Antioch & Syriacondemned
Who he was
- Barsauma’s letters to Acacius (a fellow student with him at the School of Edessa are his only writings which survive.
- The following details are biographical only:
- A Nestorian; the bishop of Nisibis and metropolitan 435 (at the time of Catholicos Babaway 457-484).
- After the suppression of Nestorianism within the empire, he engaged successfully in its propagation in Eastern Asia, especially in Persia.
- Barsauma had the skill to secure for his church the powerful support of the Persian King Pherozes (Firuz) who ascended the throne in 462.
- He worked upon his enmity to the Roman power to obtain his patronage for a development of doctrine which had been formally condemned by the Roman emperor and his assembled bishops, representing to Pherozes that the king of Persia could never securely reckon on the allegiance of his subjects so long as they held the same religious faith as his enemies.
- Pherozes admitted the force of this argument, and Nestorianism became the only form of Christianity tolerated in Persia.
What he wrote
- Barsauma called for, and presided over, the synod at Beth Laphat in 484 which proclaimed, on his initiative, the deposition of Catholicos Babaway (an upholder of Orthodoxy) and anathematized all those who rejected the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia.
- In this synod, he also set down new rules which permitted the marriage of clergy and monks. Barsauma had set the example for this by marrying a nun named Mamoe.
- In 489, the Emperor Zeno together with Bishop Cyrus of Edessa broke up the theological seminary at Edessa on account of its Nestorianism.
- When they closed the School and exiled its teachers, Barsauma welcomed them to his city, thus founding the famous School of Nisibis. He gave it a rule and put Narsai, who from the start, gave this institution the primary role in the history of the Nestorian Church.
- Narsai presided over the School for 50 years; missionaries went out from it in great multitudes, and Nestorianism became the recognized form of Christianity in eastern Asia.