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Shahdost

Assyrian bishop

Field	Value
honorific_prefix	Saint
name	Shahdost
death_date	c. 343
venerated_in	Catholic Church
Eastern Orthodox Church
Oriental Orthodox Church
Assyrian Church of the East
image	Sadoc (Sadoth), Bishop of Persia, and 128 martyrs with him (Menologion of Basil II).jpg
image_size	200px
caption	Shahdost depicted in the Menologion of Basil II
birth_place	Beth Garmai, or possibly Susa
death_place	Ctesiphon
attributes	Bishop

Eastern Orthodox Church Oriental Orthodox Church Assyrian Church of the East

Shahdost, also Sadoc, Sadoth () () was Bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon and primate of the Church of the East from 341 to 343. He was martyred during the great persecution of Shapur II. Like several other early bishops of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, he is included in the traditional list of patriarchs of the Church of the East. He is considered a saint in several Eastern Christian denominations.

Sources

Brief accounts of Shadost's episcopate and martyrdom 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), ar (fourteenth-century) and Sliba (fourteenth-century). A more substantial account of his patriarchate is also given in the Chronicle of Seert. In all these accounts he is anachronistically called 'catholicus' or 'patriarch', a term that was only applied to the primates of the Church of the East in the fifth century.

Shahdost's episcopate and martyrdom

The earliest, and most substantial account of Shadost's episcopate and martyrdom is given in the ninth-century Chronicle of Seert:

The name *Shahdost* is Persian and it means a lover and devotee of the king (

A shorter version, mostly dependent on the account in the Chronicle of Seert but with some interesting divergences, was given by the twelfth-century historian Mari:

Shahdost had a Persian name which means 'friend of the king'. He was a native of Beth Garmai (or, according to some, of Susa) and the archdeacon of the patriarch ar. After his death, when the church was deprived of its leader, he devoted his life to Christ, and was consecrated patriarch in secret. He was an honest man. They say that when his name emerged when the fathers drew lots, he did not attempt to refuse the office because he feared death, and was consecrated in the house of one of the believers. He appointed many metropolitans and bishops, who went out and encouraged the faithful to stand firm and resist the perfidy of Shapur. Two years later an edict was issued by Shapur, and Shahdost was arrested. He saw in a dream ar standing at the top of a ladder, who said to him, 'Shahdost, come up to me, just as I went up.' When he told the dream to the believers, they grieved for him. Three days after his dream he was arrested, along with 128 priests, deacons, monks and nuns. They were thrown into prison for five months, and subjected to tortures to make them embrace Magianism, but they stood firm. The *marzban* killed 120 of them, all men, but sent Shahdost and the nuns to Shapur in ar, who invited him to become a magus, and said that he would not allow the Christians to live unless he gave in. Shahdost replied, 'So long as there is water in the sea, there will be Christians.' The king became angry, and executed Shahdost and his companions in the month of April, after keeping them in prison for five months. Shahdost governed the church for two years and five months.

A third version, written up with a number of stylistic embellishments from the account in the Chronicle of Seert, was given by the thirteenth-century Jacobite historian Bar Hebraeus:

After ar, Shahdost. This is a Persian name, signifying 'the king's friend', which the Greeks render as Sadok. This Shahdost was the archdeacon of ar and his nephew by his sister, and hailed from Beth Garmai. Three months after his master's death he was secretly elected and consecrated at Seleucia. Two years later he saw in a dream fire continually ascending from the earth to heaven, and ar calling him and saying, 'My brother Shahdost, enter into the joy of your Lord.' The rumour of that vision reached the impious Shapur, and the catholicus was arrested along with 118 priests, believers and monks, and two brothers of Shahdost, and they were all killed for professing the Christian faith. Shahdost is said to have been first brought into Shapur's presence, who said to him, 'I killed ar, the head of the Christians, and with him a number of bishops, and have you therefore been made the head of the people that I detest?' And that holy man replied, 'God is the head of the Christians, and he places over them whomsoever he wishes. Just as the sea never runs short of water, Christianity will never perish from the earth.' Shapur, angered by his words, ordered him to be killed along with his companions.

Notes

References

Abbeloos, J. B., and Lamy, T. J., Bar Hebraeus, Chronicon Ecclesiasticum (3 vols, Paris, 1877)
Assemani, J. A., De Catholicis seu Patriarchis Chaldaeorum et Nestorianorum (Rome, 1775)
Brooks, E. W., Eliae Metropolitae Nisibeni Opus Chronologicum (Rome, 1910)
Gismondi, H., Maris, Amri, et Salibae: De Patriarchis Nestorianorum Commentaria I: Amri et Salibae Textus (Rome, 1896)
Gismondi, H., Maris, Amri, et Salibae: De Patriarchis Nestorianorum Commentaria II: Maris textus arabicus et versio Latina (Rome, 1899)

(329–341) Bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon (343–346)

References

"Hieromartyr Sadoc (Sadoth), Bishop of Persia, and 128 Martyrs with him".
[https://syriaca.org/person/2074 The Syriac Biographical Dictionary]
''Chronicle of Seert'', i. 99–101
Mari, 19 (Arabic), 16–17 (Latin)
Bar Hebraeus, ''Ecclesiastical Chronicle'' (ed. Abeloos and Lamy), ii. 38–40

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