Marga (East Syrian Diocese)

The Diocese of Marga was one of the dioceses of the Church of the East. The diocese was included in the metropolitan province of Adiabene, and is attested between the eighth and fourteenth centuries. Towards the end of the thirteenth century the name of the diocese was changed to 'Tella and Barbelli'.

The diocese of Marga, attested between the eighth and fourteenth centuries and frequently mentioned in Thomas of Marga's Book of Governors, included a large number of villages and monasteries around ʿAqra. In the middle of the eighth century the diocese is known to have included the districts of Sapsapa (the Navkur plain south of ʿAqra, on the east bank of the Khazir river), Talana and Nahla d'Malka (two valleys around the upper course of the Khazir river) and Beth Rustaqa (the Gomel valley), and it probably also included several villages in the Zibar district. The metropolitan Maranʿammeh of Adiabene, who flourished in the third quarter of the eighth century, adjusted the boundaries of the dioceses of Dasen and Marga, transferring the districts of Nahla and Talana from Marga to Dasen and also assigning the Great Monastery to the diocese of Dasen.

The diocese of Marga is first mentioned in the eighth century (the region was probably in the diocese of Beth Nuhadra previously), and several of its bishops are mentioned between the eighth century and the first half of the thirteenth century. By the second half of the thirteenth century the names of two villages in the Gomel valley, Tella and Barbelli (Billan), were also included in the title of the diocese. The last-known bishop of Tella and Barbelli, Ishoʿyahb, was present at the synod of Timothy II in 1318. The diocese is not mentioned thereafter, and no other bishops are known from the ʿAqra region until the nineteenth century.

The bishop ʿAbdishoʿ of Marga was among the bishops who witnessed a retraction of the Messallian heresy made by the priest Nestorius of the monastery of Mar Yozadaq in 790 before his consecration as bishop of Beth Nuhadra.

The monks Laʿzar, Gabriel and Yaʿqob of the monastery of Beth ʿAbe were bishops of Marga at unknown dates in the second half of the eighth century or the first half of the ninth century.

Thomas of Marga, author of the Book of Governors, was bishop of Marga around the middle of the ninth century. According to Wallis Budge he was appointed bishop of Marga by the patriarch Abraham I (837–50).

The patriarch Abraham III (906–37) was bishop of Marga before his consecration as patriarch on 10 January 906.

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