Barba'shmin

Barbaʿshmin was a fourth-century bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, primate of the Church of the East, and martyr. He succeeded Shahdost as bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon in 343, during the great persecution of Shapur II, and was martyred three years later, in 346. Like several other early bishops of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, he is included in the traditional list of patriarchs of the Church of the East, which also considers him a saint. His feast day is January 14.

Sources

Brief accounts of Barbaʿshmin's episcopate are given in the Ecclesiastical Chronicle of the Jacobite writer Bar Hebraeus (floruit 1280) and in the ecclesiastical histories of the Nestorian writers Mari (twelfth-century), ʿAmr (fourteenth-century) and Sliba (fourteenth-century). His life is also covered in the Chronicle of Seert. In all these accounts he is anachronistically called 'catholicus', a term that was only applied to the primates of the Church of the East in the fifth century.

Barbaʿshmin's episcopate

The following account of Barbaʿshmin's episcopate and martyrdom is given by Mari: