Mâr Mârûthâ al-Mayyâfâraqîni, Bishop of Martyropolis

Saint Mârûthâ of Martyropolis
القديس ماروثا الميافارقيني

The sixteenth of February in the Orthodox Church is the feast day of Mâr Mârûthâ, one of the blessed peacemaking saints. Mârûthâ was a friend to Saint John Chrysostom, an ambassador between Sasanian Persia and the Eastern Roman Empire, the founder of Martyropolis (modern-day Silvan in Turkey) and the preserver of the relics of many saints and martyrs of Iran.

Mâr Mârûthâ [Gk. Μαρουθάς, Ar. Mârûthâ ماروثا] was a Syrian monk of Mesopotamia who lived much of his early life in the Persian Empire under the harsh reign of Šâpur II. He was well-educated, knew Greek and was highly versed in the Scriptures, as we can see from the varied Syriac-language corpus of religious and scholarly writings that he left behind. It’s clear that he was also as comfortable in Eastern Roman church circles as he was in Persian ones. He was present in Constantinople for the Second Œcumenical Council in 381 called by Emperor Saint Theodosius, and at the local Council of Antioch convoked by Patriarch Saint Flavian in 383 which condemned Messalianism.

But it is as a peacemaker and as a diplomat that Mâr Mârûthâ earns his sanctity. His shrewd understanding of Sasanian politics led him to the understanding that the persecution of Christians in the Persian Empire was not a foregone conclusion; and that Roman policies with regard to the Persian Church had a significant impact on how they were treated. Thus, in the year 404, as bishop of Martyropolis, Mârûthâ visited the Emperor Arcadius in Constantinople with the purpose of getting Rome to take the persecution of the Assyrian Christians in Iran seriously, and change his policies regarding them accordingly. Unfortunately for him, he arrived at an inopportune moment. Constantinople was embroiled in the question of Saint John Chrysostom and his impending exile, for having offended the empress Eudoxia in his homilies against the rich, and having incurred the wrath of the violently-paranoid Pope Theophilos of Alexandria. Mâr Mârûthâ attempted, it seems, to intervene with Arcadius on Saint John’s behalf, but to little avail.

However, Mâr Mârûthâ’s peacemaking mission and his impassioned plea on behalf of his beloved Persian Church did not go unnoticed in Constantinople. Indeed, almost from the very moment that Saint Mârûthâ had been pronounced bishop in the town of Tigranokerta, the new bishop had begun acquiring the relics of every holy martyr that had suffered under the reign of Šâpur that he could lay hand on, and building for them exquisite shrines. So successful was he in preserving these relics that Tigranokerta was furnished with the rather manifest toponym of Martyropolis.

In 414 Emperor Theodosios II sent Mâr Mârûthâ on another errand of peace, to the court of Šâhanšâh Yazdegerd I in Ctesiphon. Mârûthâ was tasked there with brokering a truce between the Persian Empire and Rome, and also with improving conditions for the Christians of Persia. Suffice it to say that Mâr Mârûthâ made himself highly agreeable to the Persian Emperor. Yazdegerd was deeply impressed with Mârûthâ’s eminently holy life, with his cheerful goodwill and humour, and also with his profound learning. Mârûthâ’s medical knowledge and wondrous cures affected by his prayers to God also won him fame at the Persian court.

Mâr Mârûthâ may also have possessed something of John Chrysostom’s antipathy to hoarded wealth and prestige, wrung from the backs of the poor. Under his influence, Yazdegerd’s personality began to change. ‘The good and clement King Yazdegerd [every day] did well to the poor and wretched,’ as one Assyrian account has it. Yazdegerd also embarked on a policy of religious toleration. Just as Cyrus the Great allowed the Jews to return to the Holy Land and rebuild the Temple, so too did Yazdegerd release Assyrian and Persian Christians from prisons under a general clemency and allow them to rebuild their churches. However, Mârûthâ’s influence was opposed by the Persian nobility – likely as much on account of his antipathy to wealth as on account of his advocacy for Christians – and the Zoroastrian clergy. Though they conspired against him at court, Saint Mârûthâ was well-liked enough by the šâh that his position in Ctesiphon was secure.

On account of Mâr Mârûthâ, two local councils were held at Ctesiphon, in fact, convoked by Yazdegerd and led by Catholicos ’Ishâq of Ctesiphon. These councils were largely concerned with ecclesial organisation and discipline, and they gave the Persian Church – which had long laboured under official persecution – a degree of formal structure which they had not hitherto possessed. Mârûthâ was supposed to have recorded the canons of this council in Syriac. Saint Mârûthâ’s other surviving written works include the Acts of the Persian Martyrs, the History of the Council of Nicæa, a translation into Syriac of the 73 canons of the First Œcumenical Council, a series of commentaries on the Gospels and a Syriac Liturgy. The holy monk, bishop and peacemaker reposed sometime before the year 420, probably in Ctesiphon. Holy and venerable father Mârûthâ, wise archpastor and friend to the holy martyrs of Persia, pray unto Christ our God for us sinners!

Ruins of Martyropolis, Silvan, Turkey