Nicholas I Zaya

Nicholas I Zaya
Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans
Church	Chaldean Catholic Church
See	Babylon of the Chaldeans
Installed	1839
Term ended	May 1847
Predecessor	Yohannan Hormizd
Successor	Joseph VI Audo
Orders
Consecration	1836 (Bishop) by Yohannan Hormizd
Personal details
Birth name	Nicholas Zaya
Died	1855 Khosrowa
Residence	Iraq

Mar Nicholas I Zaya (or Zayʿa or Eshaʿya) was the patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church from 1839 to 1847. He succeeded Yohannan VIII Hormizd, the last of the Mosul patriarchs who traced their descent from Eliya VII (1558–91), and his elevation ended four centuries of hereditary succession in the Eliya line. After Zayʿa's accession the Vatican attempted to reform abuses within the Chaldean Church, but its interference was strenuously resisted by several Chaldean bishops. As a result, Zayʿa's short reign was plagued by one crisis after another. In 1846, after the Vatican conspicuously failed to support him against his recalcitrant bishops, he resigned the patriarchate and retired to his native town of Khosrowa, where he died in 1855. He was succeeded by Joseph VI Audo, one of his most determined opponents.

Zayʿa was born in Khosrowa (Syriac: ܟܘܣܪܒܐܕ‎), a village near Salmas in the Urmia region of Persia. In his youth he studied for several years at the College of the Propaganda in Rome. According to the missionary Sheil, who met him in Dilman in 1836, Zayʿa studied at the Propaganda for fifteen years and was an outstanding scholar.

He was ordained a priest c.1830, and was consecrated coadjutor bishop of Salmas in 1836 by the Chaldean patriarch Yohannan Hormizd.

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