Yohannan VII bar Targhal was
Patriarch of the Church of the East
The Patriarch of the Church of the East (also known as Patriarch of the East, Patriarch of Babylon, the Catholicose of the East or the Grand Metropolitan of the East) is the patriarch, or leader and head bishop (sometimes referred to as Catholic ...
from 1049 to 1057. He lived through the final years of the
Buyid dynasty
The Buyid dynasty ( fa, آل بویه, Āl-e Būya), also spelled Buwayhid ( ar, البويهية, Al-Buwayhiyyah), was a Shia Iranian dynasty of Daylamite origin, which mainly ruled over Iraq and central and southern Iran from 934 to 1062. Coupl ...
, and was present in Baghdad when
Toghrul Beg
Abu Talib Muhammad Tughril ibn Mika'il ( fa, ابوطالب محمد تغریل بن میکائیل), better known as Tughril (; also spelled Toghril), was a Turkmen"The defeat in August 1071 of the Byzantine emperor Romanos Diogenes
by the Turk ...
, the first sultan of the
Seljuq dynasty
The Seljuk dynasty, or Seljukids ( ; fa, سلجوقیان ''Saljuqian'', alternatively spelled as Seljuqs or Saljuqs), also known as Seljuk Turks, Seljuk Turkomans "The defeat in August 1071 of the Byzantine emperor Romanos Diogenes
by the Turk ...
, entered the city in December 1055. His patriarchate was dominated by communal rioting in Baghdad between Shiite Moslems loyal to the Buyids and Sunni Moslems who supported the Seljuqs. During these riots the Greek Palace, the residence of the Nestorian patriarchs, was twice pillaged.
Sources
Brief accounts of Yohannan's patriarchate are given in the ''Ecclesiastical Chronicle'' of the Jacobite writer
Bar Hebraeus
Gregory Bar Hebraeus ( syc, ܓܪܝܓܘܪܝܘܣ ܒܪ ܥܒܪܝܐ, b. 1226 - d. 30 July 1286), known by his Syriac ancestral surname as Bar Ebraya or Bar Ebroyo, and also by a Latinized name Abulpharagius, was an Aramean Maphrian (regional primat ...
() and in the ecclesiastical histories of the Nestorian writers Mari (twelfth-century), and
(fourteenth-century).
Yohannan's patriarchate
The following account of Yohannan's patriarchate is given by Bar Hebraeus:
After Eliya I, the elderly Yohannan bar Targhal, bishop of Qasr, was consecrated catholicus of the Nestorians at Baghdad, on the third Sunday of the Annunciation, in the eighth month of the Arabs in the year 441 D 1049/50 Because the Greek Palace had been destroyed in the time of his predecessor and the patriarchal cell had also been pillaged, he set himself to build a new cell at his own expense and with the help of the faithful. But six years later troops from Khorasan entered Baghdad, and the eastern suburbs, including the Greek Palace and the patriarchal cell, were plundered. He therefore left Baghdad and went to live in the monastery of the Reeds, but later returned to Baghdad. He died in the year 449 of the Arabs D 1057/8[Bar Hebraeus, ''Ecclesiastical Chronicle'' (ed. Abeloos and Lamy), ii. 300]
See also
*
List of patriarchs of the Church of the East
Notes
References
* Abbeloos, J. B., and Lamy, T. J., ''Bar Hebraeus, Chronicon Ecclesiasticum'' (3 vols, Paris, 1877)
* Assemani, J. A., ''De Catholicis seu Patriarchis Chaldaeorum et Nestorianorum'' (Rome, 1775)
* Brooks, E. W., ''Eliae Metropolitae Nisibeni Opus Chronologicum'' (Rome, 1910)
* Gismondi, H., ''Maris, Amri, et Salibae: De Patriarchis Nestorianorum Commentaria I: Amri et Salibae Textus'' (Rome, 1896)
* Gismondi, H., ''Maris, Amri, et Salibae: De Patriarchis Nestorianorum Commentaria II: Maris textus arabicus et versio Latina'' (Rome, 1899)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yohannan 07
Patriarchs of the Church of the East
11th-century bishops of the Church of the East
Nestorians in the Abbasid Caliphate
1057 deaths