Jacob Baradai

Jakob Baradai ( Aramaic ܝܥܩܘܒ ܒܘܪܕܥܝܐ; † July 30, 578 in the monastery on Mount Kasion ) was an organizer of the independent Syrian Orthodox Church .

Live and act

Jakob came from the area of Tella (in today's southeastern Turkey ) and became a monk in the Phesiltha monastery on the Izalla at an early age . In 527 Jacob went to Constantinople , where he lived as a strict ascetic . In 542 he was ordained bishop (nominally of Edessa ) for the emirate of the Ghassanids on the orders of the Eastern Roman Empress Theodora . However, in the following years Jacob did not only work in his diocese, but consecrated priests and bishops throughout the area of ​​the Patriarchate of Antioch and beyond, in order to strengthen the Syrian Orthodox Church, which saw itself persecuted by the Dyophysite Chalcedonians, and at the same time the To ensure pastoral care on site. Jakob, who was called "Baradai" ("the ragged one") because of his disguise, knew how to evade the access of the Eastern Roman authorities on his travels.

First Jakob traveled to the Syrian-Northern Iraqi region, then Asia Minor. In 557 Jacob, together with two other bishops, consecrated Sergios of Tella as Patriarch of Antioch , and in 564 his successor Paul of Antioch . At this time, tritheism emerged , which was to seriously endanger the Syrian Church. In any case, Jakob did not succeed in effectively containing the new "three gods doctrine". Paulus of Antioch , who was active in a prominent position, was dropped by Jacob during his stay in Alexandria in 575, which initially led to the formation of a group in the Syrian Church as "Paulites", while the ecclesiastical unity with the Egyptian Orthodox ( Copts ) remained uncertain . Jacob traveled a second time to Egypt in 578, where he died that same year.

Jacob Baradai was soon highly venerated, his bones were brought to Phesiltha Monastery in 622.

literature

• Wassilios Klein (Ed.): Syrian Church Fathers (= Urban Tb 587). Stuttgart 2004, pp. 191-203.
• David Bundy: Jacob Baradaeus. The state of research. A review of sources and a new approach. In: Le Muséon. 91, 1978, pp. 45-86.