Salakh (East Syriac diocese)

The Diocese of Salakh was an East Syriac diocese of the Church of the East in the metropolitan province of Adiabene, attested in the eighth and ninth centuries.

The diocese of Salakh (ܣܠܟ), which covered the mountainous region to the east of Rawanduz, does not feature in the classical lists of the dioceses of Adiabene, but several eighth-century bishops of Salakh are mentioned in Thomas of Marga's Book of Governors (written c.840). The History of Mar Sabrisho[ʿ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 1) (help) of Beth Qoqa also mentions a ninth-century bishop of Salakh. It is not clear when the diocese came to an end.^[1]

A bishop named Yohannan was consecrated for Salakh by the metropolitan Yohannan of Adiabene during the reign of the patriarch Sliba-zkha (714–28), in consequence of the death of an unnamed bishop of Salakh. Yohannan seems to have been the predecessor of the bishop Isho[ʿ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 1) (help)zkha of Salakh.^[2]

The monk Isho[ʿ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 1) (help)zkha of the monastery of Beth ʿAbe, a native of Beth Aramaye, was consecrated for Salakh during the reign of the patriarch Sliba-zkha (714–28) and died during the reign of the patriarch Aba II (742–52).^[3]

The ascetic Maran[ʿ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 1) (help)ammeh, head of the East Syriac school in Kfar [ʿ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 1) (help)Uzail near Erbil, was consecrated bishop of Salakh by the metropolitan Ahha of Adiabene on the death of the bishop Isho[ʿ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 1) (help)zkha of Salakh, during the reign of the patriarch Aba II (742–52).^[4] Maran[ʿ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 1) (help)ammeh was appointed metropolitan of Adiabene during the reign of [[Yaqob II|Ya[ʿ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 1) (help)qob II]] (754–73), and during his metropolitanate he adjusted the boundaries of the dioceses of Salakh and Adarbaigan, transferring the district of Daibur from Salakh to Adarbaigan and the district of Inner Salakh from Adarbaigan to Salakh.^[5]

The monastery of Beth Qoqa, destroyed after the death of its superior Sabrisho[ʿ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 1) (help), was restored at an unknown date in the ninth century by the bishop Gabriel of Salakh, who had previously been a monk of the monastery.^[6]

• Fiey, J. M., Assyrie chrétienne (3 vols, Beirut, 1962)
• Fiey, Jean Maurice (1979) [1963]. Communautés syriaques en Iran et Irak des origines à 1552. London: Variorum Reprints.
• Fiey, Jean Maurice (1993). Pour un Oriens Christianus Novus: Répertoire des diocèses syriaques orientaux et occidentaux. Beirut: Orient-Institut.
• Wallis Budge, E. A., The Book of Governors: The Historia Monastica of Thomas, Bishop of Marga, AD 840 (London, 1893)
• Wilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318–1913. Louvain: Peeters Publishers.
• Wilmshurst, David (2011). The martyred Church: A History of the Church of the East. London: East & West Publishing Limited.