[1] He assumed the position of patriarch of the Church of the East in 570, succeeding his deposed predecessor Joseph who had recently passed away, and remained in office for eleven years.
Rather than causing disruption by replacing officials appointed by Joseph, he confirmed all priests and deacons ordained during his predecessor's tenure.
The Persian authorities struggled to cope with the high mortality rate, resulting in bodies remaining unburied in the streets.
In Seleucia-Ctesiphon, as recounted by the eighth-century historian Bar Sahde of Kirkuk, the ousted patriarch Joseph had led a group of gravediggers to clear the corpses, demonstrating courage and selflessness that even his critics begrudgingly acknowledged.
During Ezekiel's reign, the metropolitans of Adiabene and Beth Garmai endeavored to uplift the spirits of their congregations amidst the ongoing devastation of the plague.
[4] Khosrau's interest in the condition of the local pearl fisheries was doubtless an indication of their economic importance in the sixth century.
[6] The following detailed account of Ezekiel's reign is given in the Chronicle of Seert, probably written in the second half of the ninth century: This father was a disciple of the catholicus Mar Aba and the bishop of al-Zawabi.
Their preference was for Ezekiel, the disciple of Mar Aba and bishop of al-Zawabi, whom they had chosen when they had assembled to depose Joseph from his priestly dignity, and who was also loved and esteemed by the king Khusro Anushirwan, who had earlier sent him to Bahrain and Yamama to bring back pearls.
In the forty-fifth year of the king Khusro he convoked the fathers and established thirty-six canons relating to ecclesiastical discipline.
At that time many teachers flourished in Nisibis, including Ishoʿyahb, Abraham the son of Haddad, and Hnana, who had eight hundred disciples.
Anushirwan died after ravaging Raqqa and many regions and Caesarea, in revenge for the devastation that the Romans had wrought in many provinces in his own dominions while he was distracted in repelling his enemies.