**ADIABÈNE (Hadyab, indigenous name; Gr. Ἀδιζβήνη).** — Region situated on the left bank of the Tigris, with Arbela as its ecclesiastical capital, inhabited by a population of predominantly Aramaic origin; the literary language was Aramaic.
The first concrete information about Christianity in A. is found in the Acts of the martyrs killed during the persecution of Sapor II in the second half of the fourth century. It must be believed, however, that at the beginning of the third century there were already Christians in the ecclesiastical province of Arbela, since the Liber Legum Regionum (ed. in Patrologia Syriaca, II, 608) attests to their presence in Persia. Indeed, everything suggests that Christianity entered A. at an early date through the Jews. Their influence there was so great that Elena, sister and wife of Monobazo I, and her son Izate, embraced Judaism around the year 30 of the Christian era (Flavius Josephus, Antiquit. Iud., XX, 2-4). On the other hand, relations between Jerusalem and A. were then very close, as is proved by the fact that Izate sent his five sons there to
be educated, and that Queen Elena went there around the year 44 and had a mausoleum erected for herself.
Leaving aside the not very reliable information furnished by the Chronicle of Arbela, it appears that in the middle of the fourth century St. Giovanni, martyred in 344, was bishop of Arbela, and that he was succeeded by St. Abramo, who was himself martyred in 345. The considerable number of martyrs shows us that Christianity had by then become firmly rooted and had spread there.
Ignazio Ortiz de Urbina