Mor Ignatius Aphrem I

Title

Creator

Mor Ignatius Aphrem I

Date

1887-1957 AD

Description

Patr. and scholar. He was born to Stephan Barsoum and Susan Abdulnur, who both hailed from distinguished families of Mosul, and was named Ayyoub. He studied as a child at the Dominican School in Mosul and then taught there after he graduated. He also studied Arabic literature and rhetoric at the hands of a local Muslim imām. He joined Dayr al-Zaʿfarān where he was tonsured a monk in 1907 and named Afram after St. Ephrem the Syrian, and later was ordained a priest in 1908. He taught at the school of the monastery, and became director of its printing press in 1911. In 1913, he embarked on a scholarly trip in the Ṭur ʿAbdin region studying local mss. He was consecrated bp. of Syria in 1918 and resided in Ḥimṣ; later Lebanon was added to his diocese. In 1919 he represented his church at the Paris Peace Conference and embarked on a second scholarly trip across Europe where he spent 17 months visiting libraries that hold Syriac mss. In 1927, he embarked on a third scholarly trip visiting Europe and the US, where he consecrated three churches in Worcester, MA, Patterson, NJ, and Rhode Island. During his stay there, he visited the University of Chicago where he worked at the Oriental Institute. In 1932 he became a member of the Syrian Academy. In 1933, he was elected and consecrated patr. , and transferred the Patriarchate to Ḥimṣ. He established in 1939 the Seminary of Saint Ephrem. He authored numerous books, published Syriac texts, and translated Syriac texts into Arabic.

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