RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESpower to name the metropolitan of Mar Matta.^173 The organization
of the Jacobite Church in Iraq with twelve suffragan bishops under
the grand metropolitan at Takrit provides a convenient indication of
where Monophysites were to be found by that time. There were bish-
ops for Beth 'Arbhaye, Sinjar, Ma'alta, Arzon, Gomel, Beth Ramman
or Beth Waziq, Karme, Gozarta dhe Qardo, Beth Nuhadhra, Peroz-
Shabur (Anbar), Shahrzur, and for the Arabs of the Taghlib tribe (see
fig. 7). Both of Mariitha's monastic companions became bishops. Ai-
talaha was consecrated bishop of Gomel in Margha while AQa was
made bishop of Peroz-Shabur "and of the people of the Namiraye
Arabs."174
Under Mariitha, Takrit clearly became a Jacobite town and was
called "the mother of the churches of the East." Mariitha appointed
Jacobite bishops for the people whom Khusraw Parviz had deported
from Edessa and resettled in Sistan, Herat, and Azerbayjan. He built
the strategically located monastery of Mar Sergius near 'Aingaga on
the main route from Takrit to 'Aqola, its monks ensuring the spread
of Jacobite Christianity in that part of Iraq. He also built a convent
for women at Beth Ebhre dedicated to the Theotokos. Eventually, it
was Mariitha who surrendered the citadel of Takrit of 'Abdullah ibn
Mu'tamm in 637 to preserve the town from the suffering of war.17^5
When Mariitha died in 649, he was buried in the cathedral he had
built in the .citadel of Takrit and was succeeded by DenQa I (649-59/
60) as metropolitan. Although the title of maphrian was not used for
the head of the Jacobite Church in the East in the seventh century,
Mariitha had, in fact, created this position, and from his time on the
metropolitan resided at Takrit. Once established, the position and
organization associated with it lasted well beyond the end of the sev-
enth century.176
Apart from the arrangements made at T akrit, Monophysites were
as adversely affected as Nestorians by the immediate effects of the
Islamic conquest. Many monks and ascetics are said to have been
killed by the army of Sa'd along the Byzantine border, especially in
173 Baethgen, Fragmente, p. 11; Elias of Nasibin, Opus Chron%gieum, I, CSCO,
Ser. Syri 21:127; 23:61-62; Nau, "Aboudemmeh," pp. 54, 57, 58.
174 Nau, "Agoudemmeh," pp. 54, 57; Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," 11(2), 543.
175 Nau, "Agoudemmeh," pp. 54-55, 82, 85-87, 89-90, 92; Tabari, Ta'r'ikh, I, 2477.
176 Nau, "Aboudemmeh," pp. 55, 58-59, 61, 94-95. According to Fiey, in "Tagrit,"
L'Orient Syrien, 8 (1963),306-7, maphrian only began to be used for the metropolitan
of Takrit in the tenth century.