Province of the Patriarch

The Province of the Patriarch was an ecclesiastical province of the Church of the East attested between the fifth and thirteenth centuries. As its name entails, it was the province of the church's Patriarch. The province consisted of a number of dioceses in the region of Beth Aramaye, between Basra and Kirkuk, which were placed under the patriarch's direct supervision at the synod of Yahballaha I in 420.

It was not normal for the head of an eastern church to administer an ecclesiastical province in addition to his many other duties, but circumstances made it necessary for the patriarch Yahballaha I to assume responsibility for a number of dioceses in Beth Aramaye. The dioceses of Kashkar, Zabe, Hirta, Beth Daraye and Dasqarta d’Malka (the Sassanian winter capital Dastagird), doubtless because of their antiquity or their proximity to the capital Seleucia-Ctesiphon, were reluctant to be placed under the jurisdiction of a metropolitan, and it was felt necessary to treat them tactfully. A special relationship between the diocese of Kashkar and the diocese of Seleucia-Ctesiphon was defined in Canon XXI of the synod of 410: 'The first and chief seat is that of Seleucia and Ctesiphon; the bishop who occupies it is the grand metropolitan and chief of all the bishops. The bishop of Kashkar is placed under the jurisdiction of this metropolitan; he is his right arm and minister, and he governs the diocese after his death.' Although their bishops were admonished in the acts of these synods, they persisted in their intransigence, and in 420 Yahballaha I placed them under his direct supervision.

This ad hoc arrangement was later formalised by the creation of a 'province of the patriarch'. Kashkar, by tradition an apostolic foundation, was the highest ranking diocese in the province, and its bishops enjoyed the privilege of guarding the patriarchal throne during the interregnum between one patriarch’s death and the election of his successor. The diocese of Dasqarta d’Malka is not mentioned again after 424, but bishops of the other dioceses were present at most of the fifth- and sixth-century synods. Three more dioceses in Beth Aramaye are mentioned in the acts of the later synods: Piroz Shabur (first mentioned in 486); Tirhan (first mentioned in 544); and Shenna d’Beth Ramman or Qardaliabad (first mentioned in 576). All three dioceses were to have a long history.

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