Aba I

Who is Aba I?

Aba I or Mar Abba the Great was the Patriarch of the Church of the East at Seleucia-Ctesiphon from 540 to 552. He introduced to the church the anaphoras of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius beside the more ancient liturgical rite of Addai and Mari. Though his tenure as catholicos saw Christians in the region threatened during the Persian-Roman wars and attempts by both Sassanid Persian and Byzantine rulers to interfere with the governance of the church, his reign is reckoned a period of consolidation, and a synod he held in 544 as instrumental in unifying and strengthening the church. He is thought to have written and translated a number of religious works.

Aba is a highly regarded and significantly venerated saint in the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church, which has a seminary in San Diego, California, USA, is named after him. His feast day is celebrated on both the seventh Friday after Epiphany and on February 28.

He is documented in the Ausgewählte Akten Persischer Märtyrer, and The Lesser Eastern Churches, two biographies of Eastern saints.