The Maphrian, originally known as the Grand Metropolitan of the East or the Catholicos, was the head of the Maphrianate of the East and was the second highest-ranking prelate within the Syriac Orthodox Church, after the Patriarch of Antioch.
[1] The maphrianate originated as a distinct miaphysite ecclesiastical institution in the Sasanian Empire after the ordination of Ahudemmeh as Grand Metropolitan of the East by Jacob Baradaeus in 559.
[3][4][5] Sources disagree on the first to use the title of maphrian as Michael the Syrian's Chronicle gives John IV Saliba,[6] who is believed to have adopted it in c. 1100,[1] whereas Bar Hebraeus' Ecclesiastical History names Marutha of Tikrit as the first.
[7] In 1975, Patriarch Ignatius Jacob III withdrew recognition of the maphrian Baselios Augen I, and appointed Baselios Paulose II in his stead.
Unless otherwise stated, all information is from the list provided in The Syriac World, as noted in the bibliography below.