Domitian of Melitene

[1] He was renowned as a diplomat and is regarded as a saint by the Chalcedonian churches for enforcing orthodoxy in the northeast of the empire.

[2] He unsuccessfully tried to convert the Persian king Khosrow II to Christianity when he helped restore him to his throne in 590–591.

[3][4] According to the Chronicle of 1234 and Michael the Syrian, Domitian was the son of Maurice's brother Peter.

John of Nikiu says the same in one passage, but elsewhere contradicts himself by making him Maurice's cousin, the son of his paternal uncle.

[3] According to John of Ephesus's Historia Ecclesiastica, Maurice arranged his election as bishop of Melitene about two years before he succeeded to the imperial throne, while he was still just magister militum per Orientem (578–582).

[1] In the testament that Maurice had drawn up in 596 or 597, which was only discovered in the reign of Heraclius, Domitian was named guardian of the emperor's children.

[3] Gregory the Great wrote back to Domitian praising him for having "preached the Christian faith" to the Persian king.

[3] It was probably during his sojourn with the Persian court in exile that Domitian met the Christian noblewoman Golinduch, either at Circesium or Hierapolis.

[3][10] He was the main source for Eustratius of Melitene's biography of the saintly woman, written after his death and before that of Maurice (27 November 602).

[1] According to Michael the Syrian, this was "provoked" by Domitian, "who was gnawed by jealousy on account of the conversions" to monophysitism in Melitene and its environs.

[3][4] The Chronicle of 1234 directly implicates Domitian: When he had arrived in Mesopotamia and had set the persecution in motion, he came to Edessa and began to exercise great pressure on the Orthodox [monophysites].

[15] Michael the Syrian, however, lays the blame on the commander: [Domitian] departed like a beast of prey for Mesopotamia.

[T]hat wicked man, he continued his persecutions for a long time, putting the Orthodox under pressure to receive communion from him even after they had eaten.

Many of the Orthodox stood their ground sturdily in this combat and did not consent to accept the evil heresy of the Dyophysites [Chalcedonians].

[1][2] He deposed Thomas of Harqel from the see of Mabbug and Paul from Constantia, forcing them into exile in the monastery of the Antonini in the Enaton.

[3][17] The effects of this persecution were reversed when Khosrow captured Edessa in 609: the Chalcedonian bishops were expelled and the monophysites returned.

[3][18] According to Theophanes the Confessor, Domitian died on 12 January 602 and was buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople.

[3] Other sources give his date of death as 10 January and that is the day of his celebration in the Chalcedonian churches, who regard him as a saint.