St Dionysius Barsleebi – Nov. 28 I Eloquent Doctor, Star of his Generation and a Philoponus

Dionysius Barsleebi (Dionysius Bar Salibi, baptised Jacob, was a 12^th century bishop of the Orthodox Syriac Church. He assumed the name ‘Dionysius’ when consecrated to the bishopric. He is a well-known, able and most voluminous, prolific writer and spokesman of the Syriac language of the 12th century. He was like Bar-Hebraeus, a native of Melitene (now Malatya, Turkey) on the Upper Euphrates. In 1154 he was ordained bishop of Mar‛ash by the patriarch Athanasius VIII; a year later the diocese of Mabbug was added to his charge.

In 1165, Bar Salibi took an active part in the election and installation of his intimate friend Michel the Syrian as Patriarch of Antioch. The new Patriarch made Mardin his diocese, instead of Amid (Diyarbakır) and requested Bar Salibi to take over the charge of Amid. He was then entrusted to the metropolitan see of Āmid in Mesopotamia by Michael I, in 1166 AD. This he ruled for five years. He restored the Church of the Holy Mother of God and he also founded a school for instruction of the young clergy under a deacon Abraham.

A 12^th century Orthodox historian Michel, describe him to his contemporaries as ‘the eloquent doctor, the star of his generation and a philoponus (lover of work) like Jacob of Edessa’. He was often referred to as venerable Dionysius of Amid. He was the first Orthodox Syrian writer to compose a commentary on the entire bible. His sources include a great variety of earlier writers, both Greek (in Syriac translation) and Syriac, and includes Nestorian writers. Much of the material on the Old Testament is arranged in two sections: factual or material, and spiritual. Probably the most important are his exhaustive commentaries on the text of the Old and New Testaments, in which he has skillfully interwoven and summarized the interpretations of previous writers, saints such as Ephrem, Chrysostom, Cyril, Moses Bar-Kepha and John of Dara. Commentary on the Eucharist by Dionysius Bar Salibi’s is an important and authentic source for the study of Syriac Anaphora of James and Ordo Communis of Eucharistic Liturgy. Bar Salibi has also revised the Syrian Orthodox Baptismal Liturgy. His works also included poems, prayers, homilies, liturgies, a commentary on the six Centuries of Evagrius with the text translated into Syriac, a treatise against heresies, expositions of the Syrian Eucharistic service and doctrines.

His Theology works include, a compendium of Theology, a long treatise against heresies, the Jews, the Nestorians, the Diophysites and the Armenians, A treatise on the Nicene Creed, Expositions of the Eucharist, Baptism, Holy Myron, Canons on Confession and the Absolution, At least two Anaphora, Various prayers, Promeon and Sedro, Homilies on the Passion of Our Lord, on withholding the Sacrament those who abstain from communicating for a period of than forty days, Poems, on the fall of Edessa, the fall of Mar’ash, Commentaries on the works of Sts. Basil, Gregory of Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, Dionysius the Areopagite, Severus of Antioch

He passed away in 1171 in Amid and was entombed in the Church of Mother of God. Our Church commemorate his memory on November 28