Blessed Flavianus Michael Malke

Flavianos Michael Malke (Syriac: ܦܠܒܝܐܢܘܣ ܡܝܟܐܝܠ ܡܠܟܝ, Flavyānus Mikhayil Malké), born Ya'Qūb Melkī; (1858 – 29 August 1915) was an Eastern Catholic prelate of the Brothers of Saint Ephrem of a Syriac background. He became the Syrian Catholic eparch of Gazarta (modern Cizre). Malke was killed in Gazarta during the Assyrian genocide after he refused to convert to Islam. On 8 August 2015, Pope Francis approved his beatification after he determined that Malke was killed in hatred of the faith. He was beatified on 29 August 2015, the centenary of his martyrdom. Malke was born in Kalat’ül Mara, a village to the east of Mardin, Turkey, in the Ottoman Empire. He belonged to a family from the Syriac Orthodox Church which hails from Kharput. In 1868, he joined the Saffron Monastery where he studied Aramaic, Arabic and Turkish beside theology. He was consecrated a deacon in 1878 and a secretary of the library and a teacher in the monastery's school. He leaned towards Eastern Catholicism and subsequently joined the Syriac Catholic Charafe Monastery school spending four years. He was ordained a priest in Aleppo on 13 May 1883 and was assigned to various villages in Tur Abdin. His church and house were sacked and burned in 1895 during the Hamidian massacres in Diyarbekir Vilayet, during which Father Flavianus' mother and many other members of his parish were murdered. Over the following years he served as a visiting priest in several sacked and burned villages in Tur Abdin, where he helped with rebuilding efforts. Due to his works, Malke was ordained Chorbishop in 1897 and vice bishop of Mardin and Gazarta. On 19 Januari 1913, he was consecrated a bishop together with the future Syriac Catholic Patriarch of Antioch Gabriel Tappuni in Beirut.