Shila of Seleucia-Ctesiphon

Shila was Patriarch of the Church of the East from 503 to 523. He is included in the traditional list of patriarchs of the Church of the East.

Sources

Brief accounts of Shila's reign are given in the Ecclesiastical Chronicle of the Jacobite writer Bar Hebraeus (floruit 1280) and in the ecclesiastical histories of the Nestorian writers Mari (twelfth-century), [ʿ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 1) (help)Amr (fourteenth-century) and Sliba (fourteenth-century). His life is also covered in the Chronicle of Seert.

Modern assessments of his patriarchate can be found in Wigram's Introduction to the History of the Assyrian Church and David Wilmshurst's The Martyred Church.

Shila's patriarchate

The following account of Shila's reign is given by Bar Hebraeus:

Babai died after five years in office, and his successor was Shila, whose name is derived from the Hebrew word 'question'. This man had both a wife and sons and daughters, and he was a proud man besides, who loved luxuries and money and was under the thumb of his wife. He gave his daughter in marriage to a certain doctor named Elisha[ʿ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 1) (help), and ordered that his son-in-law Elisha[ʿ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 1) (help) should be appointed catholicus after him; but the priest Mari opposed him. Shila died after a while in office.

See also

• List of patriarchs of the Church of the East

References

• Abbeloos, J. B., and Lamy, T. J., Bar Hebraeus, Chronicon Ecclesiasticum (3 vols, Paris, 1877)
• Assemani, J. A., De Catholicis seu Patriarchis Chaldaeorum et Nestorianorum (Rome, 1775)
• Brooks, E. W., Eliae Metropolitae Nisibeni Opus Chronologicum (Rome, 1910)
• Gismondi, H., Maris, Amri, et Salibae: De Patriarchis Nestorianorum Commentaria I: Amri et Salibae Textus (Rome, 1896)
• Gismondi, H., Maris, Amri, et Salibae: De Patriarchis Nestorianorum Commentaria II: Maris textus arabicus et versio Latina (Rome, 1899)
• Meyendorff, John (1989). Imperial unity and Christian divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. The Church in history. Vol. 2. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 9780881410563.
• Wigram, William Ainger (1910). An Introduction to the History of the Assyrian Church or The Church of the Sassanid Persian Empire 100-640 A.D. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. ISBN 9780837080789.
• Wilmshurst, David, The Martyred Church: A History of the Church of the East (London, 2011).