Fars (East Syriac ecclesiastical province)

[citation needed][1] Several dioceses in Fars and northern Arabia (Syriac: Beth Qatraye, ܒܝܬ ܩܛܪܝܐ) existed by the beginning of the fifth century, but they were not grouped into a metropolitan province in 410.

On the Arabian shore of the Persian Gulf, dioceses are first mentioned for Dairin and Mashmahig (Bahrain) in 410 and for Beth Mazunaye (Oman) in 424.

After the Arab conquests, Fars and northern Arabia (Beth Qatraye) were marked out for a thoroughgoing process of Islamization, and Christianity declined more rapidly in these regions than in any other part of the former Sassanian empire.

The Mongols spared Fars for its timely submission in the 1220s, but by then, there seemed to have been few Christians left, although an East Syriac community (probably without bishops) survived at Hormuz.

Soqotra remained an isolated outpost of Christianity in the Arabian Sea, and its bishop attended the enthronement of the patriarch Yahballaha III in 1281.

Marco Polo visited the island in the 1280s and claimed it had an East Syriac archbishop, with a suffragan bishop on the nearby 'Island of Males'.

Thomas of Marga mentions that Yemen and Sana'a had a bishop named Peter during the reign of the patriarch Abraham II (837–50), who had earlier served in China.

[5] Three metropolitans of Fars appear to have been consecrated during the schism of Narsaï and Elishaʿ in the early years of the sixth century: Isaac, who died before 540; his successor Ishoʿbokht; and Acacius.

[6] The metropolitan Claudian 'of Mahoza Hdatta' ('the new town'), possibly the bishop of a recent deportation from Roman territory to Rev Ardashir, was among the signatories of the acts of the synod of Joseph in 554.

[7] The metropolitan Shemʿon of Fars was the recipient of a letter written by the patriarch Ishoʿyahb III (649–59) complaining about conversions to Islam by the Christians of Beth Mazonaye (Oman) during the Arab conquest.

He forbade him to wear white, eat meat or marry, but he exempted his suffragans from the patriarch's requirement to be confirmed ("perfected").

[17] The bishop Farbokht of Bishapur (Kazrun) was appointed patriarch of the Church of the East in 421 by the Persian king Bahram but was deposed after only a few months in office.

[32] The monk, Peter of the monastery of Beth ʿAbe, was bishop of Yemen and Sanaʿa during the reign of the patriarch Abraham II (837–50).