AKĪGĀN, ANDREA

AKĪGĀN, ANDREA. — First patriarch of the Catholic Syrians, b. at Mardin in 1622, d. there in 1677. Having converted to Catholicism, he entered the Maronite College in Rome in 1646. Returning to Lebanon in 1649 and having been ordained a priest, he was sent to Aleppo. In 1656 he was consecrated bishop for the Syrians converted from Jacobitism, who through his efforts had greatly increased in number. The Jacobite patriarch Simone I, residing in Aleppo, suspended him; and although a firman from the Sultan restored possession of his church to him (1656), the Jacobites did not delay in waging war against him, so that in 1657 he was obliged to flee to Lebanon. He returned triumphantly the following year and installed himself in his church with extraordinary pomp (1659). He introduced Eucharistic Benediction, holy water, the rosary, Latin pontifical insignia, etc. In 1662 he was elected patriarch; on 3 August of the same year the sultan granted him the firman; and in 1677 Alexander VII sent him confirmation and the pallium. He died that same year, after having suffered and struggled so greatly as bishop and patriarch, because the firmans granted to him also gave him authority over the Jacobites.