Five maps are provided here to serve as an initial aid in locating some of the
main centers, cities, towns, and monasteries in the lands of Syriac Christianity
in the Middle East, both in the historical and in the contemporary periods.
These maps should not be seen as an attempt to fully document the historical
geography of Syriac Christianity. As a matter of fact, the geography of Syriac
Christianity is a much underdeveloped field, and the creation of a set of
historical maps remains an urgent desideratum.
All five maps were specifically designed and drawn by the Ancient World Mapping
Center of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, based on the data
provided by the GEDSH editors. For all of the maps the terrain depiction was
calculated from Environmental Systems Research Institute. SRTM Shaded Relief, on
ESRI Data & Maps 2006 [DVD-ROM]. Redlands, CA. While Maps I and II have a
primarily historical approach, Maps III to V were created from a contemporary
perspective, reflecting the sites of Syriac Christianity in the present-day
Middle East. As a rule we have followed the terminology most current among
Syriac Christians, without attempting to match the Syriac (or Arabic) names with
existing non-Syriac nomenclature.
While preparing the maps, we have relied on a great number of existing maps as
well as on other relevant publications. The main sources are listed below and
users of GEDSH are encouraged to turn to them as a first step in their more
advanced study of any aspect of the historical geography of Syriac
Christianity.
I. Syriac Christianity in the Roman and Sasanian periods
Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman
world, ed. R. J. A. Talbert et al. (2000).
Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients
(TAVO). Mit Unterstützung der Deutschen
Forschungsgemeinschaft erarbeitet vom Sonderforschungsbereich 19 der
Universität Tübingen (1977–1994).
E. Honigmann, Évêques et evêchés monophysites
d’Asie antérieure au VIe siècle (CSCO 127; 1951).
II. Syriac Christianity in the Islamic period
An historical atlas of Islam. Atlas historique de l’Islam, ed. H. Kennedy
(2002).
Tübinger Atlas (see under I).
III. Syriac-Orthodox Christianity centered around Ṭur ʿAbdin
H. Aydin, Das Mönchtum im Tur-Abdin. Das Leben
der Mönche im Tur-Abdin in der Gegenwart (1988). (two
maps)
H. Hollerweger, A. Palmer, and S. P. Brock, Turabdin: Lebendiges Kulturerbe. Wo die Sprache Jesu gesprochen
wird (1999).
A. Palmer, Monk and mason on the Tigris
frontier. The early history of Ṭur ʿAbdin (University of
Cambridge Oriental Publications 39; 1990).
IV. The heartland of East-Syriac Christianity in the modern
period
J. F. Coakley, The Church of the East and the
Church of England. A history of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s
Assyrian Mission (1992), esp. 8–9.
J. M. Fiey, Assyrie chrétienne. Contribution à
l’étude de l’histoire et de la géographie ecclésiastiques du nord de
l’Iraq, vol. 1–3 (Recherches publiées sous la direction de
l’Institut de lettres orientales de Beyrouth 22, 23, and 42; 1965–1968).
(covers all traditions)
A. Harrak, Syriac and Garshuni Inscriptions of
Iraq (Recueil des inscriptions syriaques 2; 2010). (several
maps)
H. L. Murre-van den Berg, ‘The Patriarchs of the Church of the East
from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries’, Hugoye 2.2 (1999).
J. C. J. Sanders, Assyro-Chaldese christenen in
Oost-Turkije en Iran. Hun laatste vaderland opnieuw in kaart
gebracht (1997; ET as Assyrian Chaldean
Christians in Eastern Turkey and Iran. Their last homeland
re-charted [1997])
D. Wilmshurst, The ecclesiastical organisation
of the Church of the East, 1318–1913 (CSCO 582;
2000).
V. Main sites of Syriac Christian wall paintings in Lebanon and
Syria
M. Immerzeel, Identity puzzles. Medieval
Christian art in Syria and Lebanon (OLA 84; 2009), esp. 41 and 83.
A. Schmidt and S. Westphalen, Christliche
Wandmalereien in Syrien. Qara und das Kloster Mar Yakub
(Sprachen und Kulturen des Christlichen Orients 14; 2005), 12.
Map I. Syriac Christianity in the Roman and Sasanian periods.
Map II. Syriac Christianity in the Islamic period.
Map III. Syriac-Orthodox Christianity centered around Ṭur ʿAbdin.
Map IV. The heartland of East-Syriac Christianity in the modern
period.
Map V. Main sites of Syriac Christian wall paintings in Lebanon and
Syria.
List of Patriarchs of the Main Syriac Churches in the Middle East
Samuel
Burleson
&
Lucas
Van Rompay
The following lists provide overviews of the church leaders in the different
Syriac traditions of the Middle East. They are not based on a fresh reading of
the primary sources, but have been compiled from existing lists in secondary
sources. The discrepancies that frequently exist in the primary sources, in
particular with regard to the exact commencement or conclusion of a patriarch’s
tenure, have led to different interpretations in the secondary sources. No
attempt has been made here to reconcile the conflicting data. Alternative years
have occasionally been added in parentheses or, when the divergences were small,
the abbreviation ‘ca.’ (i.e., around) has been used. For less well-known figures,
differences of one or two years are common and have been ignored in the present
lists. All dates have been converted to the Christian era. The conversion from
the Seleucid to the Christian era has sometimes led to a double year (as the
first year according to the Seleucid era fell in BC 312/11), but no conclusions
should be drawn from the use of either a double or a single year, as this merely
may reflect the practice adopted in the secondary sources.
Within some traditions (esp. the Church of the East and the Syriac Orthodox
Church) the patriarchal lineage is commonly traced back to the apostolic age.
This practice, however, has not been followed here. Not only is the information
for the early period very scanty, but also our focus has been on the time when a
clearly distinct Syriac Christian hierarchy existed, even if — as in the case of
the Syriac Orthodox — this hierarchy merely continued an earlier, reputedly
‘orthodox’, tradition.
The numbering (with Roman numbers) of patriarchs having a common name is largely
a modern scholarly practice. In several cases discrepancies among the various
existing lists will be found or names unaccompanied by Roman numbers are found
more frequently than those with numbers. When they occur, alternative numberings
have often been added in parentheses.
Names in bold are used for patriarchs/catholicoi to whom a full entry is
dedicated. Three dots ( … ) are used either for a vacancy or for uncertainty in
the chronology. Square brackets ([ … ]) are occasionally used for
counter-patriarchs.
List of Patriarchs: I. The Church of the East and its Uniate continuations
Samuel
Burleson
&
Lucas
Van Rompay
Main secondary sources:
D. D. Benjamin, The patriarchs of the Church of
the East (Translated from Assyrian into English by Y. A.
Baaba) (2008). (includes a comparison of different existing lists)
J. F. Coakley, ‘The patriarchal list of the Church of the East’, in
After Bardaisan. Studies on continuity and
change in Syriac Christianity in honour of Professor Han J. W.
Drijvers, ed. G. J. Reinink and A. C. Klugkist (OLA 89; 1999), 65–83. (includes comparative discussion
of two lists, by Yawsep d-Beth Qelayta [1924, reprint 1955] and by
Iskhaq Rehana d-Beth Gadda [1965, reprint 1988])
J. M. Fiey, Pour un Oriens christianus
novus (Beiruter Texte und Studien 49; 1993), 20–41.
H. L. Murre-van den Berg, ‘The patriarchs of the Church of the East
from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries’, Hugoye 2.2 (1999).
B. Spuler, ‘Die morgenländischen Kirchen’, in Handbuch der Orientalistik I.VIII.2 (1964), 209–11.
H. Teule, Les Assyro-Chaldéens. Chrétiens d’Irak,
d’Iran et de Turquie (Fils d’Abraham, 2008), 211–14.
E. Tisserant, ‘L’Église nestorienne’, in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique XI.1 (1931), col.
260–63.
1For these
dates, see S. P. Brock, ‘A Syriac list of Mongol rulers’,
in Der Christliche Orient und seine
Umwelt. Gesammelte Studien zu Ehren Jürgen Tubachs
anläßlich seines 60. Geburtstags, ed. S. G.
Vashalomidze and L. Greisiger (2007), 331 and 335, with
notes 23 and 24.
2For a recent discussion of the patriarchs/catholicoi during the
five centuries of division within the Church of the East, see
Murre-van den Berg, ‘The patriarchs of the Church of the
East’. For the confusion that has existed in scholarship
concerning the dates and numbering of Eliya VI and VII, see S.
P. Brock, ‘East Syriac pilgrims to Jerusalem in the early
Ottoman period’, ARAM 18–19
(2006–2007), Appendix (198–201). For the period between
the mid-16th and the early 19th cent., see also A. Lampart,
Ein Märtyrer der Union mit Rom. Joseph
I. 1681–1696. Patriarch der Chaldäer (1966), esp.
365–66.
3See also Teule, Les
Assyro-Chaldéens, 213. Relations between this
line of catholicoi and the Church of Rome became attenuated and were
all but nonexistent after 1600.
4In 1940 Mar
Eshai Shemʿon moved to the United States and began to adopt
the style ‘Mar Shemʿon XXIII’. See Coakley, ‘The
patriarchal list of the Church of the East’,
66–67.
List of Patriarchs: II. The Syriac Orthodox Church and its Uniate continuations
Samuel
Burleson
&
Lucas
Van Rompay
The present list starts with the patriarchate of Severus of Antioch
(512–538). Earlier incumbents of the see of Antioch are known through the
historical writings of the Imperial Church. While the Syriac Orthodox
patriarchs obviously continued this earlier line of patriarchs, it is only
with Severus that a distinct Syriac Orthodox hierarchy emerged.1
Main secondary sources:
Y. Dolabani ܡܟܬܒܢܘܬܐ ܕܦܛܪܝܪ̈ܟܐ ܕܐܢܛܝܘܟ ܕܣܘܪ̈ܝܝܐ ܬܪ̈ܝܨܝ ܫܘܒܚܐ – Die
Patriarchen der syrisch-orthodoxen Kirche von Antiochen
(1990).
J. M. Fiey, Pour un Oriens christianus
novus (Beiruter Texte und Studien 49; 1993), 20–41.
C. Sélis, Les Syriens orthodoxes et
catholiques (Fils d’Abraham, 1988), 212–15.
B. Spuler, ‘Die morgenländischen Kirchen’, in Handbuch der Orientalistik I.VIII.2 (1964), 211–15.
1The traditional approach, which considers Peter to be the
first of the Orthodox bishops (later patriarchs) of Antioch, is found in
most existing lists. A list of ‘Patriarchs who sat on the apostolic
throne of Peter, the head of the apostles, in Antioch’, however, which
is preserved in ms. Dayr al-Suryān 31, f. 81r–v, counts
Severus as the first patriarch (and runs until Patriarch Dionysios II,
d. 909).
2Isḥoq and
Athanasios Sandloyo are regarded as illegitimate (see
Dolabani, 67–68). They are not included in the
list of ms. Dayr al-Suryān 31.
3Around 760
there were two counter-patriarchs: Yuḥanon of Kallinikos and
Dawid of Dara.
4For this period,
in which there were two competing patriarchs, see H.
Kaufhold, ‘Zur syrischen Kirchengeschichte des 12.
Jahrhunderts. Neue Quellen über Theodoros bar Wahbūn,’
OC 74 (1990),
115–51.
5See E. Honigmann, Le
couvent de Barṣauma et le patriarcat jacobite d’Antioche et
de Syrie (CSCO 146; 1967), esp. 174–76, as
well as Fiey, Pour un Oriens christianus
novus, 269.
6See Fiey, Pour un Oriens
christianus novus, 275–77.
7There are
seven more patriarchs of Ṭur ʿAbdin between 1804 and ca.
1840, whose authority, however, was limited and contested.
Their names are: Severus Isḥoq (1804–1816), Yawsep of ʿArnas
(1805–1834), Barṣawmo of Ḥbob (1816–1839), Mirza of Beth
Sbirina (1816–1842), Barṣawmo of Beth Sbirina (1821–1842),
Grigorios Zaytun Ghalma of Midyat (1821–1844), and Severus
ʿAbd al-Nūr of Arbo (1834–1839). See Fiey, Pour un Oriens christianus
novus, 277.
List of Patriarchs: III. The Maronite Church
Samuel
Burleson
&
Lucas
Van Rompay
Continuing the Chalcedonian tradition of the Patriarchate of Antioch, it is
only with Yuḥanon Maron that a specific Maronite hierarchy emerged. While
the Christological controversies formed the background against which, in the
early Islamic period, a separate Maronite Church was created, the Maronites
remained closer to the Syriac Christian tradition of the Patriarchate of
Antioch, in contrast to the Melkites who, even though in the earlier period
they represented this same tradition, in the following centuries
increasingly moved into the orbit of Byzantine Orthodox Christianity. It
should be noted that prior to the Crusader period only very few names are
known.
Main secondary sources:
J.-B. Chabot, Les listes patriarcales de l’Église
maronite (Mémoires de l’Institut National de France 44;
1951).
P. Dib, ‘Maronite (Église), Patriarches’, in DTC, vol. 10 (1927), 70–72.
R. J. Mouawad, Les Maronites. Chrétiens du
Liban (Fils d’Abraham, 2009), 231–46.1
B. Spuler, ‘Die morgenländischen Kirchen’, in Handbuch der Orientalistik I.VIII.2 (1964), 217–18.
1The present list is largely based on Mouawad’s work,
which incorporates Maronite scholarship from the time of al-Duwayhī
to the present day (see the bibliography on p. 224). For most
patriarchs the name is followed by the place of
origin.
2For the
chronological problems related to this patriarch (who in fact
may belong to the late 13th cent.), see P. G. Borbone,
‘Codicologia, paleografia, aspetti storici’, in Il Tetravangelo di Rabbula, ed. M.
Bernabò (2008), 56–58.
Manuscript Index
The present index includes references to manuscript collections as well as to
individual manuscripts. Manuscripts are listed according to the place in which
they are, or were, preserved. For most biblical manuscripts the sigla assigned
by the Leiden Peshitta Institute (OT mss.) or the Münster Institut für
Neutestamentliche Textforschung (NT mss.) have been added in parentheses. For a
general overview of the major collections of Syriac manuscripts and for the
whereabouts of collections and manuscripts, see J. F. Coakley's Manuscripts entry, and, in greater detail, A. Desreumaux, Répertoire des bibliothèques et des catalogues de manuscrits
syriaques (1991). Not included in the present index are:
inscriptions, Old Syriac documents, papyri, Sogdian manuscripts, Syriac texts
from Turfan. For these, see the relevant entries. Unpublished manuscripts of
works by modern and present-day authors are also not included.
Samuel
Burleson
,
Lucas
Van Rompay
,
Samuel
Burleson
,
Lucas
Van Rompay
,
Samuel
Burleson
,
Lucas
Van Rompay
,
Samuel
Burleson
, and
Lucas
Van Rompay
,
“Maps,” in Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition,
edited by Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay, https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Maps https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/map/i https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/map/ii https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/map/iii https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/map/iv https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/map/v https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/List-of-Patriarchs-Churches-Middle-East https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Church-East-Uniate-Continuation https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Syriac-Orthodox-Uniate-Continuations https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Maronite-Church-Patriarchs https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Manuscript-Index.
Footnote Style Citation with Date:
Samuel
Burleson
,
Lucas
Van Rompay
,
Samuel
Burleson
,
Lucas
Van Rompay
,
Samuel
Burleson
,
Lucas
Van Rompay
,
Samuel
Burleson
, and
Lucas
Van Rompay
,
“Maps,” in Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition,
edited by Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay
(Gorgias Press, 2011; online ed. Beth Mardutho, 2018), https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Maps https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/map/i https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/map/ii https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/map/iii https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/map/iv https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/map/v https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/List-of-Patriarchs-Churches-Middle-East https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Church-East-Uniate-Continuation https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Syriac-Orthodox-Uniate-Continuations https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Maronite-Church-Patriarchs https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Manuscript-Index.
Bibliography Entry Citation:
Samuel
Burleson
,
Lucas
Van Rompay
,
Samuel
Burleson
,
Lucas
Van Rompay
,
Samuel
Burleson
,
Lucas
Van Rompay
,
Samuel
Burleson
, and
Lucas
Van Rompay
. “Maps.” In Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Edited by Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay.
Digital edition prepared by David Michelson, Ute Possekel, and Daniel L. Schwartz. Gorgias Press, 2011; online ed. Beth Mardutho, 2018.
https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Maps https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/map/i https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/map/ii https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/map/iii https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/map/iv https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/map/v https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/List-of-Patriarchs-Churches-Middle-East https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Church-East-Uniate-Continuation https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Syriac-Orthodox-Uniate-Continuations https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Maronite-Church-Patriarchs https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Manuscript-Index.
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