MARUTHAS, Bishop of Martyropolis (Majferqat), Saint. - Born around the middle of the 4th century to the prefect of the province of Sophene, he was a distinguished physician and went several times to Persia as an envoy of the Byzantine court. Having healed the daughter of Shapur II, he obtained from him the end of the persecution against Christians and many relics of the martyrs, which he deposited at Majferqat, called for this reason also Martiropolis. In 403 M. took part in Constantinople in the Synod that condemned his friend St. John Chrysostom. In 410 he is again at Seleucia-Ctesiphon, where he takes part in the Synod; indeed, the election of Mar Ahaj as katholikos in 411 is attributed to M. Probably M. remained for some years longer in Persia, being as it were the official protector of that Church. He must have died before 420. His feast is on 4 December.

The few writings of M. have value only for the history of law and of the liturgy. Thus the Treatise on Heresies (ed. I. Rahmani, in Studia Syriaca, IV, Monte Libano 1909, pp. 76-81), the Spiegazione dei vocaboli (trans. by O. Braun, De sancta Nicaena Synodo, Münster 1898), which explains the meaning of certain technical liturgical-juridical terms. In the acts of the Synod of Seleucia-Ctesiphon (410; ed. J. B. Chabot, Synodicon orientale, Paris 1902, pp. 17-36, 253-75), there are attributed to M., it is not known on what basis, the pseudo-Nicene canons later called "Arabic," and perhaps introduced by M., and a series of 73 other disciplinary canons that he probably had promulgated in order to extend to Persia the discipline of the Antiochenes.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: E. Tisserant, s. v. in DThC, X, coll. 142-49; M. Ralph, The armenian life of M. of M., in Harvard theol. rev., 25 (1932), pp. 47-71; J. M. Vostè, M. de M. et le Liber ad baptizandos de Théodore de Mopsuette, in Orient. Christ. periodica, 12 (1946), pp. 201-205.

Ignazio Ortiz de Urbina

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Maruthas, Bishop of Martyropolis (Majferqat), Saint

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