‘Abdīšō‘ of Gazarta, the first Literate of the Chaldean Church: Poems dedicated to the Popes of Rome

Authors

  • Anton Pritula State Hermitage Museum, 34, Dvortsovaya nab., St. Petersburg, 190000, Russian Federation

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu13.2018.307

Abstract

The paper discusses Syriac verse texts from the Ottoman period which are connected with the history of the Chaldean (East Syriac Uniate) Church. They were composed by ‘Adbīšō‘ of Gazarta, the second patriarch of the new Church (1555–1570), an outstanding literate, whose legacy has been significantly neglected by researchers. The pieces discussed in the present paper typify their very early samples epitomizing the beginning of this literary tradition that was connected with the name of ‘Adbīšō‘ of Gazarta. They were devoted to the Popes of Rome, with whom the young Chaldean Church had intensive contacts and whose supremacy it was in the process of acknowledging. Until recently, scholars have lacked access to most of the numerous textual corpora of this Church; as a result, research on these manuscripts had been confined to their catalogue descriptions, printed in the early–20 th century. Although they have never been an object of detailed study so far, the short pieces discussed here, composed on various occasions, contain important evidence for both the history of Syriac literature and the history of the Christian Churches in this region. The names mentioned in the poems can be easily identified, which would serve to date the texts to certain periods of ‘Adbīšō‘’s Church career. The present paper is the first attempt of a detailed study and a critical edition of his poems dedicated to the Roman Catholic Popes.

Keywords:

Syriac poetry, Chaldean Church, Christian communities in the Ottoman Empire, odes to Popes, manuscript transmission

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Published

2018-09-20

How to Cite

Pritula, A. (2018). ‘Abdīšō‘ of Gazarta, the first Literate of the Chaldean Church: Poems dedicated to the Popes of Rome. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Asian and African Studies, 10(3), 374–391. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu13.2018.307

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 3 (2018)

Section

Literary studies

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Articles of "Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Asian and African Studies" are open access distributed under the terms of the License Agreement with Saint Petersburg State University, which permits to the authors unrestricted distribution and self-archiving free of charge.