List of Patriarchs: I. The Church of the East and its Uniate continuations

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.
...
Aḥadabu(h)y c. 204 (?)
Shaḥlupa 220 – 240
...
Papa bar ʿAggai d. between 327 and 335
Shemʿon bar Ṣabbaʿe d. 341 or 344
Shahdost
Barbaʿshmin
Tomarsa/Tamuza
Qayyoma
Isḥaq ca. 399/400 – 410/11
Aḥai 410 – 415
Yahbalaha I 415 – 420
Maʿna 420
Farabokht 421
Dadishoʿ I ca. 421 – 456
Babowai 457 – 484
Aqaq 484 – 495/6
Babai 497 – 502/3
Shila 503 – 523
Narsai and Elishaʿ 524 – 537
Pawlos 537 – 538/9
Aba I 540 – 552
Yawsep I 552 – 567
Ḥazqiel I 567 (or 570) – 581
Ishoʿyahb I ca. 581/2 – 595
Sabrishoʿ I 596 – 604
Grigor I 605 – ca. 610
... (enforced vacancy)
Ishoʿyahb II of Gdala 628 – 645
Maremeh 646 – 649
Ishoʿyahb III of Adiabene 649 – 659
Gewargis I ca. 659 – 680/1
Yoḥannan I 680/1 – 683
...
Ḥenanishoʿ I 685/6 – 699/700
[Yoḥannan II ca. 692 (?)]
...
Ṣlibhazkha 713/4 – 727/8
...
Petyon 731 – 741
Aba II of Kashkar 741 – 751
...
Surin ca. 754
Yaʿqob II 754 – 773
Ḥenanishoʿ II 773 – 779/80
Timotheos I 779/80 – 823
Ishoʿ bar Nun 823 – 828
Gewargis II 828 – 829/30
Sabrishoʿ II 831 – 835
Abraham II 837 – 850
...
Theodosios 853 – 858
Sargis I 860 – 872
(Israel of Kashkar) d. 877
Anosh/Enosh 877 – 884
Yoḥannan II bar Narsai 884 – 891/2
Yoḥannan III 893 – 899
Yoḥannan IV bar Abgare 900 – 905
Abraham III Abraza 905 – 936/7
Emmanuel I 937 – 960
Israel I 961
...
ʿAbdishoʿ I 963 – 986
Mari bar Ṭobi 987 – 999
Yoḥannan V 1000 – 1011
Yoḥannan VI Nasuk (bar Nazuk) 1012 – 1020
Ishoʿyahb IV bar Ḥazqiel 1020 – 1025
Eliya I of Ṭirhan 1028 – 1049
Yoḥannan VII bar Ṭargal (b. Ṭargala) 1050 – 1057
...
Sabrishoʿ III Zanbur 1064 – 1072
...
ʿAbdishoʿ b. al-ʿĀrid 1074 – 1090
...
Makkika I 1092 – 1109/10
Eliya II bar Molki (bar Maqli) 1111 – 1132
Barṣawma I 1134 – 1136
...
ʿAbdishoʿ III bar Molki (b. Maqli) 1139 – 1148
Ishoʿyahb V Baladi 1149 – 1175
Eliya III Abū Ḥalīm 1176 – 1190
Yahbalaha II 1190 – 1222
Sabrishoʿ IV bar Qayyoma 1222 – 1225
Sabhrishoʿ V b. al-Masīḥī 1226 – 1256
Makkika II 1257 – 1265
Denḥa I 1265 – 1281
Yahbalaha III 1281 – 1317
Timotheos II 1318 – 1332 (?)
Denḥa II 1336/7 – 1381/2 1
Shemʿon II
Shemʿon III
Eliya IV ca. 1437
Shemʿon IV Basidi 1437 – 1497
Shemʿon V 1497 – 1502
Eliya V 1502 – 1504
Shemʿon VI 1504 – 1538
Shemʿon VII bar Mama 1538/9 – 1558

The Patriarchate of Rabban Hormizd (successors of Bar Mama, 1551–1804) 2

Eliya VI bar Gewargis 1558/9 – 1591
Eliya VII 1591 – 1617
Eliya VIII Shemʿon 1617 – 1660
Eliya IX Yoḥannan Marawgin 1660 – 1700
Eliya X Marawgin 1700 – 1722
Eliya XI Denḥa 1722 – 1778
Eliya XII Ishoʿyahb 1778 – 1804

First Attempt at Union with Rome (1551-1692) 3

Yoḥannan Sullaqa (Shemʿon VIII) 1553 – 1555
ʿAbdishoʿ IV of Gazarta 1555 – 1567 (1570)
Shemʿon (Yahbalaha) 1572 – 1576 (?)
Yahbalaha Shemʿon 1577 – 1579/80
Shemʿon IX Denḥa 1580 – 1600
Shemʿon X 1600 – 1638 (1625?)
Shemʿon XI 1638 – 1656
Shemʿon XII Yoḥannan 1656 – 1662
Shemʿon XIII Denḥa 1662 – 1700

Second Attempt at Union with Rome: The Patriarchate of Amid/Diyarbakir (1681 – 1828)

Yawsep I 1681 – 1696
Yawsep II (Ṣliba d-Beth Maʿruf) 1696 – 1713
Yawsep III Timotheos Marawgin 1714 – 1757
Yawsep IV Lazaros Hindi 1759 – 1781 (1796)
Yawsep V Augustin Hindi 1781 (1802) – 1828

The Uniate Chaldean Patriarchate of Babylon (Mosul, Baghdad, 1830 to date)

Yoḥannan VIII (Eliya) Hormizd 1830 – 1838
Nicholas Eshaʿya (Zayʿa) 1838 – 1847
Yawsep VI Audo 1848 – 1878
Eliya XIV (XII, XIII) Abū al-Yūnan 1879 – 1894
ʿAbdishoʿ V Khayyāṭ 1895 – 1898
Yawsep VI Emmanuel Toma 1900 – 1947
Yawsep VII Ghanīma 1947 – 1958
Pawlos II Cheikho 1958 – 1989
Raphael I Bidawid 1989 – 2003
Emmanuel III Delly 2003 to date

The Assyrian Church of the East (line of Qudshanis and its continuation, 1700 to date)

Shemʿon XIV Shlemon 1700 – 1740
Shemʿon XV Michael Mukhtas 1740 – 1780
Shemʿon XVI Yoḥannan 1780 – 1820
Shemʿon XVII Abraham 1820 – 1860
Shemʿon XVIII Rubel 1860 – 1903
Shemʿon XIX Benyamin 1903 – 1918
Shemʿon XX Pawlos (Polos Shemʿon) 1918 – 1920
Shemʿon XXI Eshai (Eshai Shemʿon) 1920 – 1975 4
Denḥa IV 1976 to date

The Ancient Church of the East ( 1968 to date )

Toma Darmo 1968
Addai II 1972 to date

1 For 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.

2 For 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.

3 See 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.

4 In 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.

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