Elias Mellus

Mar Elias Mellus (Millos, Milûs) (born September 13, 1831 in Mardin ; † February 16, 1908 ibid) was a bishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church . Initially a monk in Alqosh Monastery , from June 5, 1864 Bishop of Aqra , he worked in Trichur in India from 1874 to 1882 . On behalf of the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Joseph VI. He looked in vain for Audo (1848–1878), as not supported by Rome, even fought against, to achieve the reunification of the Catholic Thomas Christians with their mother church, namely the " Patriarchate of Babylon " as the Catholic successor to the early church Catholic Seleukia-Ctesiphon .

The attempt resulted in a schism: some of the followers of Mellus left Catholicism and joined the autocephalous "Church of the East" in 1907/09 , which appointed the Assyrian Mar Abimalek Timothy to be metropolitan of India. This group gained supraregional importance when in 1968 their then Metropolitan, Mar Thomas Darmo , became the counter-patriarch of Mar Shimun XXIII. order.

After returning to Mesopotamia in 1882, Elias Mellus, after some hesitation, submitted to Roman will in 1889. In 1893 he received the Chaldean Catholic cathedra from Mardin , and he died as its bishop.

He wrote a "History of the Oriental Chaldean Church" (from the beginning to the middle of the 6th century) and edited spiritual texts by John of Mosul.

literature

• Eugène Tisserant: Eastern Christianity in India . Longmans, Green and Co., London 1957, 112-119.
• Georg Graf: History of Christian Arabic Literature . Vol. 4. Bibl. Apost. Vaticana, Città del Vaticano 1951, 112f.
• Joseph Habbi: Les Chaldéens et les Malabares au 19e siècle. In: Oriens Christianus 64 (1980) 82-107.

Web links

• Entry on Catholic Hierarchy

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Elias Millos (ed.): Directorium spirituale ex libris sapientialibus desumptum a presbytero doctore Ioanne monaco Chaldaeo compositum Anno Domini MCCXLV. Typis Sac. Congregationis de Propaganda fide, Romae 1868 (text in Syriac; online ).