Elias I of Antioch

Elias I of Antioch (Syriac:Mor Elijah) was the Patriarch of Antioch, and head of the Syriac Orthodox Church from 709 until his death in 723.^[1]

Biography

Elias was born in 641 into a Greek Orthodox family, but later converted to miaphysitism, the doctrine of the Syriac Orthodox Church, after reading the works of Severus of Antioch. He became a monk at the Monastery of Gubba Barraya, near Edessa, and was ordained as Bishop of Apamea in 691.^[2] Elias was consecrated as patriarch in 709 following the death of Julian III, and presented himself to Caliph Al-Walid I in the same year.^[3] The patriarch financed and consecrated a new church in the city of Antioch in 721,^[4] and another church in Sarmada in 722. Elias led the Syriac Orthodox Church as patriarch prior to his death in 723.^[2]

References

Bibliography

• Arnold, Thomas Walker (2006). The Preaching of Islam: A History of the Propagation of the Muslim Faith. Kessinger Publishing. 
• Barsoum, Ignatius Aphrem I (2003). Matti Moosa, ed. The Scattered Pearls: The History of Syriac Literature and Sciences
• Ginkel, Jan J.; Murre-van den Berg, Hendrika Lena; van Lint, Theo Maarten (2005). Redefining Christian Identity: Cultural Interaction in the Middle East Since the Rise of Islam. Peeters Publishers. 

• Johnson, Dale Albert (2016). Return to Antioch. 

External links

• Michael the Syrian, Chronicle, Second volume in French