RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESSabhrIsh6' died at Nasibin while Khusraw Parviz was besieging
Dara in 604. When Khusraw Parviz returned to Mada'in after the fall
of Dara, the synod chpse Gregory of Kaskar, the metropolitan of
Nasibin, as his successor. The necessary royal permission was obtained
for his elevation and the royal command given for his ordination. The
physicians Abraham and Yiil).anna as-SandiirI of Nasibin, together
with other Christians in royal service, feared that once Gregory of
Kaskar became catholicos he would take revenge on them for what
had happened at Nasibin eight years earlier. They obtained the support
of Mar Aba, the physician and astrologer of Parviz, and of Shirin, the
queen, for Gregory of perath, a teacher in the Nestorian school at
Mada'in. This Gregory was presented to the synod by Shirin, backed
by Mar AM, as the man whom Parviz had authorized to be conse-
crated. He was duly ordained in April of 605 and presented to Parviz
by the physicians of Nasibin. When Gregory died four years later,
Parviz refused to allow the election of a new catholicos, and for nine-
teen years-from 609 until 628-the church was governed by Mar
Aba, who was archdeacon of the church in Mada'in.^77
At this point the conflict escalated briefly into one between Nes-
torians and Monophysites. With the success of Parviz's campaigns
against the Byzantines, especially after the fall of Edessa in 610, the
Sasanians experimented with a pro-Monophysite policy to attract the
people of the occupied Byzantine provinces, and Monophysites were
openly patronized at court by Gabriel of Sinjar and Shirin. Churches
and monasteries in and around the capital were turned over to the
Monophysites. Opposition to this came from the monks of the mon-
astery of Abraham of Kaskar at Nasibin led by Babai the Great and
George of Izla (Mihramgushnasp), an aristocratic Persian convert. At
the disputation held at the capital in 612, they refused to compromise
their creed and attacked the followers of I;Ienana of Adiabene. When
Gabriel of Sinjar, with the backing of ShirIn, tried to drive the Nes-
torians out of the monastery of St. Sergius outside the capital so the
Monophysites could commemorate the saint there, he was resisted
violently by George of Izla and by Sh6bhalmaran, the metropolitan
of Beth Garme. Gabriel, in revenge, took advantage of George's con-
Hofimann, Persischer Martyrer, p. 119; Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," 11(2), 498, 509-
14,515,525; Thomas of Margha, Governors, I, 51; 11, 89.
77 Chabot, Synodicon, p. 472; Guidi, Chronica Minora I, 1,22; H, 20; Scher, "Histoire
nestorienne," H(2), 498, 521-22, 525; Thomas of Margha, Governors, I, 50; n, 87-
88.