Hadath (West Syriac diocese)
# Hadath (West Syriac diocese)

Hadath (or Hadeth, Syriac: ܚܕܬ) was a diocese of the Syriac Orthodox Church in the Malatya region of what is now Turkey, attested between the eighth and eleventh centuries. It was based in the town of Hadath.

## Location

Hadath was a small town near Melitene (modern Malatya), now in ruins, close to the village of Saray Koy in the vilayet of Gaziantep, in Turkey. According to the Chronicle of Michael the Syrian, the town was founded in AG 1095 [AD 783/4], towards the end of the reign of the Abbasid caliph al-Mahdi (774–85), by ʿAli ibn Sulaiman, the son of the Arab governor of Mesopotamia. It was evidently given a Jacobite bishop very shortly after its foundation.

## Bishops of Hadath

The main source for the bishops of Hadath is the record of episcopal consecrations appended to Volume III of the Chronicle of Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Michael the Syrian (1166–99). In this Appendix Michael lists nearly all of the bishops consecrated by the Jacobite Patriarchs between the ninth and twelfth centuries. Twenty-eight Patriarchs sat during this period, and in most cases Michael was able to list the names of the bishops consecrated during their reigns, their monasteries of origin, and the place where they were consecrated. In these lists, Michael mentions fourteen Bishops of Hadath serving between the eighth and eleventh centuries.

| Name | From | Consecrated in the reign of | Place of consecration | Title |
| - | - | - | - | - |
| Eliya | not known | Quriaqos (793–817) | Monastery of the Column, Callinicus | Hadath |
| Giwargis | Monastery of Gubba Barraya, Edessa | Dionysius I of Tel Mahre (818–45) | not known | Hadath |
| Ignatius | Monastery of Mar Zakkai, Callinicus | Yohannan III (847–74) | not known | Hadath |
| Eliya | Monastery of Mar Severus | Ignatius II (878–83) | not known | Hadath |
| Cosmas | not known | Dionysius II (896–909) | not known | Hadath |
| Giwargis | Mountain of Edessa | Dionysius II (896–909) | not known | Hadath |
| Shemʿon | Monastery of Mar Yaʿqob of Kaishum | Basil (923–35) | not known | Hadath |
| Gregory | Monastery of Mar Yohannan | Basil (923–35) | not known | Hadath |
| Abraham | Monastery of Mar Zakkai, Callinicus | Yohannan V (936–53) | not known | Hadath |
| Dionysius | not known | Yohannan VI Sarigta (965–86) | not known | Hadath |
| Iwanis | Monastery of Mar Laʿzar of ʿArqa | Yohannan VII bar ʿAbdon (1004–30) | not known | Hadath and Raʿban |
| Basil | Monastery of Mar Ahron, Shigar | Dionysius IV (1032–42) | not known | Hadath |
| Iwanis | patriarchal cell | Yohannan bar ʿAbdon (1042–57) | not known | Hadath |
| Timothy | Monastery of Bar Gaghi, Melitene | Yohannan bar ʿAbdon (1042–57) | Hani, Tur ʿAbdin | Hadath |

Further details of some of these bishops are supplied in the narrative sections of the Chronicle of Michael the Syrian and in the Chronicon Ecclesiasticum of Bar Hebraeus:

* Iwanis (1004/1030) was taken to Constantinople in 1029 with the patriarch Yohannan VII bar ʿAbdon on the orders of the Byzantine emperor Romanus III Argyrus, and was imprisoned in an attempt to force him to make a Chalcedonian confession of faith. He died in prison.
