Saint Ahudemmeh

Ahudemmeh was the Grand Metropolitan of the East in the Syriac Orthodox Church from 559 until his execution in 575. He was known as the Apostle of the Arabs, and is commemorated as a saint by the Syriac Orthodox Church. Ahudemmeh was born at Balad, northwest of Mosul and then part of the Sasanian Empire, to a dyophysite family, but became a non-Chalcedonian miaphysite upon reaching maturity and later became a monk. It was previously asserted that he was the bishop of Nineveh of the same name that had attended the synod of the dyophysite Patriarch Joseph of Seleucia-Ctesiphon in 554, but this has since been refuted. At some point, according to the Ecclesiastical History of John of Ephesus, Ahudemmeh and a number of bishops and priests were engaged in a dispute with Joseph and eventually a formal disputation was arranged by Shahanshah Khosrow I, who was to act as arbiter. The dispute may have resulted either from theological or personal differences. Ahudemmeh led his faction in the debate and argued in favour of miaphysitism, for which Khosrow deemed him to be the victor and granted freedom of worship and permission to build churches. In 559 (AG 870), he was ordained as bishop of Beth Arbaye and Grand Metropolitan of the East by a fellow miaphysite, Jacob Baradaeus, bishop of Edessa. Catholicos Christopher I of Armenia is attested to have ordained Ahudemmeh as bishop of Beth Arbaye by Bar Hebraeus in his Ecclesiastical History, however, this has since been disregarded due to the argument of François Nau. It is suggested that he may have already established himself at Tikrit by this time. Ahudemmeh's ordination as Grand Metropolitan of the East thereby cemented the schism within the Church of the East and established a separate miaphysite ecclesiastical organisation, later known as the Syriac Orthodox Church of the East, in opposition to the dyophysites, who remained the majority amongst Christians in the Sasanian Empire.