The Nisibene thief

Siʿrt inserts, between #100 on Rabban Theodore and #101 on the Arabs, this note:

At this point the people of Nisibin revolted against Cyriacos their metropolitan. They accused him of the Malkiya. So they requested of Ishoʿyahb [II] to depose this man. But the metropolitan proved tractable and smoothed over the situation with the faithful, pledging to abandon that for which they had reproached him. But the origin of their animosity against him was for his excessive love for silver and for the world, and his taste for amassing riches.

I went for the Arabic "Malkiya"; this must refer to Queen Boran's embassy to the only male malka at the time, who was Heraclius. That embassy was controversial out in Old Susa, so - why not closer to home. Of course this same accusation would bleed over to Mar Paul of Arbela, to Mar Gabriel of Kirkuk and all the way up to the Catholicos himself.

After Queen Boran, Nisibis becomes the seat of anti-shah Hormizd. Hormizd lost out to Yazdegird; then, after AG 947 we may assume, to the Arabophone amirs. Note here Guidi's Khuzestan #38 - not my translation:

Quryaqos of Nisibis passed away, and out of their hatred towards him, the citizens of Nisibis accused his disciples before the Emir of the city. He sent and imprisoned them, and Quryaqos' cell was plundered, as was the metropolitan treasury of Nisibis. In Quryaqos' cell they found objects and all sorts of woven garments, silks and gold lampstands, such as are quite unsuitable for disciples of Christ.

Between AD 630 and 636(ish) the bishop Ishoʿyahb, based in Nineveh, had got himself involved in Nisibis. This involvement was a direct involvement. As previously noted none of his episcopal letters mention Mar Paul; to the extent they answer to anybody it's to Gabriel, or (gingerly) to their mutual pope.

Bishop Ishoʿyahb's Nisibene corpus runs 27, 41, 42, 45, 47 - which is a lot, for a city that's outside the entire Zab watershed. I haven't translated any of this; Scott-Moncrieff summarises them XXV, XXXIX, XL, XLIII, XLV. The local Christians, through "Moses the Priest", beg the foreign bishop for food aid. Ishoʿyahb cannot even believe his eyes, because Nisibis is supposed to be rich. Possibly alongside this, Ishoʿyahb contacts Cyriacos directly mainly about how Cyriacos shouldn't mess with the election of a bishop for Balad between them (where the Catholicos had been bishop!). The last two letters, one to Moses and one to Cyriacos, promise to send food.

After all this mess, pope Ishoʿyahb II assigned Barsauma, some academic from al-Hira, to be Nisibis' metropolitan. But Nisibis, er, never accepted him. It will not be until this Ishoʿyahb dies and Marammeh becomes Catholicos that they will accept a new metro' - Isaac. (Metropolitan Ishoʿyahb will write to Isaac #32 and again as Catholicos himself #1.) The scandal overall echoed down the ages; Sebastian Brock noticed in 1971 (10.1484/J.ABOL.4.02898) that Cyriacos and Barsauma (and Isaac) went absent from Fiey's diptych such that Cyriacos and Isaac had to be restored from Mingana syr. 564 copied from Vosté 150. I think even John bar Penkaye has this scandal in mind.