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Mardin was a diocese of the Chaldean Church from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. The diocese lapsed in 1941. Prior to this, it was a diocese of the Assyrian Church of the East, from which the Chaldean Catholic Church originated. [1]
Fiey’s list of the Assyrian bishops of Mardin is derived principally from the list compiled by Tfinkdji in 1913. Tfinkdji's treatment of the diocese of Mardin, where he was himself an Assyrian Chaldean Catholic priest, is more than usually detailed, but although containing much valuable information is not free from error. From the middle of the eighteenth century onward, most of the Chaldean bishops of Mardin were buried in the city's church of Rabban Hormizd and the dates of their deaths were recorded in their epitaphs. These dates were used by Tfinkdji, and most of them also appear in an undated note made around the end of the nineteenth century in a manuscript in the Mardin collection, which lists the bishops of Mardin from Basil Hesro (ob. 1738) to Peter Timothy ʿAttar (ob. 1891), giving wherever known the dates of their consecration and death. The author of the note is not known, but may have been Tfinkdji himself, despite occasional discrepancies in some of the dates given. Details of this kind, based on first-hand knowledge and personal recollection, can probably be trusted. Elsewhere, particularly for the early history of the diocese, his evidence is contradicted by other sources, and cannot be relied upon.
The Chaldean diocese of Mardin appears to have been founded in the second half of the sixteenth-century, either by Yohannan Sulaqa or (more probably) his successor ʿAbdishoʿ IV Maron, after Saluqa broke from the Assyrian Church of the East in 1553 AD. Tfinkdji gave the following list of supposed bishops of Mardin from 1194 to 1512, apparently contained in an evangelary copied in 1621: Yaʿqob of Amid (1194–1227); Isaac of Nisibis (1229–51); Marqos of Mardin (1252–75); Denha of Maiperqat (1280–1301); Quriaqos of Dunaysir [according to Tfinkdji the old name of the Mardin village of Tel Armen] (1305–17); Stephen of Mardin (1319–40); Giwargis of Resh ʿAïna (1345–61); Eleazar of Kfartutha (1364–75); Samuel of Edessa (1378–95); Yohannan of Seert (1397–1400); Yahballaha of Gazarta (1400–09); Yalda of Amid (1410–29); Peter of Mardin (1431–45); Sabrishoʿ of Gazarta (1448–68); Eliya of Mosul (1470–86); and Timothy of Hesna d'Kifa (1488–1512).
This list is of very doubtful authenticity. Firstly, although some of its names are plausible, it is surprising to find Assyrian bishops from the West Syriac centres of Resh ʿAïna, Kfartutha and Edessa, and the names Eleazar and Samuel are also rarely found in the Assyrian Church of the East. Secondly, none of the bishops named is mentioned elsewhere. Finally, the list conflicts with other evidence indicating that Mardin was not a separate diocese until after the schism of 1552.
In the literary sources Mardin appears three times[ original research? ] in the title of the Assyrian Church of the East bishops of Maiperqat, but not as a separate diocese. The patriarch Yahballaha II (1190–1222) was bishop 'of Maiperqat and Mardin' before becoming metropolitan of Nisibis in 1176; the bishop Yohannan 'of Maiperqat, Amid and Mardin' was present at the consecration of Makkikha II in 1257; and the bishop Ishoʿdnah of 'Maiperqat, Amid and Mardin' was present at the consecration of Denha I in 1265. Furthermore, the dating formulas of manuscripts copied in Mardin in 1502 and 1540/1 mention the patriarch Shemʿon VII Ishoʿyahb and, respectively, the metropolitan Eliya of Amid and the metropolitan and natar kursya Hnanishoʿ. Neither colophon mentions a bishop of Mardin.
The metropolitan Ishoʿyahb of Nisibis, a supporter of Shemʿon VII Isho‘yahb and his successor Eliya VI (1558-1591), is styled 'metropolitan of Nisibis, Mardin, Amid and all Armenia' in a colophon of 1554, and 'metropolitan of Nisibis, Mardin and Armenia' in colophons of 1558 and 1560. The earlier title may have been intended to challenge the authority of Sulaqa's metropolitan Eliya of Amid, and both styles may be evidence that Mardin was at this period loyal to Shemʿon VII Ishoʿyahb and did not yet have its own bishop.
Mardin was ranked as a suffragan diocese of Nisibis in the list of ʿAbdishoʿ IV Maron in 1562, together with the dioceses of 'Tallescani' and 'Macchazin'. Presumably these were East Syriac villages near Mardin and Nisibis, but they have not been localised.
This reference is of some interest. The first indisputable metropolitan of Mardin was Hnanishoʿ, a native of the Mardin village of Tabyatha, who copied at least seven manuscripts between 1564 and 1586. According to Tfinkdji, he was one of the five bishops consecrated by Yohannan Sulaqa after his return from Rome in 1553 and this may well be true, though Tfinkdji's authority for this claim is not clear. Alternatively, as he is not mentioned before 1564, it is perhaps more likely that he was consecrated by Sulaqa's successor ʿAbdishoʿ IV Maron. He was certainly a supporter of the union with Rome, as the catholicus ʿAbdishoʿ IV is mentioned in the colophon of his earliest manuscript. He also copied a manuscript in the monastery of Mar Yaʿqob near Seert in 1569, the patriarchal residence of ʿAbdishoʿ IV.
Hnanishoʿ was one of the signatories of a letter of 1580 from the fourth Catholic patriarch Shemʿon IX Denha to pope Gregory XIII. In 1582, he visited Jerusalem, where he celebrated the feast of the Resurrection on 15 April. He completed a copy of a manuscript at Mardin on 10 December 1586, and was not among the metropolitans who witnessed the profession of faith of Eliya VI at Alqosh a fortnight later on 23 December 1586. An archbishop Hnanishoʿ 'of Mansuriya', probably the same man, is included in Leonard Abel's 1587 list of 'the most literate men in the Nestorian nation'.
Hnanishoʿ may have died shortly afterwards. Thereafter, until 1615, Mardin appears to have been under the jurisdiction of Yaʿqob, metropolitan of Nisibis. Yaʿqob is mentioned in the report of 1607 as 'metropolitan of Mardin', and in 1614 is styled 'metropolitan of Nisibis and Mardin' in a letter of Peter Strozza.
According to Tfinkdji, the next three seventeenth-century metropolitans of Mardin were Yohannan (1615–41), Joseph (1641–78), and Shemʿon of Amid (1682–95). The source for some of these dates is not clear, and the evidence from the dating formulas of manuscripts is contradictory. The title of Timothy, metropolitan of Amid between 1615 and his death in 1621/2, also included Mardin, suggesting that Yohannan's reign began in 1622 or later. The metropolitan Yohannan of Mardin, said by Tfinkdji to have died in Nisibis in 1641, is mentioned in the dating formulas of manuscripts of 1635 and 1645. The name and (presumably incorrect) reign-dates of the metropolitan Joseph were contained in a note in an East Syriac manuscript copied in 1679 and seen by Tfinkji in a Jacobite church. Shemʿon of Amid is said to have been consecrated by Joseph I, and to have died at Mardin in 1695.
According to Tfinkdji Timothy Maroge, who succeeded Joseph II as patriarch of the Chaldeans in 1714, was metropolitan of Mardin between 1696 and 1713. According to his own account, however, which has been preserved in the Vatican archives, he was metropolitan of Amid, though he also ministered to the Chaldeans of Mardin.
The bishop Basil Hesro of Mardin was one of three bishops (with Basil of Amid and Shemʿon of Seert) consecrated by Joseph III before his departure for Rome in 1731. According to Fiey, following Tfinkdji, he was consecrated in 1714, but in the patriarch's own account the two Basils were consecrated 'one after the death of the other'. Since Basil of Amid died in 1728, Basil Hesro must have been consecrated between 1728 and 1731. He seems to have died in September 1738. In March 1739, the patriarchal administrator Shemʿon Kemo and the clergy and people of Amid and Mardin wrote several letters to Joseph III at Rome to inform him of Basil's death and to plead for Joseph's return. These letters state that he died on 26 September 1738 and mention that he had been appointed patriarchal vicar by the Sacred Congregation. He was the first bishop of Mardin to be buried in the church of Rabban Hormizd, and according to his epitaph in the church died on 25 September 1738, a day earlier than the date given in the Vatican correspondence. A note in a manuscript in the Diyarbakr collection gives the date of his death as 10 January 1739, probably incorrectly.
Basil Hesro was succeeded shortly after his death by the priest Yohannan of Mardin, who was consecrated by Joseph III and also took the name Basil in honour of his predecessor (Tfinkdji). He cannot have been consecrated in 1738, as Tfinkdji stated, as Joseph III only returned to Amid at the end of 1741. He is probably to be identified with the 95-year-old metropolitan of Mardin mentioned by Cardinal Tamburini at the beginning of 1757 as the sole surviving Catholic bishop in the Amid patriarchate (following the recent deaths of the patriarch Joseph III and the metropolitan Timothy Masaji of Amid). He consecrated Laʿzar Hindi metropolitan of Amid on 8 February 1857, and according to his epitaph he died shortly afterwards, on 25 February 1758.
Yohannan was succeeded by the metropolitan Shemʿon of Amid, apparently consecrated by Joseph III in 1758. In 1782, he intervened to secure protection for the Syriac Catholic patriarch Michael III Jarweh, who was persecuted by the Jacobites of Mardin after his conversion to Catholicism. According to his epitaph, he died on 19 November 1788.
Shemʿon was succeeded in 1795 by the priest Mikha'il Shawriz of Seert, the brother of the metropolitan Peter Shawriz of Seert. According to the patriarch Yohannan VIII Hormizd, whose account is quoted by the Anglican missionary George Percy Badger, he was consecrated between November 1793 and 14 February 1794 in an irregular manner on the initiative of Augustine Hindi:
All this time I had received no letters from Diarbekir or Mardeen, for it appears that they would not receive the orders of our lord the Pope; on the contrary, Kasha Agostîn went to Sert, where there was a presbyter named Michael. Him he took to one of the Tcawâlakha [Jilu] Metropolitans and got him consecrated Metropolitan, and set him over Mardeen without the consent of our lord the Pope. [2]
Because of the irregularity of his consecration, Mikha'il was excommunicated by the Vatican but was absolved by pope Pius VI in 1795 and confirmed as bishop of Mardin. Tfinkdji, followed by Fiey, gives the date of his death as 3 April 1810.
Mikha'il was succeeded by Ignatius Dashto of Alqosh, a monk of the monaster of Rabban Hormizd, who was born in 1794 and ordained a priest in 1821. According to Tfinkdji, he was consecrated by Augustine Hindi in 1824 but according to another source, he was consecrated in 1827 and died on 12 July 1868. According to Badger, he was consecrated by Augustine Hindi (who liked to style himself Mar Joseph V) along with four other monks and was sent to Mardin to embarrass Yohannan Hormizd:
Mar Yoosef took upon himself to send Mutran Michael to Sert, and Mutran Ignatius to Mardeen, though this latter town had been placed under the jurisdiction of Mutran Hanna by the Pope himself. [3]
Ignatius Dashto was succeeded by Gabriel Farso, who was consecrated in 1870 and died on 27 June 1873. He was succeeded by Peter Timothy ʿAttar, who was consecrated metropolitan of Amid in 1870 and transferred to Mardin in 1873 on Farso's premature death. He died on 1 November 1891, but seems to have been succeeded as metropolitan of Mardin some years before his death by Yohannan Eliya Mellus, c.1887–1908.
A number of manuscripts in the Mardin collection, some of which were later donated to the Vatican, formed part of the personal collection of the metropolitan Yohannan Eliya Mellus in the 1880s.
In 1910, Israel Audo became metropolitan of Mardin, but the 1918 Assyrian genocide eliminated the Chaldean presence in Mardin, and the diocese was abolished after his death in 1941.
The modern day Chaldean population of Mardin is said to include only one family, and they hold the key to the Chaldean Catholic Church of Mardin, which is still maintained but inactive. The Church is now under the control of the Chaldean Catholic Archeparchy of Amida.
In 1842, the diocese of Mardin consisted only of the town itself, which had a church, four priests, and 60 Chaldean families (Badger). In 1852 the diocese of Mardin and Nisibis contained 500 Chaldeans (Marchi). In 1867, the diocese contained 2 villages and had a population of 1,000 Chaldeans, served by 2 priests (Martin).
In 1896, the diocese of Mardin had 850 Chaldeans, with a parish for Mardin itself, and four stations, one of which was near Nisibis (Chabot). There were then 3 priests, assisted by a Capuchin house in the diocese.
In 1913, the diocese of Mardin consisted of 1,670 believers, with 6 priests, a church, 2 chapels, 3 schools, and 2 mission stations (Tfinkdji). The majority lived in Mardin itself. There were also small Chaldean communities living alongside much larger groups of West Syriac and Armenian Christians in Midyat, Nisibis, Derik, Viransehir, and the village of Tel Armen. The only significant Chaldean settlement left in the vicinity of Mardin was the village of Issadeir, several miles to the north.
In 2005 the Chaldean Catholic Church was reopened, and served 5 Chaldean families. Due to the absence of a Chaldean Catholic priest, the church is managed by a local Syriac Orthodox priest. [4]
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Yohannan VIII Hormizd (1760–1838) was the last hereditary patriarch of the Eliya line of the Church of the East and the first patriarch of a united Chaldean Church. After the death of his uncle Eliya XI in 1778, he claimed the patriarchal throne in 1780 and made a Catholic profession of faith. In 1783, he was recognized by the Vatican as patriarchal administrator and archbishop of Mosul. His career as patriarchal administrator was controversial, and was marked by a series of conflicts with his own bishops and also with the Vatican. Suspended from his functions in 1812 and again in 1818, he was reinstated by the Vatican in 1828. In 1830, following the death of the Amid patriarchal administrator Augustine Hindi, he was recognised by the Vatican as patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans and the Mosul and Amid patriarchates were united under his leadership. This event marked the birth of the since unbroken patriarchal line of the Chaldean Catholic Church. Yohannan Hormizd died in 1838 and his successor Nicholas I Zayʿa was chosen by the Vatican, ending the centuries-old practice of hereditary succession.
At the height of its power, in the 10th century AD, the dioceses of the Church of the East numbered well over a hundred and stretched from Egypt to China. These dioceses were organised into six interior provinces in Mesopotamia, in the Church's Iraqi heartland, and a dozen or more second-rank exterior provinces. Most of the exterior provinces were located in Iran, Central Asia, India and China, testifying to the Church's remarkable eastern expansion in the Middle Ages. A number of East Syriac dioceses were also established in the towns of the eastern Mediterranean, in Palestine, Syria, Cilicia and Egypt.
Dioceses of the Church of the East, 1318–1552 were metropolitan provinces and dioceses of the Church of the East, during the period from 1318 to 1552. They were far fewer in number than during the period of the Church's greatest expansion in the tenth century. Between 1318 and 1552, the geographical horizons of the Church of the East, which had once stretched from Egypt to China, narrowed drastically. By 1552, with the exception of a number of East Syriac communities in India, the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Church of the East was confined to its original heartland in northern Mesopotamia.
The Patriarchal Province of Seleucia-Ctesiphon was an ecclesiastical province of the Church of the East, with see in Seleucia-Ctesiphon. It was attested between the fifth and thirteenth centuries. As its name entails, it was the province of the patriarch of the Church of the East. The province consisted of a number of dioceses in the region of Beth Aramaye, between Basra and Kirkuk, which were placed under the patriarch's direct supervision at the synod of Yahballaha I in 420.
The Metropolitanate of Nisibis was an East Syriac metropolitan province of the Church of the East, between the fifth and seventeenth centuries. The ecclesiastical province of Nisibis had a number of suffragan dioceses at different periods in its history, including Arzun, Beth Rahimaï, Beth Qardu, Beth Zabdaï, Qube d’Arzun, Balad, Shigar (Sinjar), Armenia, Beth Tabyathe and the Kartawaye, Harran and Callinicus (Raqqa), Maiperqat, Reshʿaïna, Qarta and Adarma, Qaimar and Hesna d'Kifa. Aoustan d'Arzun and Beth Moksaye were also suffragan dioceses in the fifth century.
Beth Huzaye or ʿIlam was an East Syriac metropolitan province of the Church of the East, between the fifth and fourteenth centuries. The metropolitan bishops of Beth Huzaye sat at Beth Lapat (Jundishapur). The metropolitan province of Beth Huzaye had a number of suffragan dioceses at different periods in its history, including Karka d'Ledan, Hormizd Ardashir, Shushter, Susa, Ispahan, Mihraganqadaq and Ram Hormizd. The diocese of Shahpur Khwast may also have been a suffragan diocese of the province of Beth Huzaye.
For much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the district of Salmas in northwest Iran was an archdiocese of the Chaldean Catholic Church, now a part of the Chaldean Catholic Archeparchy of Urmyā.
The Metropolitanate of Shemsdin, created after the 1552 schism in the Church of the East, the predecessor to the Assyrian Church of the East, was the second most important ecclesiastical province of the Qudshanis patriarchate after the province of the patriarch himself. The metropolitans or matrans of Shemsdin traditionally took the name Hnanishoʿ and lived in the Shemsdin village of Mar Ishoʿin the sub-district of Rustaqa. There were around twelve metropolitans of Shemsdin between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries, most of whom were chosen by hereditary succession. The last metropolitan of Shemsdin, Mar Yosip Khnanisho died in Iraq in 1977, and the office of mutran lapsed on his death.
Dioceses of the Church of the East after 1552 were dioceses of the Church of the East and its subsequent branches, both traditionalist and pro-Catholic.
Chaldean Catholic Eparchy of Amadiya was a historical eparchy (diocese) of the Chaldean Catholic Church, until it was united with the Chaldean Catholic Eparchy of Zakho in 2013.
Aqra, properly ʿAqra, was a diocese of the Chaldean Catholic Church founded in the mid-19th century. It was united with the Archeparchy of Mossul to create the Archeparchy of Mossul-Aqra on December 22, 2018.
Chaldean Catholic Eparchy of Seert was a diocese of the Chaldean Catholic Church, centered in Seert. It existed during the eighteenth, nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. The diocese was ruined during the First World War.
The Diocese of Amid (Diyarbakir) was a diocese or archdiocese of the Chaldean Church from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. From at least the 13th century the city of Amid had been part of the Diocese of Maiperqat of the Church of the East; following the schism of 1552 it became the seat of its own diocese in the Chaldean Church.
The Chaldean Catholic Archeparchy of Kirkuk is an archeparchy of the Chaldean Catholic Church in communion with the Pope in Rome. The archeparchy was created in the early years of the nineteenth century. Its present ordinary, Archbishop Yousif Thomas Mirkis, was consecrated in 2014.
The Chaldean diocese of Gazarta, named for the town of Jezira, known in Syriac as Gazarta d'Beth Zabdai, was established on a stable basis in the early nineteenth century. Many of the Assyrians of the Gazarta region, including the bishop of Gazarta Pilipus Yaqub Orahim, were killed during the Assyrian genocide during 1914-1918. On 3 July 1957, it was suppressed and its territory divided between the Chaldean Catholic Diocese of Diarbekir (Amida), the Chaldean Catholic Diocese of Aleppo and the newly established Chaldean Catholic Diocese of Beirut.
Diocese of Kashkar, sometimes called Kaskar, was the senior diocese in the Church of the East's Province of the Patriarch. It see was in the city of Kashkar. The diocese is attested between the fourth and the twelfth centuries. The bishops of Kashkar had the privilege of guarding the patriarchal throne during the interregnum between the death of a patriarch and the appointment of his successor. As a result, they are often mentioned by name in the standard histories of the Nestorian patriarchs, so that a relatively full list of the bishops of the diocese has survived.
The patriarch of the Church of the East is the patriarch, or leader and head bishop of the Church of the East. 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.
Mar Shemʿon VII Ishoʿyahb, born Īshōʿyahb bar Māmā, was Patriarch of the Church of the East from 1539 to 1558, with residence in Rabban Hormizd Monastery.
The schism of 1552 was an important event in the history of the Church of the East. It divided the church into two factions, of which one entered into communion with Rome becoming part of the Catholic Church at this time and the other remained independent until the 19th century. Although the Eliya line, which emerged as a result of this schism, did eventually enter into communion with Rome, various Eastern Protestant sects with their origins in the Church of the East emerged as a result of this schism. The Shimon line whose entry into full communion with Rome caused this schism became independent again by the 17th century. The circumstances of the 1552 schism were controversial at the time and have been disputed ever since.
