RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESsays that Khusraw was only outwardly friendly towards the Christians
for the sake of Maurice and that he was really their enemy. The death
of Maurice in 602 released Parvlz from his obligations, and with the
beginning of his Byzantine war his attitude towards the Christians
changed.^6 By the 620s, with the war beginning to go badly for him,
and especially after the invasion of Heraklios in 626, Parvlz began to
persecute all.Christians, Nestorian and Monophysite. In his thirtieth
year (620), thirteen Christians were imprisoned in Adiabene for five
years and then, in 625, crucified at the bridge marking the border
between Beth Garme and Beth Lashpar. At about the same time Na-
thaniel, bishop of Shahrazur, was crucified for writing a polemic against
the Magians. After the deposition and death of Parviz, according to
the earliest source, the reign of Shiroe was favorable for Christians
again.?
Two important consequences of such toleration set precedents for
Christians as the members of a subject religion. One was that the
church in the Sasanian empire became an agent of the state to secure
the loyalty of its Christian subjects. Its extent came to be defined by
the borders of the Sasanian empire. The synod held at Ctesiphon in
410 had regarded the Christians of the Sasanian empire as part of "all
the Church of Christ which is in the four parts" of the world and
recognized the "bishop, catholicos, archbishop, metropolitan of Se-
leucia and Ctesiphon" as the head of the church of Koke (Seleucia,
Veh-Artakhshatr) until the coming of Christ.s The title of catholicos
introduced in 410 seems to have had connotations of subordination,
either as the deputy of Christ or of the western patriarchs. The head
of the Eastern church was first called patriarch at the Synod of Dadh-
isho' in 424 in the context of his independence from the western
patriarchs in matters of litigation against him.^9 By the mid-sixth cen-
tury the scope of the catholicos had been defined as the "supreme
priesthood ... of the Persian empire, of the east, (and) of the holy
Church of the royal cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon."lo The synod
6 Guidi, Chronica Minora I, I, 21; 11, 19; Nau, "Agoudemmeh," p. 54; Scher, "His-
toire nestorienne," 11(2), 498-99.
7 Chabot, "Chastete," pp. 37, 39-40, 256, 258; Guidi, Chronica Minora I, I, 29; 11,
25; Hoffmann, Persischer Miirtyrer, pp. 119, 121; Stratos, Byantium, p. 166.
8 Chabot, Synodicon, pp. 26, 27, 30, 266, 269.
9 Ibid., pp. 51, 296. Concerning this title, see J. M. Fiey, "Les etapes de la prise de
conscience de son identite patriarcale par l'eglise syrienne orientale," L'Orient Syrien
12 (1967), 14-16,20-21.
10 Chabot, Synodicon, pp. 96, 354. According to Prokopios (Wars, Il.xxv. 4) a priest
in Persarmenia was called "catholicos" because he presided alone over the entire region.