MICHAEL THE GREAT. – Syriac Jacobite Patriarch from 1166 to 1199. Born in 1126, he entered as a young man the monastery of St. Barsawma near Melitene, of which he became abbot in 1156. Upon his election as patriarch, he devoted himself zealously to the reform of his Church and maintained good relations with the Catholic Church.
Already in 1167 he visited the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and that of Antioch. Negotiations for union with the Greek Church, initiated by the latter, were unsuccessful. He had some difficulties with the Armenian Church, but toward the end of his life, in 1198, he attended the royal coronation of Prince Leo II of Cilicia.
His principal work is the Chronicle, which treats of events up to 1195 and is one of the chief sources for the history of the Jacobite Church. He made a new redaction of the Pontifical of his Church and was also the author of an Anaphora, a collection of 29 canons, homilies, and letters.