ABRAMO QIDONĀYA (or of BĒTH QIDONĀ). - Born in A.D. 296 into a well-to-do family, he consented to marriage under parental pressure. Once the wedding had been celebrated, he fled and went to live in a cell two miles from the city. The bishop of Edessa conferred holy orders upon him and sent him to convert the large, idolatrous, and quite uncouth village of Bēth Qidonā, from which he took his name. But after a year he returned to the hermitage. According to British codex add. 12,155, f. 177, A. died in 366; according to the Acts, at the age of 70, after 50 years in religion.
BIBL.: P. Bedjan, Acta mort. et sanct., VII, Paris 1896, p. 465 ff. (Syriac Acts); J. T. Lamy, Analecta Bolland., 10 (1891), pp. 5-49 (introduction and Syriac Acts); id., S. Ephraem Syrii byzosi et serm., III, Malines 1889, pp. XL-XLIII, and cols. 750-836 (introduction and the 15 years of St. Ephrem); IV, there 1902, cols. 1-12 (introduction) and 13-84 (Syriac Acts with Latin translation from the Syriac and variants); PL 73, 281-294 and 651-66 (Latin Acts); W. Budge, The Book of Paradise, London 1904, p. 1009. Pietro Sfair