Severos bar Mashqo
author: Lucas Van Rompay
source date: 2011
edition published: 2016-09-22-16:00
availability: Copyright ©2011 by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute Distributed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

Severos bar Mashqo

https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Severos-bar-Mashqo http://syriaca.org/bibl/496 487 http://syriaca.org/person/106 [person] [Patr. since 667/8 whose rule was contested by bishops.]

(d. 684) [Syr. Orth.]

Patr. since 667/8. Severos was from Dayro da-Pgimto (see under Reshʿayna ). Prior to his election as patr. he was metropolitan bp. of Amid . His tenure as patr. is covered in the main historiographical works, in particular in Michael Rabo and Bar ʿEbroyo . Severos is said to have been a severe man, who ruled harshly, and had the support of the Muslim Caliphs. A conflict arose with some metropolitan bps. about the right of ordination of suffragan bps. When Severos refused to leave that right to the metropolitan bps., the latter deposed and excommunicated him (in 679/80). Severos responded with a counter-excommunication. This stalemate lasted four years, until Severos, anticipating his death, sent a letter to the mafryono Yuḥanon Sobo (or Yuḥanon the Persian), in which he reiterated his rights and urged the bps. to repent. This letter is preserved, as part of a dossier of six letters related to the conflict, in Michael Rabo (XI.14: vol. 4, 438–44 [Syr.] and vol. 2, 458–68 [FT]) — Yaʿqub of Edessa is said to have copied two of these documents at the requests of the bps. These epistolary efforts indeed led to reconciliation which, however, was fully achieved only at a synod that met in Reshʿayna in the late summer of 684, after Severos had died earlier in the same year.

Sources

Barsoum, Scattered pearls , 330–1.
Baumstark, Literatur, 256.
W. Hage, Die syrisch-jakobitische Kirche in frühislamischer Zeit (1966), 13, 33, 38, 68.
O. J. Schrier, ‘Chronological problems concerning the lives of Severus bar Mašqā, Athanasius of Balad, Julianus Romāyā, Yoḥannān Sābā, George of the Arabs and Jacob of Edessa’, OC 75 (1991), 62–90.

Lucas Van Rompay