MICHAEL THE GREAT. - Syriac Jacobite patriarch from 1166 to 1199. Born in 1126, he entered as a young man the monastery of St. Baršavmā near Melitene, of which he became abbot in 1156. Elected patriarch, he devoted himself zealously 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 the one of Antioch. Negotiations for union with the Greek Church, initiated by the latter, were unsuccessful. With the Armenian Church he had some difficulties, 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 deals with events up to 1195, and is one of the main sources for the history of the Jacobite Church. He produced a new recension of the Pontifical of his Church and was the author, among other things, of an Anaphora, of a collection of 29 canons, of homilies and of letters.

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: J. B. Chabot, Chronique de Michel le Syrien, patriarche jacobite d'Antioche (1166-1199), I, Paris 1899, pp. 1-xiii; A. Baumstark, Geschichte der syrischen Literatur, Bonn 1922, p. 298 ff.

Guglielmo de Vries

@incollection{ec8_michele_il_grande, author = {De, Vries Guglielmo}, title = {Michele Il Grande}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VIII}, pages = {957}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/michele-il-grande} }

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Michael the Great

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