Bartolomeo da Bologna, Blessed

BARTOLOMEO da BOLOGNA, blessed. - A Dominican, probably Italian, commonly but incorrectly called B. da Bologna, whereas the oldest documents call him B. de Podio (of or from Poggio?). A missionary in the East, he was appointed suffragan of the archbishop of Sultanich in Persia (1 May 1318), without being assigned any diocese. He settled at the Dominican mission of Maragah in Azerbaijan. In 1328 he converted the vartapet (doctor) Giovanni, superior of an Armenian monastery at Qénay (Cherna) near Nachicevan, and with him founded the Armenian-Dominican congregation of the Unitor friars and the Armenian-Catholic community of Nachicevan. He died, according to tradition, on 15 Aug. 1333 and, buried at Qénay, was the object of public cult attested by documents ranging from 1404 to about 1750. There survives a collection of his sermons translated from Persian into Armenian. Some called him B. parvo or B. the little through an unwarranted identification with a Dominican theologian named Bartolomeo Parvo, while others confused him with Bartolomec Abagliati, a Sienese Dominican missionary and bishop of Tabriz.