ST. MATTAI’S DAY OBSERVED AT MOR MATTAI DAYRO, MOSUL, IRAQ
Syrian Orthodox Church
Mor Mattai Dayro, IRAQ: The Syrian orthodox Church in Iraq remembered the Church’s great hermit St. Mattai, the founder of the 4th century Mor Mattai dayro in Mosul, Iraq, which is one of the oldest surviving monasteries in the Christian world. His Eminence Mor Timotheos Mousa Al Shamani, the abbot of Mor Mattai Dayro celebrated the divine liturgy in the presence of hundreds of faithful who came from different parts and denominations. H.E. Mor Gregorios Saliba Shamoun, metropolitan of Mosul diocese, number of monks, priests, and deacons participated in the holy ceremonies. In his sermon the Metropolitan recalled the life of the great hermit St. Mattai and asked the faithful to follow his teachings without fail. He also made special wishes to all the monks on this St. Mattai’s day. In the previous day special performances by the Syriac scout and the Syriac music night were organized by the monastery.
St.Mattai, the hermit, was born near Amid (Diyarbaker) around the beginning of the 4th century. After the persecution of Julian the Apostate (c.361) he settled on a mountain near Nineveh, (near modern Mosul). He healed the sick. According to tradition, he converted the son of the king of Assyria, Behnam, and his daughter Sarah, to Christianity; consequently Sarah’s leprosy disappeared. It was he who established this famous monastery in Iraq which was named after him later on.
This Monastery in its long history has produced two Patriarchs of Antioch, seven Maphrians (Maphryono) and twenty four Metropolitans. The most well known Maphrian, Mor Gregorius Bar `Ebroyo (1264-86) lived mostly in Mor Mattai Monastery. The Maphrian St. Baselios Yeldho who died in Kothamanagalam, India also came from here.
The monastery established in the 4th century, came to be well known by the sixth and seventh centuries, when it was the most important Syrian Orthodox centre in north Iraq, with a resident bishop (whose title included Nineveh, ie.Mosul). By about 800 the monastery’s library had assembled an extremely fine collection of manuscripts. A number of manuscripts copied at Mor Mattai survive to this day; the most important among which is a gospel lectionary accompanied by a very extensive series of 50 illustrations of episodes from the life of Christ.
Around 1155, Mor Mattai Dayro becomes the seat of the Maphrians’ after the second aggression on Tikrit by the Arabs. (The Maphrianate of the East, founded in 629 by the Patriarch of Antioch & all the East, to take care of the Syrian Orthodox living in the dioceses situated in the ancient territory of the Persian Sassanid Empire, was centered around Tikrit/Tigris until then). The political disturbance of early Mongol rule, however, brought troubled times, and in 1269 the monastery was sacked by raiders – the first of several it was to suffer in the next centuries. But the Maphrianate remained there (or sometimes in Mosul and near by Monasteries) until it ceased to exist in 1860. Despite all setbacks the monastery has always maintained its importance and continues in existence to this day when, in recent years, much restoration work has been undertaken.
