Mâr ’Ibrâhîm al-Hûrûsi, Bishop of Harrân, Apostle of Lebanon

Saint ’Ibrâhîm al-Hûrûsi
القدّيس إبراهيم الحوروسي

According to the Orthodox Church in America website, today is not only the day of the repose of Saint Cyril, but it is also the feast-day of two Arabic saints, Saint Marûn the Hermit and Saint ’Ibrâhîm the Bishop of Harrân in Mesopotamia. The Orthodox feast-day of Saint Valentine is actually the thirtieth of July.

Today I will focus on the life of Venerable ’Ibrâhîm [or Abraham, also called the Apostle of Lebanon]. His Life is related in the works of the Syrian religious historian and bishop, Blessed Theodoret of Kyrrhos. He was born in the Year of our Lord 350. Like Saint Marcian and indeed like Theodoret himself, ’Ibrâhîm was born in the Seleucid city of Kyrrhos, which is the modern-day archæological site of Nabî Hûrî نبي حوري on the Turkish-Syrian border, seventy miles northwest of Aleppo. Mâr ’Ibrâhîm embarked on a celibate, ascetic life in his youth, while he still lived in Kyrrhos. Theodoret describes the extremities to which the young ’Ibrâhîm subjected his body and spirit:

This man too was a fruit of the region of Cyrrhus, for it was born and reared there that he gathered the wealth of ascetic virtue. Those who were with him say that he tamed his body with such vigils, standing and fasting that for a long time he remained without movement, quite unable to walk.

After this, ’Ibrâhîm heard about a certain village in Lebanon which was then still a centre for worship of the pagan gods. There he went, taking with him several disciples. He disguised himself as a merchant and told his disciples to carry empty sacks and behave as though they were to buy nuts, which were the main export of this village. He rented a house in the village, and there with his disciples he began quietly to pray and to perform the Divine Liturgy. The town crier heard them at their prayers, and the young men, women and children of the village came out and started to wall up the house with earth, to bury and suffocate the servants of God alive within. However, the village elders came to know of it. Berating the young people for their inhospitality, the elders bade them unbury the house and allow ’Ibrâhîm and his disciples to depart – which the elders insisted they do.

But that very day, officials from Constantinople arrived to collect taxes from this Lebanese village. The taxes levied being insufficient, they hauled forth the delinquents and bound them, spat on them and beat them. Mâr ’Ibrâhîm, however, upon seeing this, repaid the evil that had been done to him with good. He went up to the tax collectors and asked them for a few days’ reprieve. The tax collectors agreed to do so only if ’Ibrâhîm was able to put up collateral worth 100 gold solidi within a few days.

The villagers, seeing ’Ibrâhîm do this, went to him and begged his forgiveness for their attempt to bury him alive – and he gave his forgiveness freely. Because the village had no headman, the villagers asked him to become their patron. ’Ibrâhîm then travelled to Homs, where apparently he had several well-to-do friends. These friends loaned ’Ibrâhîm the money and sent him back to the Lebanese village, where he used the gold as collateral on the village’s taxes.

The villagers, beneficiaries of the saint’s generosity whom they had lately thus mistreated, redoubled their entreaties to him that he stay on as their patron. He agreed to their request on the condition that they build a church in which to honour Christ properly. They did so at once, with a bit of haggling over the site on which to build it. Once it was completed, the Lebanese villagers felt the want of a priest, and with no one else suitable nearby, they applied to Mâr ’Ibrâhîm to serve as their priest. ’Ibrâhîm took holy orders as a priest and served that village in the new church they had built for three years, before one of his disciples was fit to take on the duties of a priest. Mâr ’Ibrâhîm abdicated the church to this disciple and went back to his monastic dwelling.

Mâr ’Ibrâhîm worked many wonders in this village and was deeply beloved of them. Blessed Theodoret neglects to mention the name of this village in his History, though it is thought to be ’Afqâ أفقا on Mount Lebanon – which in antiquity had indeed been a pagan cult centre for Adonis, the consort of the goddess Aphroditē. At length, however, Mâr ’Ibrâhîm was recalled to the Mesopotamian city of Carrhæ or Ellenópolis – now the village of Harrân حران on the Syrian-Turkish border. There, too, the people were hard of heart, given to the worship of idols, and were haughty and cruel in their treatment of one another; it was thought by the hierarchs in Antioch that they would benefit by Saint ’Ibrâhîm’s example. He was consecrated as a bishop and sent as an archpastor to Harrân.

As the Antiochian churchmen hoped, so it proved. Mâr ’Ibrâhîm gently tilled the ground, speaking words of mild encouragement and tender reproof to water the seeds of faith in the hearts of the people of Harrân. He first gave them milk for their spiritual food, and only furnished them with the meat of theology when they had grown enough to digest it. But his teaching was like a burning, raging fire to the hæresies and the worship of idols. Theodoret makes much of Mâr ’Ibrâhîm’s labours as a bishop, and likens him to a wise doctor and healer: changing his prescription and his surgery to suit each patient who came before him. And he also taught from the example of his own life, which illumined many and caused them in their own hearts to catch fire for the faith.

Blessed Theodoret marvels repeatedly at the fact that Mâr ’Ibrâhîm did all that was expected of him as a bishop and an archpastor in Harrân, but did not lighten for himself one iota the ascetic burdens he had practised as a simple monk. Indeed, for this reason, Theodoret lists Mâr ’Ibrâhîm not among the hierarchs of the Church, but instead among the venerable monks and ascetics. He does this not to belittle ’Ibrâhîm, but instead to celebrate his ascetic feats, and to place him where he believed Mâr ’Ibrâhîm would feel himself most strongly belonging. As bishop he wore a shirt woven from goat hair beneath his robes. He did not avail himself of fine meats or choice breads, instead dining on simple uncooked herbs and fruit, and at that only once per day after the Liturgy. He did not sleep on a bed, nor warm himself by means of a fire. At night he kept his discipline of chanting from the Psalter and doubled the length of his own prayers between, and he rested himself briefly in a chair.

But to his guests he practised the hospitality of his namesake Abraham the Patriarch, and his wife Sarah. He would offer to his guests, particularly if they were poor, a fine bed, freshly-baked rolls of bread, fine and fragrant wine, choice meats, fish and vegetables. He would also serve them all, and sit and converse with them so that they would never leave his table unsatisfied either in body or in spirit.

He applied himself as bishop to the mediation of conflict, and dealt with suits at law often. As we see from the example of the short bishopric of Mâr ’Ishâq, dealing with disputants at law was often a thankless task, particularly among the hard of heart. Wherever he was able, he affected a reconciliation between the two parties. He would only apply compulsion to those who would not listen to his gentle entreaties. As Theodoret states, he was a just judge – he did not leave a wronged party still aggrieved or slighted; and no wrongdoer who came before him was able to prevail against him through bribery or threats or verbal trickery.

Mâr ’Ibrâhîm, a Syrian of Kyrrhos who (as Theodoret informs us) did not speak Greek, was nonetheless sought out by Emperor Theodosios II, the grandson of Emperor Saint Theodosius I of Rome. The emperor, who was then only twenty-one years of age, went in awe of the Syrian holy man, and thought his goat-hair shirt a greater honour than his own purple robe. Blessed Theodoret makes mention that the ‘choir of empresses’ around Theodosios – including, presumably, Theodosios’s new bride Athēnaïs or Saint Eudokía, and his sister Saint Poulchería – ‘clasped his hands and knees’ and made supplication to him despite his lack of Greek learning.

Mâr ’Ibrâhîm reposed in the Lord during his stay in Emperor Theodosios’s court in 422. The young emperor was grief-stricken, as was his entire court, at the death of the beloved holy man. Emperor Theodosios wanted to have ’Ibrâhîm buried in one of the holy shrines in Constantinople so that he might venerate him, but being a fair-minded youngster he understood readily that the holy man himself would have wanted to be buried among his flock. Emperor Theodosios personally escorted the procession that bore Mâr ’Ibrâhîm’s relics back to Antioch, and from there to the shores of the River Euphrates in Mesopotamia. Venerable ’Ibrâhîm, right-believing monk, mighty ascetic athlete and loving archpastor, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Classical ruins of Carrhæ, Harrân, Turkey