DIONIGI di TELLMAHRÉ. – Monophysite patriarch and annalist, originally from Tellmahré, d. 22 August 845. He was first a monk in the monastery of Kennešrè and, after it was burned, in the monastery of St. Jacob of Kaisum. When the Jacobite patriarch Cyriac died, he was elected to succeed him on 1 August 818. He was a man of great energy and considerable ability in the government of the Jacobite Church.
Internally, he had to contend with the schism of Abraham and, after Abraham’s death, which occurred around 836, with his successor Simeon. Externally, he had to defend the rights of his Church against the Muslims. In 825 he went to Egypt to complain to the emir ʿAbdallāh ibn Ṭāhir about violence and the destruction of sacred buildings, and obtained authorization to rebuild them. In the spring of 829 he negotiated with the caliph al-Maʾmūn with good results and subsequently maintained cordial relations with his successor al-Muʿtaṣim. But toward the end of his life he was afflicted by new violent persecutions carried out by Muslim leaders against his Christians. D. linked his fame to the important historical compilation covering the period from the election of the emperor Maurice (512) to the death of the emperor Theophilus (842). This work, more a chronicle than a history, since it is devoid of any criticism, was of capital importance for knowledge of the affairs of the Syrian Churches; but unfortunately only a single chapter of the original survives (J. Assemani, Bibl. Orient., II, Rome 1721, pp. 72–77). However, Michael, known as the Syrian, made extensive use of D.’s work and also reproduced large passages from it in their entirety: the same was done by the author of the anonymous chronicle that continues Michael’s chronicle to 1234.