Fars (East Syrian Ecclesiastical Province)

The province of Fars, the historic cradle of Persian civilisation, was a metropolitan province of the Church of the East between the sixth and twelfth centuries. It was centered in what is now Fars Province, and besides a number of centres in Fars itself, the East Syrian ecclesiastical province also included a number of dioceses in Arabia and a diocese for the island of Soqotra.

According to tradition, Christianity was brought to the Persian province of Fars (Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܦܪܣܝܐ‎ Beth Parsaye) by Persian merchants exposed to the teaching of the apostle Addai in Roman Edessa. This tradition, which rejected a significant role for the apostle Mari, widely credited with the evangelisation of the Mesopotamian provinces of the Church of the East, reflects a deep division within the Church of the East in the Sassanian period between its Syrian and Persian converts. The patriarchs of Seleucia-Ctesiphon frequently found it difficult to exert authority over the ecclesiastical province of Fars.

A number of dioceses in Fars and northern Arabia (Syriac: Beth Qatraye, ܒܝܬ ܩܛܪܝܐ) existed by the beginning of the fifth century, but they were not grouped into a metropolitan province in 410. After establishing five metropolitan provinces in Mesopotamia, Canon XXI of the synod of Isaac merely provided that 'the bishops of the more remote dioceses of Fars, of the Islands, of Beth Madaye, of Beth Raziqaye and of the country of Abrashahr must accept the definition established in this council at a later date'.

The signature of the bishop of Rev Ardashir (the metropolis of Fars) came between those of the five metropolitans and the suffragan bishops in the acts of the synod of Dadishoʿ in 424, suggesting that Fars had by then been recognised as a sixth metropolitan province.

There were at least eight dioceses in Fars and the islands of the Persian Gulf in the fifth century, and probably eleven or more by the end of the Sassanian period. In Fars the diocese of Rev Ardashir is first mentioned in 420, the dioceses of Ardashir Khurrah (Shiraf), Darabgard, Istakhr and Kazrun (Shapur or Bih Shapur) in 424, and a diocese of Qish in 540. On the Arabian shore of the Persian Gulf dioceses are first mentioned for Dairin and Mashmahig (Bahrain) in 410 and for Beth Mazunaye (Oman) in 424. By 540 the bishop of Rev Ardashir had become a metropolitan, responsible for the dioceses of both Fars and Arabia. A fourth Arabian diocese, Hagar, is first mentioned in 576. A fifth diocese, Hatta (previously part of the diocese of Hagar), is first mentioned in the acts of a regional synod held on the Persian Gulf island of Dairin in 676 by the patriarch Giwargis to determine the episcopal succession in Beth Qatraye, but may have been created before the Arab conquest.

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