MICHELE the GREAT. - Jacobite Syrian patriarch from 1166 to 1199. Born in 1126, he entered at a young age the monastery of S. Baršavmā near Melitene, of which he became abbot in 1156. Elected patriarch, he zealously devoted himself to the reform of his Church and maintained good relations with the Catholic Church.
As early as 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 Leone II of Glicia.
His principal work is the Chronicle, which deals with events down to 1195 and is one of the principal sources for the history of the Jacobite Church. He produced a new recension of the Pontifical of his Church and was, among other things, the author of an Anaphora, a collection of 29 canons, homilies, and letters.