian emperors, positioning itself as distinct from other Churches, a Church that was Nestorian in dogma and Persian in political allegiance.[3]
These events, that is, Acacius’ adoption of Nestorianism, closure of the School of Edessa, relaxation of the Church’s rules of celibacy etc. brought about a complete reorientation of the Persian Church, both in its internal life in terms of its doctrine, and in its external life in terms of the asceticism of its bishops etc., by the year 490. With the relaxation of the rules of celibacy, many bishops including Barsauma took wives, thus overturning the Church’s monastical underpinnings.[2]
This resulted in a schism between the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and the Church of the East, and from then on, the the term The Nestorian Church became synonymous with The Church of the East. Late 5th to the early 6th centuries saw this alienation of the Church of the East (CoE) from both Byzantine and Oriental Churches becoming more entrenched. This was helped by the excesses of some of its Catholicoi such as Babai (497-503), who at a Synod called (in 497-499?) abolished clerical celibacy, requiring priests and bishops to marry, even a second time. According to Bar Hebraeus: ‘thus they separated themselves from all other Christians. Without shame or fear they succumbed to their desires’.
[1] Most of the dominant literature in Church History, especially that of the history of the Church of the East, state that the CoE made a full break from Antioch and established itself as an independent Church with the Synod of 410 convened by Isahaq, Catholicos of Seleucia, but 486 would be a more accurate date because until then some degree of doctrinal unity and ecclesiastic relations appear to have been maintained with Antioch.
[2] Barsauma became the metropolitan of Nisibis, not in 435 as some historians claim, but much later in second half of the 5th century. The corruptions of Barsauma are detailed in many sources: he kept a woman, maintaining that it was better to keep a wife than burn with lust. When Catholicos Babowai was challenged by Antiochian bishops about these errors taught by Barsauma, Babowai wrote to them: ‘we live in a godless country. We cannot discipline the wrongdoers. Many errors are being practiced without our consent & against the Canons.’ His letter was captured by Barsauma and given to King Peroz, who had Babowai tortured and put to death in 484. Later when Acacius became Catholicos, the Church of the East entered a phase of lawlessness and corruption, according to Bar Hebraeus. Barsauma died in 491.
[3] It has to be noted that perhaps as a result of this isolation, the Church of the East subsequently undertook extensive evangelical work towards the north and east along the overland silk route, culminating in the preaching of Christianity in central China in about 635AD, and Christianity flourishing there for the next 600 years.
Impact of the Syrian Orthodox-Nestorian schism
This schism had a serious impact on the miaphysite SO Church in the Mesopotamian region. When the CoE seceded from Antioch, the post of ‘Catholicos of the East’ became part of the Nestorian Church. In effect, there was no longer an Orthodox Suffragan Metropolitan of the See of Antioch in the region. In positioning itself as the nationalistic Church of Persia, the CoE became highly politicized and used the State machinery to persecute the Orthodox in the region. Consequently, the SOC of Antioch found itself being persecuted from the West by the Chalcedonian Churches with the help of the Byzantine rulers for doctrinal reasons, and from the East by the CoE aided and abetted by the Persian rulers, for the same reasons. The SOC was at its lowest ebb when Patriarch Mar Severus of Antioch, after a long twenty years in exile in Alexandria, died in 538.
However it is to be noted here that although the bishops of Seleucia-Ctesiphon maintained that they adopted a different kind of Christianity (that is, Nestorian) in order to show that they were distinct and opposed to the Byzantines and thereby please the Persian Emperors by proving their loyalty to him alone, the Emperors often turned against them in disapproval of their practices, and challenging them about their doctrines being different from all other Christians.
Revival of the Syrian Orthodox Church
The ascendency of the Church of the East and spread of the Nestorian heresy in Mesopotamia was not to last long. The SOC entered a phase of revival at this time due to several factors. It received the support of the Coptic Church of Alexandria, the help of the Empress Theodora in Constantinople, and the sympathy of Persian Emperors Kawad (d.532) and his successor Khosrow I (d.579). But most important of all was the advent of a most energetic and charismatic leader, Metropolitan Mar Jacob Baradaeus (Yakob Burdana) at this time, who after receiving secret consecration in Constantinople, travelled widely in the Syria-Mesopotamia region, reviving and strengthening the Church.
Political events also helped this in an indirect manner, and this was the conquest of many leading Byzantine-Roman cities by Persian Emperors Kawad and Khosrow I. Kawad was distinctly opposed to the Nestorians and adopted policies of support and encouragement for the revival of the Orthodox Church centred around the city of Tikrit to the north of Mesopotamia. When the celebrated Khosrow I came to power next, in the period 540-45 he conquered Antioch, Dara and many other leading Syrian cities and deported thousands of their citizens to Persia. In 541 he built a new city south of Seleucia-Ctesiphon and settled the deportees in it, furnishing the city with the amenities, sporting arenas etc. found in Antioch so that the Syrians would not wish to leave. He named the city Wēh Antīōk Khosrow (=‘Better than Antioch, Khosrow Built It’).
Historical accounts also show that both Kawad and Khosrow I held debates between the Orthodox and Nestorian Churches during which they berated the Nestorians for their beliefs, but their affections were never secure for either side. As a result of these developments, the population of Syrian Orthodox Christians in Persia increased significantly, and they began petitioning their rulers and requesting the Patriarch of Antioch for their own bishops and metropolitans in the region. This coincided with the extensive travels in disguise of Mar Jacob Baradaeus throughout Mesopotamia, consecrating priests and bishops for the Syrian Orthodox Christians. Thus in 559, Mar Jacob Baradaeus consecrated Ahudemeh as Metropolitan of the East for the Syrian Orthodox Christians, and this was followed by the appointment of many more. From this point onwards, the Syrian Orthodox Christians became a strong presence in Mesopotamia and staked their position opposing the Nestorian Church of the East.
The Maphrianate of Tikrit
By the early 7th century, the number of SO Christians in the region had grown exponentially. As a result, 70 years after the first installation of Ahudemeh as the Metropolitan of the East in 629, Athanasius, Patriarch of Antioch, gathered together all the Syria Orthodox Metropolitans in Mesopotamia and consecrated Mar Marutha in the newly-created office The Great Metropolitan of the East in the city of Tikrit on the River Tigris, north of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. He was given the title ‘Maphrian of Tikrit’, with authority over all the Orthodox Christians of Mesopotamia and Persia. In common usage, the Maphrian was also called ‘Catholicos’ which as noted earlier, was a term of civil office meaning ‘governor’. Historical accounts such as that of Bar Hebraeus show that from this time onwards, the SOC became equal in strength and numbers to that of the Nestorian Church, and clear lines were drawn demarcating them as separate Churches – ‘Nestorians’ and ‘Suryoyo’ (or ‘Jacobites’) in common usage. [1]
There were frequent conflicts between the two Churches in this region from this time onwards, including incursions into territories, seizure of monasteries and churches etc. This was brought to an end with the Islamic conquest of the Mesopotamian region and the establishment of the second Islamic Caliphate in Baghdad in the 750, when all Christians were indiscriminately put under harsh taxation and other adverse conditions.
With increasing pressure from the Muslim majority on the Orthodox Christians of Tikrit, the seat of the Great Metropolitan was moved from Tikrit to different locations, eventually to Mosul in 1156. After the Mongols conquered Baghdad in 1258, the Christian population of Tikrit diminished, and they completely abandoned the city by the 15th century.[2]
Beset by political exigencies and the depredations of diverse invading forces, we see that by the time of Patriarch Michael Rabo in the 12th century, and Maphrian Bar Hebraeus in the 13th century, the Syrian Orthodox and Nestorian Churches had set aside their traditional enmity and were living in peaceful co-operation. Bar Hebraeus himself spent a considerable part of his maphrianate in Tabriz, the capital of the Mongolian rulers, the Il Khans.
[1] We see these demarcations and assignations persisting well over a thousand years, when in the 19th century Protestants scholars such as Etheridge, Badger, Neale etc. made them the subject of their studies. The first Maphrian to take the title name of ‘Baselius’ was Mar Baselius Elias of 1533, and from then on, successive Maphrians have taken this name.
[2] The Maphrianate of Tikrit was abolished in 1860 by the Patriarch of Antioch, when through population depletion, it was no longer viable.
The state of the St. Thomas Christians in Kerala
The territory of ‘all the East’ came under the authority of the Patriarch of Antioch, although it was not clear what it constituted. However, from a certain ‘Mar John’ signing for ‘the Indians’ in the decrees of Nicaea in 325, we can conclude that there was in the heartlands of Christianity an awareness of the presence of Christians in India. Contrary to what some scholars have tried to argue, this India was not Ethiopia or Afghanistan, but the India of Barygaza and Muziris (that is, the west coast of India proper) as Pliny and many others writers of antiquity had clearly identified.
From the arrival of merchant Knai Thoma in Kerala in 345 with Mar Joseph, the Bishop of Edessa, and a great cohort of Mesopotamian settlers, the ‘Syrian Church of Malankara’ formed by the union of the indigenous St. Thomas Christians and the settler-community together came under the authority of Antioch. When, as seen above, the Church of the East and its Catholicoi apostatised and adopted Nestorian beliefs at the end of the 5th century as outlined above, by the indications and accounts available to us at present these heretical teachings do not appear to have reached Kerala, the Christians remaining true to the only faith and doctrine they were taught, that is, the faith of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch. It also appears that they continued unmolested and undeviated from this faith throughout the whole of the Medieval period, until the arrival of the Portuguese in the 16th century.
How this steadfastness of faith was accomplished is a matter of interest, especially with the dearth of literature available. In this thousand-year period, at times bishops deputed by Antioch came to them to live among them for extended periods, often to die and be buried in the country. At other times the Christians of Kerala appear to have sent candidates for ordination to Antioch or to Mosul. When war or pestilence prevented them from reaching Antioch, they appear to have gone to Alexandria and received ordinations there, confident of the unity of faith between the two. Literary evidence supports this view, including that of the Chronicles of the Coptic Church of the 7th century, the Niranam Chronicles, the travel-account recorded in Venice in 1501-2 of the Kerala Christian priest from Kodungalloor referred to as ‘Joseph the Indian’ , the letters of Mar Thoma I of the mid-17th century, and many more. From the scores of other religious and secular accounts, it appears that the so-called ‘Nasrani’ Christians of ‘Malankara’ (that is, Kodungalloor) enjoyed a secure and prosperous life because of the honours and privileges granted them by the kings of Kerala, and by their commercial and mercantile prowess. In religious matters they were sustained by the See of Antioch which sent them from time to time, bishops and malpans with manuscript copies of the Scriptures and prayer books.
This happy state of affairs was disturbed in the 16th century with the arrival of the Portuguese demanding that the Syrians of Kerala conform to Rome, and began subtle modes of oppression. In the same period, the arrival of bishops representing two other Churches, the Nestorian Church of the East, and the Chaldean Church compounded the confusion of the times. Bishop Mar Abraham of the Nestorian Church of the East arrived in 1550, and according to the Kerala Syrians’ own accounts, they examined him, and finding his doctrine opposed to theirs, demanded that he renounced his faith and conform to theirs as a pre-condition to their accepting him as their Metropolitan. When he refused to comply with this demand, they agreed to accept him on certain conditions such as that he gave no ordinations, did not say Holy Qurbana in their churches etc., but permitting to perform all other episcopal functions. It appears that the Syrians were willing to use him as a figurehead to rally themselves against the oppressions of Portuguese which were intensifying at this time, and as they (the Portuguese) had blockaded all the ports of India against Syrian bishops arriving, as a result of which they had been without a bishop for a long time. The two Chaldean bishops who arrived were Mar Joseph Sulaqa and Mar Simeon, the Chaldean Church being a break-away faction of the Nestorian Church that had affiliated itself to Rome. They too were accepted conditionally, just as Mar Abraham was. These three bishops do not appear to have made any inroads into the body of the Syrian Church, nor caused any schisms in it.
In the mid-20th century the office of the Maphrianate under the Holy See of Antioch was re-established in Kerala in India, but the title Maphrian was no longer used, the chief metropolitan of this Church assuming the title ‘Catholicos’. Apart from the Catholicos of the Syrian Orthodox Church, there is at present a second Catholicos in Kerala, the head of a dissident faction called the ‘Indian Orthodox Church’ which broke away from the authority of Antioch in 1912.
Parallel Patriarchs and Maphrians
Geo-political context
The rich and fertile region of Mesopotamia occupies a unique geographical position. When Christianity arrived there it already had ancient cities and citadels populated with the successors of the great civilisations of Babylon, Nineveh etc., and was rich with cultural assets such as libraries, arts and artisans. These qualities also made it desirable to competing empires who fought for possession of it, drawing or re-drawing their frontier-lines across it. In the latter half of the Medieval period, the region lay in the path of invading armies that came down from the central Asian steppes and from Europe, for immediate rich pickings, and for the promise held by the profitable control of trade in eastern goods moving west.
The plateau above steep mountains in the province of Mardin in Upper Mesopotamia called Tur Abdin was isolated by its topography and its first bishop was based in Hah on the plain. The monasteries of the region were the locus of solid resistance to Chalcedonian formulae of 451, and thus strong centres of miaphysite Syrian Orthodoxy. But after the Persian conquests of the 4th century, Hah declined and the bishop’s base moved to the monastery of Mar Gabriel in the village of Qartmin on the Tur Abdin plateau.
In 570 the Persians burnt the monastery and conquered all Tur Abdin. They installed a Nestorian bishop at the Mar Gabriel monastery in 605, but when the monks and people rejected him as a heretic, the Persian Emperor allowed the Syrian Orthodox bishops to return, because being anti-Chalcedonian, they had been persecuted by the Byzantines and so their loyalty to him was assured. Thus, the Mar Gabriel monastery became the centre of the Tur Abdin diocese of the Syrian Orthodox Church.
The region was conquered by Islamic Arabs in the 7th century, and Islam itself broke into rival Shia and Sunni sects. In the succeeding centuries the Mesopotamian region was ruled by successive caliphates based in Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo etc., when the region descended into anarchy, fragmenting into rival dynasties, and suffering further conquests from Europe (the Crusaders) and Asia (the Seljuks, Turks, Huns, Mongols etc). It was in the middle of this chaos that Christians, divided as they were into several denominations – Syrian Orthodox, Nestorian, Armenian etc. – were trying to conduct their religious and political life.
Parallel Patriarchs
The general degradation of lawful governance, and the lack of loyalty and integrity of the rulers during this late-Medieval period led to widespread corruption among the ruling classes. Bribing and appeasing of rulers with ‘gifts’ became standard practice for individuals in the region to achieve their personal ambitions and interests, and gain state recognition for these with impunity.
In this context, a parallel patriarchate[1] originated in Tur Abdin as a result of a bitter and hate-filled dispute. Salah, a metropolitan of the province of Tur Abdin (who lived in Mar Yakob’s monastery), had been excommunicated by Ignatius Ishmail, Patriarch of Antioch (who lived in nearby Mardin). Twice he approached the Patriarch for reinstating him, which was refused. But, with the approval of the Ayyubid ruler Hesno d’Kifo and the help of some bishops, he got himself elevated un-canonically as a rebel patriarch on the 6th of August in 1364, and, taking the name ‘Ignatius’, he consolidated his authority.
However, the monks and people of the region appealed to the Patriarch of Antioch in Mardin, and a strong canonical Maphrian was elevated for them not long after, in October 1364, and this was the illustrious Mar Athanasius (1364-1379). From the time of his consecration in 1364 till 1369, the Ayyubid emirs and authorities showed widespread support and honour personally to Maphrian Mar Athanasius and to the Orthodox monks and people of the region. But symptomatic of the times, these good fortunes changed when in 1369, the Kurds with the consent of the Islamic authorities in Mosul, deceived their way into Mar Mathai’s monastery, and plundered and devastated the place. The monastery was again plundered by the Mongolian invaders, and great and rich churches were destroyed, including the church in Arbela in 1375.
[1] See Herman G. B. Teule and Andrew N. Palmer in https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Maphrian.
Parallel Maphrians
The rebel Patriarchs of Tur Abdin do not appear to have created a maphrian till 130 years later, when Patriarch Ignatius Masud II appointed the first rebel Maphrian, Baselios Malki of Midyat in 1496. He consecrated twelve bishops as well for this province, which actions caused great confusion in the Orthodox Church. When the senior bishops denounced Masud II to the Patriarch of Antioch and to the Emir, the Emir confined Masud II to a monastery. It appears that along with the Patriarchs of Tur Abdin, the appointment of rebel Maphrians also continued, though erratically, often with long periods of vacancy of the seat. While the former’s authority extended over the Tur Abdin plateau, the latter’s was confined to the eastern part of it.
The last of the rebel Maphrians of this line was Baselios Abd al-Ahad of Anhil (1821–1844) who was killed by Kurds in March 1844.
Reconciliation
From all the circumstances given above, it appears that the rebel Patriarch of Tur Abdin and his suffragan maphrian were very much shadowy figures commanding their own little areas of jurisdiction, often without the support of the rulers, the monks and the people in general. Without a different doctrine or a different set of practices or Apostolic Succession, they nevertheless tenaciously continued in their rebellious state, content with occupying the periphery of the Christian communities and in the isolation of the mountainous strongholds of Tur Abdin. In the 475 years after Masud I’s accession, five times they were reconciled with Antioch, only to reverse it again, and this patriarchate was abolished after the final and full reconciliation in 1839.
The Maphrian of Mosul
As mentioned earlier, the Maphrian of Mosul is the same as Maphrian of Tikrit, from when his seat was moved there in 1156.
Bibliography
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Malankara Research 
Fantastic post! Thank you very much for presenting the history of Christianity in Syria. Are you maybe planning to cover interactions of Christians with other religious group in the late antiquity?
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