eRR! STIAN SChristian notables at court and to have them request permission to
elect a new catholicos. When the synod composed of the clergy, the
people of Mada'in, and the courtiers was convened at the order of the
king, Parviz ordered Takhrid to present Sabhrisho' of Lashom to them
at the palace gate as his nominee. Sabhrisho' was ordained at the
church of Koke, taken back to the palace, and presented to the king.^45
In 605, when Gregory I was elected catholicos by the order of
Khusraw Parviz, the bishops were conveyed to court by the royal post
and Gregory was elevated at Hulwan because the royal court was
there at that time.^46 After the death of Gregory in 608 or 609, Khusraw
Parvlz refused to allow the election of another catholicos, although
the Nestorian delegation to the disputation in 612 took advantage of
the occasion to petition him to permit itY It was only after the death
of Khusraw Parviz in 628 that his son and successor Shiroe (Qubadh
Il) ordered the appointment of the bishop of Balad, Isho 'yahbh of
Gadala, as catholicos (Isho 'yahbh Il, 628--43 ).48
This state of affairs did not exist under Muslim rule until after the
accession of the 'Abbasi dynasty and the establishment of the capital
at Baghd.ad in the second half of the eighth century. In 775 Isaac, the
bishop of Kaskar, summoned the synod to elect a new patriarch and
went with the metropolitans and bishops to Baghdad. Isaac presided
over the assembly together with the caliphal liaison officer, Mul}.ziz
ibn Ibrahim. The caliph, al-Mahdi (775-85), nominated a monk of
Kaskar named George to the synod through Mul}.ziz; but when Isaac
accepted the nomination, the metropolitans and bishops revolted.
Claiming that royal nomination was an innovation, they elected the
bishop of Lashom, l:lenanisho', catholicos without Isaac's consent.^49
The involvement of aristocratic laymen in the election of the Nes-
torian clergy had been established formally in the late Sasanian period.
The synod that elected Mar Aba catholicos in 540 included "the leaders
and all the Christians engaged in the service of the king."50 At a lower
level, the fourth canon of the Synod of ]oseph, in 554, provided for
the election of a bishop by the other bishops of the province in an
45 Guidi, Chroniea Minora I, I, 17; Il, 16; Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," Il(2), 483-
90.
46 Chabot, Synodicon, pp. 207-8, 471-72; Elias of Nasibin, Opus Chron%gieum,
I, CSCO, Ser. Syri., 21:125; 23:60.
47 Chabot, Synodieon, pp. 568, 585.
48 Thomas of Margha, Governors, I, 63; Il, 115.
49 Chabot, Synodieon, pp. 246, 516-17.
50 Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," 11(1), 157.